Legal Services Advocates

08/29/2021

Legal Services Advocates is back open and ready to help persons in need of legal help.

08/29/2021

Our firm is looking for legal minded people , looking to start an internship or just to volunteer for our firm. Anyone that qualifies is asked to apply.

07/09/2020

Are parents fit to raise children and do fit parents act in the best interests of their children?

In 2000, the Supreme Court of the United States decided the landmark parental rights case Troxel v. Granville. The Court based its opinion on nearly 100 years of legal precedent, ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires courts to presume that parents are fit and that fit parents act in the best interests of their children.

Legally speaking, this Presumption Prevents A State Court From Overruling A Parent’s Child Rearing Decisions Simply Because The State Court Disagrees. The court must first find either that a parent is not a fit parent at all or that some type of harm would be done to the child if the court does not intervene. By Using The Clean and Convincing Evidence Standard In Juvenile Dependency Court Abuse and Neglect Cases and Judicial Decisions. Any State Finding Absent Evidence of Abuse and or Neglect is Insufficient Evidence to Make Any Judicial Finding of Parental Unfitness. Review Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982).

So do State Courts follow these constitutional rules when overruling the decisions of parents across the United States of America?

Practically speaking, this presumption is often misapplied such that State Courts Overrule Parents’ Child Rearing Decisions Without Making The Required Findings Using Clear and Convincing Evidence. In order to make any such Finding of Abuse and or Neglect. State Courts Need to Follow Parental Presumption in Troxel v. Granville.

Santosky is the first Supreme Court case to hold that even after parents are found unfit in a contested court proceeding, they retain constitutionally protected parental rights. At Link Below

U.S. Supreme Court and federal court rulings recognize some parents’ constitutional rights to the care, custody, and control of their children.

03/12/2020

This is a must watch if you have any questions I can answer them.

As part of its 1L Convocation Lecture Series, Syracuse Law presents Why Civil Procedure is the Most Important Class Any of You Will Take in Law School, And I...

02/20/2020

MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN FEDERAL COURTS REFUSAL TO HOLD STATE COURTS ACCOUNTABLE

This is for advanced advocates and victims who know what the Rooker-Feldman Doctrine is, and how frustrating it is to be hit with it in a federal court case.

This US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decision is a crack in the Rooker-Feldman wall. Also the Colorado River and Younger cases/doctrines walls.

Virtually anyone who has attempted to use a civil rights case in the federal courts to rectify state court corruption receives a summary dismissal based on a rote recital of Rooker-Feldman, Colorado River and Younger.

Somehow, this guy got over the wall with a three-judge panel in the 3rd Circuit. This is now a controlling and citable case that theoretically could open the floodgates.

02/18/2020

" Open Today "

Spending Time in the Office Today

If any of you need any Questions Answered.

02/17/2020

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eMWMOyRygbSj1h0ZXtWe65FIaBplnK8u/view?usp=drivesdk

01/18/2020

State Intervention in the Family:
Making a Federal Case Out of It

"This Article is based on the author's belief, which is not necessarily shared by the current Court, that litigants
may be more successful in challenging child protection laws in federal rather than state court. This Article is not concerned primarily with substantive law but with procedural law. Rather than addressing the merits of a challenge to child protection
laws, this Article is concerned with how to get into federal court. A journey through the Court's obstacle course may prove instructive to lawyers struggling over how to avoid state court litigation entirely or how to preserve certain issues for lower federal court review."

01/09/2020

-- Local Government Liability Under 1983 --

Local governing bodies can be sued directly under § 1983 for monetary, declaratory, or injunctive relief where the action that is alleged to be unconstitutional implements or executes a policy statement, ordinance, regulation, or decision officially adopted and promulgated by that body's officers.
- in Repking v. Lokey, 2010 and 1,077 similar citations

"On the other hand, the language of § 1983... compels the conclusion that Congress did not intend municipalities to be held liable unless action pursuant to official municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort."
- in Miller v. Dart, 2015 and 548 similar citations

For a municipality to be liable under § 1983, a plaintiff must prove that a municipal policy or custom was the "moving force [behind] the constitutional violation."
- in OKONGO v. MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT, 2010 and 327 similar citations

Official capacity suits "generally represent only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent."
- in TRAVERSIE v. Starr, 2018 and 1,969 similar citations