As many of you who follow this site are aware, Lt. Col. Joel Kirk and his two minor children have been going through an unjust ordeal at the hands of the West Virginia Family Court presided over by Judge Lori B. Jackson.
In several articles published here, we have presented documentation of the abuse of those two children at the hands of their mother, Tina Taylor Kirk. We have also provided proof, through court documentation, that despite their mistreatment by a mentally unstable, alcoholic mother, that Jackson reversed a previous judge’s ruling giving custody to their father, and instead issued an order that effectively gave full custody to their abuser. Simultaneously, Jackson issued a gag order on the video documentation of the children’s abuse in order to keep it from public view.
It has been through the activism of AVfM’s Judicial Accountability Committee (JAC), that the audio portion of that evidence, as well as all relevant court documents, have been made available to the public through the avoiceformen.com website.
In what we believe is an effort to reverse that activism, and censor free speech, an injunction was filed today with the intent of enjoining both Lt. Col. Kirk and avoiceformen.com from publishing any more references to the Kirk children, and compelling avoiceformen.com to remove materials already present on the site.
The injunction was filed by Attorney Mary Snead, Guardian Ad Litem for the Kirk children in the divorce case.
At this point we can only speculate why Snead, who was the one who originally documented the ongoing abuse of the Kirk children by their mother, is now seeking to have that report gagged from public view.
Well, actually we can do a little more than speculate given the following actions by Judge Jackson.
In a stunning move, Jackson issued an order that Joel Kirk appear in her court this Thursday, October 4, 2012 at 9 A.M., effectively giving him two days to secure council to represent him there. We happen to know that Judge Jackson is aware that Lt. Col. Kirk’s lawyer lives more than a two-hour drive from her court, and that the possibility of getting him there on such short notice would be near impossible. She also knows that there are few to no attorneys in Kirk’s immediate area suitable to represent him in this matter.
In fact, she tips her hand and demonstrates this awareness in a handwritten note to Snead on the order, informing her that Kirk would be in court representing himself. She decided, before the hearing was even scheduled, that Kirk would stand before her without legal representation.
In other words, she is railroading Kirk into her court without representation so she can use the full authority of her position, unimpeded, to extract revenge against him for going public with his case.
Similarly, Jackson also wants to intimidate AVfM into cowering and surrendering our rights to free speech, as well as freedom of the press.
We have no intention of allowing that to happen.
One thing appears abundantly clear. From a personal standpoint I will tell you, readers, that I no more believe that Mary Snead was the actual source of filing this injunction than bricks float. It is evident, in the power play of local politics, that Mary Sneed has been cornered and is now protecting her standing in her own peer group. I fully believe she acted under the direction of Judge Jackson, selling out the children she once tried to protect as Guardian Ad Litem, in order to comply with Jackson’s wish to erase the public record of her malfeasance.
Dr. Tara Palmatier, who has done much research and writing on this story, had this to say:
Ms. Snead claims that publicizing this case is hurting the children. This is absurd. Snead (or Judge Jackson using Snead as her mouthpiece) is asserting that reporting the truth of the children’s abuse by their mother is harming them, while neglecting the fact that what is most harmful to the children is their continued abuse by their mother. The logic is completely backwards.
The Kirk children already know the truth about their mother. They are being forced by Judge Jackson to live with their abuser every other week and full-time when their father is deployed. The truth is not hurting the children. Having to live with their abuser after telling Ms. Snead, their therapist and other evaluators the truth about being abused by her is what is hurting the children. Judge Jackson’s malfeasance, incompetence and abuse of power are also hurting the Kirk children.
The only people being hurt by reporting the truth about this case are Judge Lori B. Jackson, Tina Taylor Kirk and her attorneys, Thomas G. Smith and Jamison Cooper. It wouldn’t be the first time corrupt family court officials tried to silence the truth and protect themselves by dressing it up in “the best interests of the children.”
If Judge Jackson truly cared about the welfare of these kids, she would not have given any custody beyond supervised visitation to their abuser. It is also very telling that Judge Jackson completely disregarded Ms. Snead’s original incredibly damning report that full custody be awarded to the children’s father, yet has made the time to haul the Lt. Col. into her courtroom in less than 48 hours at Ms. Snead’s recommendation that the truth of Judge Jackson’s rulings be suppressed. Very telling indeed.
As we have from the beginning, AVfM and the JAC will stand behind Lt. Col Kirk and his children. We have not been served any legal notice in accordance with due process and are currently under no obligation to remove or amend any material on this website.
If we do face any legal actions designed to censor our Constitutional right to free speech, we will fight it vigorously. We do not believe that a family court in West Virginia has the injunctive authority to censor a website in Texas for publishing properly redacted court documents even if it attempts to do so under the disingenuous guise of protecting children. Nor do we believe that any laws that may give them that authority are Constitutional.
This is a very important fight. The purpose of AVfM and the JAC is expose corruption and bias in our family courts. If that corruption is allowed to be cloaked from the public view, under the false auspices of protecting children those courts are actually harming, the battle could be lost.
We will provide more information and court documents as they become available.
[box type=”alert” icon=”none”]To all websites and bloggers. AVfM extends blanket permission to reprint all articles on this site associated with the Kirk story and to download and distribute all the supportive documentation. No need to ask. Just proceed with our thanks, and the knowledge that the truth about our family courts cannot be hidden from the public any more.[/box]
Also, the AVfM petition call for an impeachment hearing regarding Judge Jackson’s conduct is nearing the 1,000 signature goal. There was never a more important time to sign if you have not already done so.
If you have signed, please post the petition to your facebook and other social networking pages, to your blogs and websites. There should be many thousands of signatures on this petition, and there will be if enough people of good conscience get involved.
