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Harry
Stewart's Son Still Fighting for His Rights
November
2001 Harry
Stewart was convicted in Quincy District Court two years ago for
a technical violation of a restraining order by a hateful wife.
The violation occurred when he opened a heavy, metal outside door
at an apartment house for his little boy after they returned to
the boy's home from a visit. Before opening the door, he waited
ten minutes in the car honking the horn for the mother to let the
boy in as he struggled to enter. Stewart
waited for a long time because his wife had a long history of putting
him in such positions. He finally got out of the car because the
boy had to go to the bathroom. Judge
Joseph Welch, the presiding judge at Stewart's trial, told the jury
that they were not to confuse the issue by looking for "abuse"
because "there is no abuse in this case." The jury was
instructed to return a guilty verdict if Stewart had violated the
court order when he got out of his car. Stewart
was convicted and given a six-month suspended sentence on condition
that he attend a batterer's program called "Common Purpose."
In order to enter the program, Common Purpose wanted him to admit
that he was there because he had abused his wife. He refused to
sign the false confession and was jailed for six months. Sign
False Confession or 'Go to Jail'
"How
can a judge send me to a batterer's program for men that abuse women
if he's saying there are no abuse charges there?" Stewart said
to MassNews. "I wasn't even accused of abuse." He
said that many fathers are faced with that dilemma. "Either
you lie and sign a false confession and attend a batterer's program,
or you are going to jail for six months for violating parole. That's
coercion." Stewart
said his wife attacked him with knives and cookware and uttered
death threats. He said there aren't any batterer's programs set
up for women to deal with their violence. The programs are all set
up for men. "That clearly demonstrates how biased the system
is against men and fathers," he says. Stewart,
acting pro-se, got the restraining order against him vacated this
year after he battled his former wife's free team of lawyers from
the elite law firm of Foley, Hoag and Eliot. The former wife, who
evidence shows was the abuser in the family, kept renewing the restraining
order against him and was seeking a permanent one. MassNews
called several of the embarrassed lawyers at the time to find out
why they made such a production of going after an innocent man,
but they did not want to comment. They also would not answer questions
about what sort of criteria they use to choose clients. Six
Years Before Hearing
"Why
did it take that court six years before I finally had an evidentiary
hearing?" asked Stewart. Stewart
said that is a big problem. Men are not given an evidentiary hearing
where any testimony is heard. "They are given a restraining
order. Ten days later, you are supposed to have a hearing. But it's
not an evidentiary hearing. You stand before the judge and she stands
before the judge. Most of the time it is a he-said, she-said. She
says, 'I'm afraid of him.' He says, 'I haven't done anything to
her.' And then BAM, he gets a restraining order." Stewart
said if there is no other evidence than someone's word, the case
should be dismissed. He said people say it is only a civil law,
there is nothing to worry about. "I say, if she can lie to
get the restraining order, she can lie to say I violated it when
she puts me in jail." In
an evidentiary hearing, said Stewart, the judge has to produce findings
of fact and actually prove his decision. "What the judge does
instead at the ten-day hearing is take the woman's affidavit and
magically make that evidence. He calls it an evidentiary hearing
but it's not one." Cong.
Bill Delahunt Caused Problem
Stewart
said former District Attorney Bill Delahunt (now a Congressman),
retired Judge Black and former Chief of Probation Andrew Klein were
major players in setting up Norfolk County as a so-called national
model for combating domestic violence. "All
three of them, Delahunt, Black and Klein were taking equal credit
almost in a competitive way. They were on 60 Minutes for having
such a great domestic violence program. The show was even repeated
a few different times. But what 60 Minutes failed to see was something
the fathers in front of the courthouse were pointing out. The state
office that checks out the courthouses on a yearly basis gave the
Quincy District Court an 'F' rating. "Our
point was, how can a court that got so much national attention just
two or three years ago - over three hundred courts have modeled
themselves after that courthouse - how could the state commission
give them an 'F' rating? "We
were trying to show the public that the more Quincy District Court
handed out restraining orders to law-abiding men --
they had a larger amount of orders per capita than any other
courthouse -- the more
successful the program was going to look because these law-abiding
citizens were not going to violate them for the most part, although
sometimes there are very vindictive women who try to put men in
jail for technical violations. "Quincy
sent out tons of restraining orders to good men and not many of
them violated them. It made Quincy courthouse look like a very successful
courthouse. People would say, 'Look at all those restraining orders.
Because of their great counseling programs they have in place, men
are not violating them.' But it's not true. I never saw any counseling
programs other than the batterer's programs that men are forced
to go into. "So,
Quincy put out a lot of restraining orders on law-abiding men who
didn't violate them and it made Quincy look good. That was the secret
of Quincy District Court. Fathers
Who Complain are Targeted
"Because
the Fatherhood Coalition revealed things like that to the public,
the DA's office went after us like a rabid dog. "Quincy
was our headquarters. The head of the South Shore chapter of the
Fatherhood Coalition was a psychiatric worker called John Daniels.
He went to jail. The leader of the chapter after Daniels was a Weymouth
School Committee member. He was thrown into a mental institution.
I was the last leader of that chapter. After I went to jail, everybody
was afraid to do anything with the South Shore chapter of the Fatherhood
Coalition. Since me, there hasn't been any South Shore chapter." Asked
who the DA's were who persecuted the chapter heads, Stewart said,
"Bill Delahunt and Jeffrey Locke [recent Commissioner of DSS
and now a judge in the Superior Court]." Stewart
says Daniels had a restraining order and was supposed to call his
children certain days of the week. His former wife would not let
him talk to his children. She'd hang up the phone or not answer
it at all at his appointed call-in times. After
two or three months the mother got an answering machine. Daniels
left a message to her telling her it is not good for the children
to not have both parents in their lives. "And then he said
in the message, besides, you can get into real deep trouble because
you are in contempt of court for not letting me talk to the children,"
according to Stewart. Stewart
said the former wife took the tape to her attorney and said that
Daniels threatened her. "Somewhere between the attorney and
the judge the tape got lost," says Stewart. He said the judge
sent Daniels to a batterer's program although Daniels never had
a record of abuse, the wife just told the judge she was afraid of
him. The
batterer's program dismissed Daniels and wrote to the court that
he was inappropriately placed and didn't belong there. But the judge
said he would find a place to send him. Daniels participated fully
in a program where he was placed except he wouldn't stand up and
admit he was a batterer. Judge Black sent him to jail, says Stewart. "After
Daniels, Paul Corey took leadership. The man is a genius, very intelligent.
On his own, he had written proposed legislation before he ran into
us at the Fatherhood Coalition. He would leave food and clothing
at the end of the driveway because his kids would call him and say
they didn't have any food. "While
they tried to prosecute him for that, he didn't participate because
he thought the whole thing was ludicrous. While he was doing this
passive resistance, he was reading a book by Ghandi on non-violent
resistance; they brought in a psychologist to analyze him because
he wouldn't talk to anybody except his attorney. "They
sent him to be evaluated at Medfield State Mental Institution. They
were trying to put drugs into him. They were trying to say he had
delusions of grandeur. They said that because they didn't believe
he knew people up at the statehouse and was trying to pass these
bills." According
to Stewart, even Corey's public defender telephoned him and asked
what she should do for Corey because he was so delusional. Stewart
told her Corey is telling the truth and to just call the statehouse
and check up on him. She did make some calls and found Corey was
telling the truth. Stewart
says he told a doctor about the drugs the hospital was giving Corey.
The doctor replied that those drugs would make him delusional. He
also told Stewart they couldn't give him drugs until after they
had observed him for about fifteen days. Corey had only been in
there a few days. Stewart
says he brought the doctor on a visit with him, and unannounced
to the institution, the doctor did several tests on Corey and determined
he was highly intelligent and other than being a little depressed,
which was normal under the circumstances, nothing was wrong with
him. Stewart says he and the doctor finally caught the DA unprepared, went to a judge and managed to get Corey out of there. |
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