- Utah's license plates and state slogan is "Utah,
a Pretty, Great State.
- Sometimes, just sometimes, I find myself sickened by where I live. "Every
rose has it's thorn" says history, and in Utah, this is absolutely true.
- A recent release of statistics in the US have shown that Utah is second in
the nation in incidents of rape. One in five women in Utah have been raped or
will be raped. This number does not include women under the age of 18 or
incestual rape victims. That alone makes me sick. It hits home in a slightly
different manner for me.
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- A young woman, age 16 has chosen to leave her mother's home and
live with her father. In Utah.
- Utah, the state that doesn't count rape victims under the age of 18. Why not?
In Utah, children, or humans under the age of 18 don't exist, don't have rights,
and have zero legal protection for their world unless it's so clear cut and cold
that Mommy or Daddy are the perpetrators of abuse, that nothing can be done, or
nothing will be done. Cattle actually have more rights, or rather ranchers
have more rights regarding their cattle than does a parent and child in the
state of Utah.
- A young woman, age 16, has stated that she is the victim of certain abuses,
major or minor not withstanding. She has also stated that she has exceptionally
positive reasons for wanting to live with her father. But Utah law requires that
she live with her mother during a long, drawn out custody process that at
minimum takes greater than 18 months. In slightly more than 18 months, she'll be
over 18, and custody by federal statutes, will no longer be an issue. She has
been sexually harassed, called any sort of names, is slapped on the face
consistently, views abuse of her brothers, and has been a witness to much
damage to the place she lives in another state. Utah does not allow minors
to testify in court except in extreme circumstances.
- At 16 in Utah, she can marry legally. She can drive, have babies, rent
an apartment, and make significant life choices. She can be charged as an adult
in a robbery, fraud, burglary, rape, murder crime. But she cannot choose
to leave an abusive home, or even demand audience with a judge about where she
wants to live. In the great State of Utah, children have fewer rights than
cattle. No lie. It's a felony to steal cattle. It's merely a misdemeanor to
steal a child from a parent if the person doing the 'taking' is one of the
significant parents or grandparents in the child's life. If the child is harmed,
the law takes a different view. But in this case, the system has pitted one
child against her mother, whom she loves deeply but chooses not to reside with,
and her father, who gave up custody of the daughter when she was still
breastfeeding 15 years in the past. Her choices, by law in Utah, require that
she either castigate publicly, her mother, or allege falsehoods in order to have
her choices of residency. In Utah, a child cannot even declare Emancipation
until they reach 17.5 years of age, months prior to the federal
independency status age. Hmm.....is it any wonder Utah leads the nation in teen
pregnancies per capita? Leads the nation in teen divorces/marriages? Leads the
entire world per capita in teen suicides? Could it possibly be that the mormon
legislators in Utah have a higher regard for their cattle than they do for the
life-value of a teenage person? Or are they even considered 'persons' in Utah?
Indeed, they are not.
- Utah law says that a child below 18 years of age effectively has no rights
or voice
unless they are in 'imminent danger' or are definable victims of sexual abuse by
a family member that cannot be removed from the immediate presence of the
sexually abused victim. Today, even though she expressed 'imminent danger'
and and a guardian ad litum and representative of the State of Utah Attorney
General's Office recommended that she be remanded to her father's custody, a
'senior judge' so senior (or senile) recommended otherwise.
(I should explain here that the regular Juvenile Court judge had a death in
the family, and thus was temporarily off bench duty for the day) This
judge was so old, and had been retired for so long, the Attorney General had
to continually quote new law. My favorite line was "Your Honor, the laws
have changed since you were in practice." His response? "I haven't changed
since I was in practice." Thus went the order. The judge, due to his
misunderstanding of laws, actually told the petitioners that he would be
ruling against them prior to the hearing even beginning, before all parties
were in the room. Interestingly enough, a 'senior' judge in Utah who
also was unaware of new laws, and also senile or febrile, take your pick,
recently ordered a victim to leave the courtroom with her rapist.
Fortunately, the attorney's were a little quicker and the judge not quite as
foolish as the judge in this particular case.
- When the judge ordered the daughter remanded
to the custody of her mother, which meant that the young woman would be in
near immediate jeopardy, the father expressed to the Court, "This Court has
just placed this young woman in immediate danger." The judge responded that
'he may have indeed done so, but that he had to follow the course of law,
whether it was the right thing to do or not.' Right thing to do or not. When
the young woman realized what he was ruling, apparently she tried to run
away, and was stopped by the bailiffs. That's how desperate she was.
- Following the hearing, the State of Utah, the
guardian ad litum, and DCFS worker tried to argue for the young woman's
well-being, tried to get the judge to issue a warrant for her safety prior
to her leaving the building. He admitted that he didn't know the laws well
enough to protect the young woman, and so was reluctant to do anything that
might infringe on the rights of her mother. Rather than protect the young
woman and sort it all out at a later time, he chose to return her to where
he admitted might be a less than 'safe' environment.
- Hmmmm.....Aren't laws designed to protect the
innocent, punish the guilty, and make whole that which has been compromised?
Isn't that the course of a Court? Lady Justice is blind indeed in Utah.
According to the Court bailiff, who was forced by judge's order to take the
young 16 year old into custody and hand her to her mother, "the only way
that judge would have seen imminent danger were if the step-father were
standing there with a gun to her head.' Yep, that's blind justice. Of
course, the judge was so blind, he couldn't even drive himself home! He
spent the first 2 minutes of the hearing seeking a pen that was in a stand
in front of his face. Blind justice. How fitting. A judge that couldn't see
to even read.
- Blind fits this 'pretty, great state' like a
glove. Blind to the highest per capita teen suicides. Blind to the highest
per capita child molestation/sex crimes, blind to young children screaming
for help, but because the law doesn't really pertain to children, they are
ignored. Blind to the second highest incident rate of rape. Oh yeah, Utah
has one of the lowest murder rates in the country. But they don't count the
deaths of those under 18 as murder in most instances.
- Yep, I'm ashamed to be a resident of Utah on
this day.
- And that 16 year old young woman who was
dragged screaming, crying from the courtroom today?
She was my daughter. Amanda, I love you. And we're still
fighting for you.