From SS: The Probate Secret Society



They/we have taken every avenue they can to shine a light on the national playbook of guardianship and how it destroys families, kills wards and drains estates of innocent American vulnerables.  As a result of those efforts, laws have been changed, books have been written, blistering exposés have been published repeatedly, there have been attempts to engage local state and federal government at every level, the ADA has been invoked, the FBI has been informed, the Justice Department at the highest levels has been tasked to make record of complaints and gather data.  Complaints about judges have been filed, bar complaints have been filed, regulatory agencies like the OPPG in Florida have been created and the list goes on and on.  But it is clear based on reports from the field that continue to come in on a daily basis that the guardianship industry is alive and well and is enormously enriching the court insiders who inhabit the probate court swamp.

Why after all this time has there not been a solution to this immoral, corrupt, criminal activity?  Why are we still having meetings to discuss the problem with this official or that official who might or might not have some influence on the system?  Why is this abuse still not regarded as a crime? Why have we not finally come to the disturbing but blatantly obvious answer to why guardianship abuse continues unabated in this country?

Guardianship abuse and everything it entails is the direct result of a broken judicial system that functions like a country club and only members of that country club can reap its benefits.  

An instructive video by court whistleblower Carolyn Douglas (who was for a time married to a judge) which can be found at shines a light on this very issue.

She explains that the judicial country club has become the modus operandi in equity courts, particularly in probate and Family Courts which give judges enormous latitude and the ability to ignore statutes and law with absolute impunity.

Below find her list of the country club rules which should be very familiar to anyone who has attempted to litigate or represent themselves in these equity courts.

 Country Club Rules.docx

To complicate matters further, oversight and monitoring of judges in these courts is laughable.  Here is an excerpt from the Florida judicial qualifications committee’s own website about how their hearing panels deal with evidence and complaints submitted against judges:

The Hearing Panel has wide latitude to admit or exclude evidence and is not bound by the technical rules of evidence.  It may admit evidence that is relevant and reliable as described in The Florida Bar v. Tobkin, 944 So. 2d 219 (Fla. 2006)

The long-term record of this statutory agency designed to discipline judges is laughable in that the number of judges removed from the bench over the last two decades can be counted on one hand.  This is simply a reflection of the attitude that judges must be viewed as perfect and infallible.  Even though they cannot be sued because of judicial immunity for almost anything, their self-monitoring organization composed of other judges and under the massive influence of the State BAR and Supreme Court still finds its necessary to erect shields around even their most poorly performing judges just so nothing pierces the veil of judicial authority and perfection.

The net result is that judges are gods in their courtroom.  They collaborate with their swamp creature insider fraternity for the singular purposes of profitably clearing their docket.  They complain that they are overworked and underpaid.  They claim that they are understaffed.  They know that pro se litigants do not belong to their country club, they gum up the efficient works of the court and make cases and hearings last longer than they need to.

They make it clear that bothersome pro se litigants are not welcome, that they will not be assisted by the court, and that because of their naïveté and lack of understanding of the rarefied and exclusive privileges the court possesses, that such litigants can easily be intimidated, fined, sanctioned and even arrested if they become too much of an irritation for a hubris filled judge.  Furthermore, working in concert with the attorneys who make their living in front of these judges, they can team up to embarrass, defame, browbeat anyone who stands in their way by shamelessly and ruthlessly creating lie after lie that the court not only allows but encourages.  That’s just standard operating procedure in that country club.

Victims of guardianship abuse typically direct their rage and anger at the Guardians and lawyers that make their lives a living hell while robbing them blind in the process– and that is quite understandable.  But a more sophisticated perspective demands that we have a deeper understanding of how this country club racket works.  None of this, nothing, nada, zilch, zero could possibly ever occur without the complicity of the one person who has the authority and responsibility for the entire state guardianship system– the untouchable equity probate court judge.

Judges like the ones who gave embattled Guardian Rebecca Fierle hundreds and hundreds of cases over the years– and there are at least 10 other judges who acted just as badly in Florida– are directly responsible for the catastrophes of countless guardianships across the state.  The blood of innocent wards who were slowly murdered by the actions of court appointed corrupt guardians and the lawyers who enabled them is on their hands.  Aided and abetted by hospitals and facilities whose only concern was bottom line dollars, seniors across the state who could not defend themselves were used as chattel in a game to see which swamp creatures and moneyed businesses could bilk the system the most without getting caught.

But it all goes back to the judges.  It’s the judges.  Judges are the problem.

These judges are generally elected by the public but as we all know they appear at the very end of every ballot and voters know absolutely nothing about them and either fill in a name that sounds good or not fill in any name at all which results in these judges being elected by just a handful of votes.  In the coming general election we have an opportunity to vote out the worst of these judges.  That is where I believe we should focus our energies.


Your comments are welcome

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