Parenting Rights under attack in Louisiana

Actually, SNOPES admits that this was briefly true, but it is now false. Based on the email was going around in 2015, the claim is now false.

HOWEVER. It was true at one point. But because of the outcry, the legislature modified their outrageous legislation.

The original law passed in 2011, by Act 195.

In 2012, by Act 292, the Legislature corrected the problem.

SNOPES cites this ‘more reasonable’ article from the Consumerist in 2011.

“In order to combat the rising threat of metal theft, Louisiana passed a law that prohibits anyone who trades used property more than once a month from conducting that transaction in cash. This should cut down on metal vultures stripping down the infrastructure to turn it into money for their drug habit. However, this also means you can’t really hold a garage sale more than once every 30 days without some burdensome restrictions.

The law excludes non-profits and pawn shops. But flea markets, trading posts, and even the mom who wants to have more than one garage sale a month are caught up in the crossfire too. The new law will now require them to keep detailed records of every transaction, only accept personal check, money order, or electronic transfer, and log their customers’ ID’s.”

Here is the SNOPES link: http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/cashillegal.asp

Yes, something is FUBAR in Louisiana.

Just last year, 2014, we had to deal with a law ‘establishing jurisdiction for the Family Court in the 22nd JDC’ - HB527 by Kevin Pearson
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?s=14RS&b=HB527&sbi=y

It seems that when the Legislature had created this ‘Family Court’ back in 2007, they had neglected to give them ANY jurisdiction.

That is correct, NONE.

Slowly, over time this fact dawned upon some smart lawyers, so they pointed it out to the courts.

In response, the 22nd JDC started to squirm.

First, they tried to enact a local rule to fix the problem.

The Louisiana courts smacked them down and told them that they could not do this.

Then in 2013, the Legislature established a Family Court in the 21st JDC. Only this time, aware of the problem, they made sure to grant this court jurisdiction !

Only problem was, they did not at the same time fix the problem with the 22st JDC. Sort of a ‘were good, so sorry that you are not’ approach.

Now the First Circuit court of appeals, in Allen v Allen, voided a case because the Family Court did not have jurisdiction. And one of the Appellate judges noted in his footnotes that on the broader issue, it appeared that the family court was without jurisdiction in any case’.

So that triggered a Supreme Court case and Pearsons HB527 of 2014.

Now Pearsons bill should have sailed through without problem, if the courts would have written it correctly.

Yes Virginia, the Family court judge affected by the law, admitted in the legislature that she was the person who had written the bill and fretted about it’s details. She should not have done so.

So rather than comply with the Louisiana Constitution - which requires that specialty courts have exactly the same jurisdiction in every parish - and simply copy the jurisdiction for the 21st family court...

She created a jurisdiction just for her court.

First she cited the laws that they had authority over by Book - same as the 21st.

Then she cited the laws that they had jurisdiciton over by Name - similar to the grandfathered in family court of Baton Rouge (predates the 1974 Constitution).

and then, she snuck not the middle of all that, two additional items of jurisdiction that no family court had, on the issue that was pending before the Louisiana Supreme Court.

and then they were trying to make the law RETROACTIVE TO THE DATE OF THE ORIGINAL LAW BACK IN 2007.

The outcome of all this.

By some miracle, we got the legislature to listen. The UnConstitutional retroactive portion was deleted. As was the redundant and excessive jurisdiction section with the two snakes in the grass extensions to cover her ass.

Meanwhile, the Louisiana Supreme Court waved it’s magic wand and ruled that the original law was okay, because ‘everybody knows what family courts do’ and granted the court the same jurisdiction as the EBR Family court.

After all, cause to admit the obvious and to rule that they did not have jurisdiction all those years would have caused legal chaos. ALL of the court orders, between 30,000 to 50,000, that had ever been done in those jurisdictions would have been nul and void.*

Professionals and ‘law professors’ that helped us rectify the proposed bad law... CLOSE TO ZERO !

* Yes, technically they are still nul and void. Just good luck to ever getting the court to agree to that.

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