Opinion

OP-ED: California Cover Up?

Published

11 years ago

March 6, 2014

By Winslow Rouse

Between 1999 and 2007, public records suggest the judges of the State of California disobeyed the legislature by issuing a whole generation of mandatory restraining orders on void and unenforceable Judicial Council forms. The result was the false arrests and jailing of possible over 12,000 young men between the ages of 25 and 34, who were taken from their communities without notice or probable cause.

According to public documents, despite the requirements of amended Family Code Section 63899 (f) and the new Penal Code Section 12021 (g)(3), on January 1, 2000 the judicial Council republished the unrevised January 1, 1999 editions of three of the most widely used restraining order forms, the DV-110 (Order to Show Cause and Temporary Restraining Order), the DV-130 (Restraining Order After Hearing), and the MC-220 (Protective Order in Criminal Proceeding).

These forms each contained a Notice Regarding Firearms printed in bold type which prohibited respondents from purchasing or receiving a firearm while subject to a restraining order, but failed to prohibit owning or possessing a firearm. They were also ambiguous, telling respondents that while the courts have the authority to order the surrender of firearms, it is only if a restraining order is issued at the noticed hearing that respondents may then be required to give up their firearms.

It was not until July 1, 2000, that the Judicial Council revised the Notice Regarding Firearms in these forms to warn respondents they were prohibited from owning, possessing, purchasing, or receiving a firearm while they were subject to a restraining order. The revision informed respondents that at the hearing on the matter the court will order them to give up any firearms they may already own or possess.

California’s judges were allegedly told on four separate occasions that these orders were void. The courts simply disregarded the requirements of the newly enacted Senate Bill 218 (1999) and the legally binding decisions of their own governing agency, the Judicial Council of California, which unmistakably informed the judges that every restraining order form published after a legislative deadline of January 1, 2000, was void and unenforceable.

Because void orders do not, never did, and never can legally exist, no statute of limitations bars lawsuits to set void orders aside. So now, possibly thousands of people who were harmed by these void forms can sue for the damage they have suffered, which could total billions of dollars.

Judges are required to know the law, so every judge who issued, upheld or enforced one of these void restraining orders knew or should have known that the judicial Council forms on which the restraining orders were issued were themselves void and unenforceable.

Because void orders convey no jurisdiction, the courts had no authority over these void orders except to set them aside, which they have yet to do.

Since the courts had no jurisdiction over these void orders, the judges involved in this cover-up have no defense for their misconduct. For the last twelve years the judiciary has been scrambling to cover up these void orders, even though that has required the false arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of thousands of innocent people.

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Related Topics:California gun-restrictions

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

13 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

Oakland Post

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

13 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.