So who do I blame for what happened? Well, I certainly didn’t help myself by being naive, an over-active worrier, not knowing how to behave when being accused of something, seeming arrogant, letting my frustration get the best of me at times, and having little respect for a legal system I came to view as seriously flawed. There are certainly specific things I would do or handle differently with the knowledge I have now. However, I know everything I did was with good intent and in my children’s best interest. I suppose the thing I regret the most that had long-term consequences is not being more careful about what was on the scraps of paper I sent the kids for an origami project that was essentially the last stake in the heart of my former life. I will obviously discuss this in much greater depth later in the book.
If I were forced to blame a person besides myself, I would have to say I blame Judge Pam Ruest the most. She is the one that issued a seriously flawed protective order without even taking the time to read it. Then she sentenced me to 30 days in jail and six months of probation for doing things she acknowledged she should have allowed. She never seemed to believe anything I said. This was extremely frustrating because never in my life before this had I had people assume I was lying. And it seemed like the harder I tried to get her to believe me, the more she did not. A different judge ultimately replaced her because the district attorney was suing her. Thus, she had a conflict that would have worked to my advantage on cases presented by the district attorney’s office. I also got her removed from the civil (custody/support) cases.
One of Pam’s problems in handling custody matters is that she does not have kids. Some of the orders she issued just made no sense from a practical standpoint. For example, she thought it was a good compromise to allow my kids to move to Dundee, Michigan, and have Rita bring them back to State College, Pennsylvania, twice a month. I certainly did not ask for this and had no idea how she thought this arrangement could work. First, where was Rita going to stay for the weekend? Did Pam expect her to pay for a hotel every two weeks, especially when hotel rooms in State College are costly or simply not available on weekends when there is a Penn State home football game, during graduation, etc.? Did Pam expect my kids to be happy about spending 13 hours in a car every two weeks to visit their father? Ultimately, they would blame me for making them do this, and they would resent me for it. It made no sense on many levels, and the first thing Rita did when she had to obey the order was to ignore it and file a motion to have it changed. At this point, what was Pam going to do? Force Rita to move back to State College, where she had no place to live? Maybe Pam is smarter than I think, and this is what she expected to happen the entire time, and this final order she issued was just another way to punish me.
In 2013, she said, a total of 158 died, including 107 victims and 51 perpetrators who either killed themselves or were killed during apprehension. In 2014, that number dipped slightly, with 141 deaths — 97 victims and 44 perpetrators.
No deaths in either of those years took place in Centre County, she said, but that has changed.
“Our work won’t be finished until that number is zero,” she said.
One of the things that bothered me most about Pam Ruest is when she stood in the courthouse in October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, of 2015 during a rally against domestic abuse, and said, as reported by the Centre Daily Times, “Our work won’t be finished until that number [the number of people harmed in domestic violence incidents] is zero!” An excerpt from the article is contained in the sidebar. It doesn’t seem like she received any backlash from this, and why would she? It seems like a very noble statement. However, she is a judge, not a district attorney. Preventing domestic abuse is not her job, and I feel the Judicial Conduct Board should have taken some disciplinary action against her for this.
While I don’t know if she truly feels this way, I can certainly see why she said what she did. Remember, judges are elected officials and need to say politically correct things to ensure reelection. Judges are both lawyers and politicians in this country. HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver had a great segment on this that is now on YouTube. I would very much encourage you to watch it, as it’s hilarious, and I think it says a lot about our judicial system. Lawyers and politicians are two of the most hated groups of people, yet judges are probably one of the most respected.
Another person I think deserves some blame is Jonathon Grine, the judge that took over for Ruest. He seemed extremely arrogant and simply not very intelligent. More reasons for thinking this will become clear as I talk about how he handled things. He was later “counseled” (i.e., reprimanded) by the Judicial Conduct Board for having an “inappropriate” relationship with the district attorney, who I believe actually wrote some of the opinions he issued. The final judge on the case, Katie Oliver, seemed very reasonable and fair. I wish she’d been the judge from the start.