Meet Joe. He has a wife and two kids. Joe and his wife Mary have been going through a bad time in their marriage, and they have been arguing, sometimes loudly. He loves his wife, but he can't understand how things have gotten so messed up. He doesn't know what to do.

Mary is really sick of the hassles too, and her girlfriends have all told her that if she gets a restraining order against Joe under Chapter 209A ,she can throw him out of the house for a while, and get some breathing room, some space.

So, the next day, Mary goes down to the District Court, and talks to the maladjusted feminist victim-witness advocate there, who coerces her into getting a restraining order. She goes in front of the judge, (without Joe there) and tells him that she is afraid of Joe. In a New York minute, she is the proud owner of a new restraining order, requiring him to get out of his house, and giving her custody of their children.

The local cops serve the order on Joe, who is completely surprised. He can't believe she did this - his whole world was just shattered, without even getting to defend himself. The cops escorted him from his house, took his guns, and didn't even let him get his stuff. His crying kids' little fingers had to be pried off of his legs as the police roughly dragged him away.

"I'll keep the order on long enough to teach him a lesson", thought Mary, and then I'll drop it. However, it was not to be.

Neither Joe nor Mary expected what came next. The Police notified the Department of Social Services that a restraining order was issued. A week later, as Mary came back from court where she had dropped the order, a maladjusted feminist (male or female) social worker from DSS stormed into Mary's house, and demanded that she get the restraining order renewed, or they would take her children from her! Choose between your husband or your children, she told her.

Outraged, but afraid, she gave in, and got the order again. Now, she was in trouble, because she had no money. The maladjusted social worker told her to get public assistance, and MassHealth, and therapy for the children, since they were exposed to ‘abuse'. In therapy, the children were coerced into saying that their Daddy was abusive, and that he made them afraid.

The hook was now set. This isn't what she bargained for, or even wanted.

After a month of not seeing his children, he couldn't stand it any more, and decided to call them. This was illegal, since the 209A law does not allow any visitation order to be issued by the District Court, but he was hoping his wife would cut him some slack. Mary answered, and wouldn't you know - the maladjusted DSS social worker was there, and demanded that she file a criminal complaint for violation of the order. This definitely isn't what she wanted when she started this process.

Later that night, the police raided Joe's dank basement room where he was staying with friends, dragged him out of bed, and threw him in jail, with no clue as to why. No warrant, no explanation, just all scowls and cuffs that were too tight, a lot of banging and bruising, and a hard metal bench in a cell for a bed. Mary was appalled. They wouldn't let her post bail, because he was an abuser, and abusers don't get bail.

The next day, he was arraigned, still without a clue as to why this was all happening to him. How would he tell his boss? He is going to miss a lot more work, too. Will he keep his job? How can he afford a lawyer?

Need I go on? It just gets worse and worse. It will be a long time, if ever, that Joe and Mary's family returns to normal. Every person in that family has been harmed in some way by the restraining order law and its political parasites. The law did not prevent abuse - it allowed the law to abuse them. The children became permanently dependant on therapists, government, and the DSS. Their relationship with their parents was destroyed. Their marriage was wracked with distrust, bitterness, anger, and other emotions. Joe's heart and soul are damaged, maybe forever. The family is broken financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

Now, meet Dudley Doright. He has a wife named Lucretia MacEvil, who has a child by a previous marriage whom Dudley adopted, and who he treats like his own. Dudley and Lucretia have also been arguing a lot lately, just like Joe and Mary. And like Mary, Lucretia's girlfriends have been telling her to get a restraining order against Dudley. She also secretly consulted a divorce lawyer, who also told her to get one, because it will give her an advantage in getting custody.

However, unlike Mary, Lucretia has a really mean streak, and she thinks that getting a restraining order is a great idea - it will teach him a lesson, and show him who is boss.

So Lucretia smugly drives down to the court, and does not need any persuasion by the maladjusted feminist victim-witness advocate there to get a restraining order. She can play the victim just fine, almost on cue, without any prompting. She goes before the judge, whines about being afraid of Dudley, and gets her order, with the beaming victim advocate looking on with pride. Dudley is served with order, and escorted out of his house, just like Joe, and with the same bewilderment. "What did I do", he asks? "That will teach you", she says.

Now, she can get public assistance, food stamps, MassHealth, and lots of attention from the maladjusted people affirming her victimhood. She begins to believe their propaganda. This is the life - victimhood is a good career move.

Soon after settling into a dank basement room with his meager possessions at the house of some friends, Dudley begins to get calls from Lucretia, taunting and threatening him. He says nothing, out of fear of the order. Finally, he tells her to stop, or he'll do something about it.

Faster than a bureaucrat leaving the office on a Friday afternoon, the police are there, dragging Dudley into a cruiser, to the same cold metal cell in which Joe had spent some time before him. During his criminal trial for violating the order, his lawyer tells him to plead guilty, and take probation, or it will be worse for him. He takes his lawyer's advice, and now he has a record. BIG mistake.

Soon, he finds out from friends that Lucretia has moved in with a new boyfriend who is a lot smarter, richer, and better looking than Dudley. The restraining order law was a good way to get him out. What about his adopted son? Who will raise him?

Scared, tired, and lonely, he drives slowly by Lucretia's house, to see if he can catch a glimpse of her. Wouldn't you know, she is looking out the window, and locks onto his gaze. Here come the police again, and now Dudley is a two-time loser convicted abuser, and he will do some time.

Lucretia's order comes up for renewal, and, having mastered the art of victimhood, she tearfully mumbles something to the judge about being afraid, because Dudley has violated the order twice. The judge can't sign it fast enough, and gladly increases the distance Dudley must stay away to 500 yards. If he even gets in the same city block as Lucretia, it's back to the can for a long time.

In divorce proceedings a few months later, when Dudley tries to get joint custody of his adopted son, the judge looks at him and says, "Mister, you are an abuser. No way will you ever get custody of this child. You will pay child support, but you can only see him once a month for two hours, at a supervised visitation center, the cost of which you will bear."

The stories of Joe and Dudley are true -they are composites of many actual families whom I have represented, some with even worse situations. With a little help, people going through family trouble can often be restored. However, when you introduce the 209A law into the mix, along with the maladjusted social workers who accompany it, it is more often fatal than not.

The abuse restraining order law is one of the worst tyrannies ever foisted upon the people in this Commonwealth. It has destroyed more families, scarred more children, and caused more pain, than any law except the parallel child abuse statute. (Chapter 119, Section 51A) It rarely prevents abuse - it divides and destroys families who are going through a bad time. With a little help they could be restored; With a restraining order, they are often doomed.

The Most Unconstitutional Law

The restraining order law is one of the most unconstitutional acts ever passed by the Massachusetts legislature. Under it, a court can issue an order that boots you out of your house, never lets you see your children again, confiscates your guns, and takes your money, all without you even knowing that a hearing took place! Then, when you do finally get to talk to a judge, if your accuser merely whines about feeling afraid, the order will usually stay in place, and your life may be ruined.

No Epidemic of Domestic Violence

"There is not an epidemic of domestic violence", said courageous retired District Court judge Raphaelson recently. "There is an epidemic of hysteria about domestic violence." A large percentage of the restraining orders which are issued by courts do not come close to meeting the requirements in the law. Judges issue them, not because the complaining witness makes a legitimate case for abuse, but because they are afraid of the abuse ‘victim' industry or the feminist lobby, or they believe men are likely to be batterers.

There have been about 40,000 abuse restraining orders issued in the Commonwealth each year, for the last many years. Forty Thousand families disrupted. Forty thousand homes destroyed. Many more children affected.

If most, or even many of these orders were legitimate, maybe the abuse mongers would have a legitimate claim. However, MOST are given out wrongly, in my experience. And, where there is genuine abuse, an order doesn't do any good, anyway. Can you stop a fist or a bullet with a piece of paper?

We already have laws against abuse. Plenty of them. Abusers should be prosecuted. However, the 209A law adds an additional layer of burden on the law abiding, and turns them into criminals, when they usually are not. It also deprives defendants , as shown in the next section, of all the traditional protections given to defendants in other cases.

Restraining Order Law Throws out all Legal Protection

In a criminal trial, defendants have rights protected by the Massachusetts and Federal constitutions. Defendants are presumed innocent. They have a right to a trial by jury. They have the right to face their accusers and have evidence presented, and cross examine any witnesses. They may not be deprived of property or liberty without due process of law. The Commonwealth must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The law has to be clearly defined. They have a right to a lawyer, and to be provided one if they cannot afford one.

The abuse law throws out all of those protections, and turns our system of justice on its head. With mere allegations, no proof, and virtually no opportunity to respond, a defendant can be deprived of family, property, guns, money, children, job, future employment, and reputation, all in a matter of seconds, without having a clue what just happened.

A person who commits the most trivial "normal" crime has all his or her rights preserved and carefully guarded when before a court, even when the penalty, if found guilty, is only a few dollars. Never is the loss of that person's family, liberty, guns, home, job or children at issue, and yet the court is careful to explain and watch over every constitutional right of that defendant. Not so with restraining order hearings, where a defendant may lose all those things, with NO due process at all.

As bad as this is, it is only half of the story! A Violation of one of these orders is a criminal offense, and you don't have to even have known or intended to violate it. The ‘victim' could have even asked you to do it! All a ‘victim' has to do is allege a violation, and the defendant is arrested, and prosecuted, regardless of the merits of the case. The District Attorneys in the Commonwealth all have a "no-drop" policy on violations of restraining orders, to satisfy the clamoring abuse victim lobby.

Many of these prosecutions are pure political lynchings, rather than prosecutions of crimes. Because of the stupidity of this policy, it allows unscrupulous ‘victims' who know how to manipulate the system to get the state to prosecute you as a free method of harassment, which costs them nothing. No wonder it is done so much!

"Victims" (Meaning "Women") Get All the Help They Need

The deck is stacked against you in this process. The state now hires ‘victim-witness' advocates, mostly for women ‘victims'. Even though studies and statistics have proven that women abuse men more often than the reverse, the system still assumes that it is men who are the abusers. (Some of these "advocates" are far more troubled people than those they are supposedly helping.)

The best proof of that fact is that ALL programs for victims in the Commonwealth, such as shelters and battered victim programs, are for women. ALL batterers programs are for men. Right now, there are no exceptions to that rule. Even the official film produced by the Commonwealth to instruct people how to obtain a restraining order features three ‘victims' who are women, and no men.

You May Need Help

Given the odds against you, you may need some help, since the Pharisees who run the court system have loaded a heavy burden of complex procedure onto the backs of those who merely want a little simple justice. Even though this Website can give you much of what you need to sue successfully, you may still need a guide. Our office can provide such help.

We Can't Change the Law, but We Can Make it Cost to Abuse it.

We can't seem to change this wretched 209A law, even though many have tried. However, we can make it cost the person who misuses it. Right now, there is no cost, and no accountability. The state and its victim-witness advocates, district attorneys, and other apparachiks are all willing to do it for the ‘victim'. So why not use the system? It's free, it's fun, and it's a big club.

See the section of this website about "Fighting Back" for some practical help in doing so.