STOP THE COURTS FROM ABUSING OUR KIDS

WE NEED TO STOP THE COURTS FROM COMMITTING CHILD ABUSE AGAINST OUR KIDS, WE NEED TO STOP IT NOW!

By R. W. Monosso

June 26, 2014

Let me ask you a question!

Assume you are the parent of a 16 year old boy. Now this kid's best friend moves away, so he decides to expand his friend base, and ties up with a neighborhood kid that is questionable in character, you are not aware of some of the kids background and he seems polite when you meet them. OK, are you with me so far?

Now one day this new friend brings another person into the picture, you do not know about this new person but you do notice that your kid is changing a little bit, not quite as outgoing, grades slipping a little - not bad, but noticeable. So you talk to your kid, and he tells you they are missing this friend that moved away and will try harder to be the kid that you are going to proud of and still is respectful, obedient, and for the most part the kid you have known and raised.

Then one afternoon, there is a knock at the door, when you open the door, there is a Police Detective there, and he tells you he needs to speak to your kid. You invite him in, and call your kid to come down to the living room.

And you find out that this new friend and his group of friends got your kid involved in an armed robbery. Your kid was an inactive participant in as much as he was present during the course of the crime. When the Detective leaves, he takes your kid with him in Handcuffs.

Are you still with me? Things start to get interesting from here on, well actually they turn into a nightmare really.

So you call your ex, and let them know what is happening. Well you know that you are going to need an attorney, and you have heard the horror stories about the public defenders and how often they lose his cases, so you think “NO, I will get a private Attorney. But WHO? Your ex says I think we should hire Rex Brayer Attorney at Law of Draper Utah he is a great attorney, and he knows fill in the name of your kid here, and will go all out for him. See your ex used to work for him. So you pay him the $5,000.00 that he says it will cost to defend your kid.

A hearing is scheduled for 10 days from now, and you think that Rex is working his butt off to make sure your kid is defended. The day of the hearing arrives, and you, your ex and several other supporters of your kid are there, BUT where is Rex? The court, says we will come back to this case, and they move on, 15 or so minutes later who should wonder in, but Rex.

They recall your kid’s case and Rex goes up and stands with your kid, and basically does nothing, and you realize he is not prepared, and really has no idea as to what is going on. Well time goes on, and there are 9 more hearings, but for the next 8 Rex does not even make an appearance. Now the 9^th hearing is the hearing that is going to determine if your kid is going to remain in the Juvenile system, or be bound over to the Adult System and go before the district court where he will be tried and sentenced as an adult. Guess what Rex is LATE AGAIN, hay but at least he shows up.

Well the Prosecutor calls his witnesses, Arresting Police Officer, and one of two victims. Question – why only one of the victims, why not both? Maybe it is the fact that the victim that is called was able to be persuaded to change his story and make what was an armed robbery of a DRUG dealer, into a Violent Home Invasion Robbery, where everyone had guns and threatened to kill him and the other victim, YET the other victim’s statement never changes about the important details of the case, that the defendants were INVITED in, and INVITED into the basement (where the victim whose story changed at least 5 times did his drug sales) and the defendants were there for at least 20 minutes until he got stupid and pulled the ringleaders gun out of his waistband and that is when two of the others pull out his guns, and your kid kind of scoots back into the woodwork and stands there as scared as are the victims.

Rex does not question the victim or the officer about the changes in the victims story, does not question as to why the other victim is not called. Also he does not call any witnesses in your kid’s behalf and now the Judge says, OK obviously the state is right and your kid belongs in the Adult System under the Serious Youth Offender Act, so slams the gavel and says, “You are hereby bound over to the District Court to be tried for Aggravated Robbery.”

Well now it goes to District Court and again Rex does nothing to prevent your kid from being Certified as an adult, and thus allows him to be tried for Aggravated Robbery as an adult even though he is only 16 years old, and has NEVER before ever been in trouble with the law.

Well you know you don’t want this idiot representing your kid anymore, so you fire him and you hire a new Attorney Roy Cole of Ogden, Utah, AGAIN he comes highly recommended. So you pay him the money that he says it will cost to defend your kid.

The first thing you ask him is to appeal the Juvenile Courts decision, and erroneously he tells you that you can’t. He is an attorney so you take him at his word, you figure that he has checked into it, so you ask what is next. He explains to you what to expect and the hearings to come. So you prepare yourself and your kid. Then your new attorney tells you that it looks like there is a plea agreement that will prevent your kid from going to Prison. Finally good news.

Then you find out that two of the other defendants’ one of the co-defendants, the 19 year old and the other Juvenile the 17 year old were also offered the same plea agreement:

Defendant Rex Q Idiot 19 years old will plead guilty to Attempted Aggravated robbery, and Aggravated Robbery both class 2 Felonies, in return the State will recommend that the defendant will serve 180 days in the County Jail, will serve 3 years supervised Probation, Pay $XXXX.00 in Restitution and $XXXX.00 fines.

When and if Defendant successfully completes his Probation, pays his fines and restitution he will be eligible for a double 402 Reduction to make it so that he will not have a felony record.

Well you find out that the 19 year old is going before the Judge to change his plea from not guilty to guilty via the plea agreement. So you go to court to hear what happens. The hearing goes about how your attorney said it would, the Judge accepts his plea of guilty and follows the recommendation of the state, and gives him the sentence as outlined in the agreement.

A couple of weeks later you find out the other Juvenile has his hearing date, so again you go to court to see what happens, again it is as your attorney said it would, but as this defendant was more of a participant, the judge adds 30 days to the sentence and makes it 210 days Probation, Restitution, and fines.

Well you are feeling pretty good, you are a bit perturbed that your kid is going before a District Court Judge, but at least he is not going to be going to prison!

The big day comes, you spend the morning with your kid, and make sure that your kid knows that you are still behind him and although he made a serious mistake you still love him.

THEN the nightmare gets WORSE!

You get to the Courthouse and meet your kid’s attorney and he is still optimistic that everything is good and your kid’s plea agreement will stand. So you walk into the Courtroom, and are ready to see your kid get sentenced to 180 days in the County Jail and will likely be taken from the Courtroom to holding to be transported to the Jail at the end of the day.

A few other cases are called and then it is your kids turn. You give him a hug and he walks up with his / her attorney and stands before the Judge. You can tell your kid is scared, and your heart aches for him but this nightmare is going to be over soon, and in 180 day he will be at home with you again. The prosecution says his piece and your kid’s attorney says a few things about the plea agreement, and then it happens. THE NIGHTMARE GETS WORSE, it gets worse than you could ever have imagined it could get.

The Judge looks at your kid and asks, “Has your attorney explained all of this to you?” To which your kid being scared mumbles, yes. Then he asks, did he also tell you that I do not have to accept this agreement, and now your heart is sinking and your kid tries to answer but is so scared that nothing comes out. Then the Judge asks, are you pleading guilty to these charges, Two 2^nd degree felonies. Your kid gives an affirmative nod of the head.

Then it happens, the Judge says, “Next to murder I can think of no worse crime than a Home Invasion Robbery. I can only imagine the fear that went through your victim, as those guns were pointed at his head and threats of death were made. I cannot in good conscience accept this recommendation of 180 days in the county jail. No, you are hereby sentenced to 2 terms of 1-15 years in the Utah State Prison System.” “Officers take the defendant into custody and hold him until the paperwork can be processed and he can be transferred to the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah to be processed.” The Judge then slams the gavel and your kid is handcuffed and taken crying and pleading from the courtroom.

Two days later your kid is transported to the Point of the Mountain, and because they are not equipped to deal with prisoners as young as your kid, the only place they can house him is in Uinta-1, which is the protective custody area of the prison, which is also the area that houses the Death Row inmates. Your kid is now locked up 23 hours a day, 365 days a year for at least the next 2 years, the only human contact that he will have is when the guards make his rounds, when his food is brought to him, and when mental health comes to check on him and make sure that he has not become suicidal. Of course in two or three months you will be able to finally go visit him, of course there will be 3 inches of glass between you and you will have to talk on a telephone (which of course is recorded), and so for the next two years at least this is what you and he have to look forward to.

So my question to you is this: Is this what should be done with our youth? Should our youth who have never been in trouble with the law a day in his life, who cannot even drive yet be locked up with the worst of the worst in the Utah State Prison system? Is this going to make it so that your kid when he gets out is going to forget how he was lied to by the Prosecutors, how he was mistreated by a Judge who it appears had no clue as to what case he was imposing sentence on, I mean he did make the comment, “I have already sentenced two of your co-defendants to Prison” which he had not done, but rather sentenced them to County Jail. Is he going to say, “Oh well, that is life, but I am out now, so I will go get a job and live happily ever after.”

NO he is not going to do that, he is going to have a few years to build up a hatred and distrust of the Justice System, He is going to have Two (2) felonies on his record which is going to make it virtually impossible to get a job, or at least a job that will pay enough that he will be able to support himself and a family. SO what happens, he gets frustrated he gets pissed, and he becomes what the Courts have made him, a Criminal whom will be back behind bars within 3 years, unless by some miracle he is capable of forgiving those that wronged him, starting with his first attorney, his second attorney, the Prosecutor, the Judge, and probably you and your ex as well for hiring the two incompetent imbeciles that had the guts to call themselves Attorneys. And then if he is able to do that maybe he can move forward and become a law-abiding, productive member of society. But if he does, he will be one in twenty that is able to do so.

This story is not fictional, it actually happened, or rather is happening right now to a great 16 year old kid that made a few dumb choices, 1) Wrong Friends choice, 2) Wanting to fit in, 3) getting high and then going with these “friends” to “buy” some Marijuana, at least that is what he was told they were going to do. Why then did he take the two guns from his dad’s gun cabinet? Because these new friends of his asked him to go camping overnight, where they would do some target shooting.

The Juvenile in this story, is Cooper Van Huizen of Ogden Utah. Because of an answer to prayers by many supporters, Cooper now has an Attorney that if either of his first two attorneys had worked even half as hard as she has, Cooper would not be in the adult system.

But Cooper’s is not an isolated case, since we began to work on this to get him some Justice, to get him back into the Juvenile system we have been made aware of hundreds of cases like Cooper’s that mainstream media doesn't talk about, yes they are talking about the unfair “Life without possibility of Parole” cases from around the Country, which are unjust and should never been allowed to happen, but kids just like Cooper, who have never been in trouble before, but are now locked up in Adult Prisons for long sentences. We need to stop the abuse of our Kids by the Courts! 

We need to STOP it NOW!

Go To:     Lend Your Voice to Bring Justice to Juveniles in Adult Prisons and like us

                 Help Support Cooper Van Huizen and like us here also

                 Quash the Bindover Order from Juvenile Court for 16 year old Cooper Van

                 Huizen and sign our Petition.

                 Support 16 year old Cooper Van Huizen’s Defense Fund and donate what you

                can.

Let Your Voices Be Heard

C. V. H. Foundation

10441 Stanford Avenue

P.O. Box:

Garden Grove, CA, 92842

http://www.cvhfoundation.org

(657) 206-6361

Let your voices be heard

This is a cause that is in bad need of addressing! If any of us were to put our kids into a dangerous situation, or gave them to KNOWN Child Molesters, Rapists, Murderers, Gang Bangers, or any of the other element that is housed in Our State and Federal Prison System, would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, for Child ABUSE, Child ENDANGERMENT, PIMPING, AGGRAVATED SEXUAL ASSAULT of a minor, who knows what charges they would throw at us, all that is certain is we would be going to prison for a long time. SO WHY for a Prosecutor, and a Judge is it OK?

I mean EVERY-TIME they send a Juvenile under 18 to adult prison is that NOT JUST EXACTLY what they are DOING! This has to be stopped NOW!!!!!!

So no it should be our and Cooper's thousands of supporters from around the world that need to thank Cooper for his sacrifice to bring this to the Public's Attention.

So let’s all raise our Voices another notch, it is time to make this our Number One (1) Priority, Stop the Judicial System from ABUSING our children!!

Those of you who have not yet signed the Petition go right NOW to Quash the Bind-Over Order from Juvenile Court for 16 year old Cooper Van Huizen and sign the petition, if you have send a reminder to all of your friends and family to go to the site and sign.

ALSO! We need to ramp up the letter writing campaign!! We need you to go to the following pages, click on it, find YOUR Senators and Legislature, and write them letters today demanding that they SAVE our CHILDREN from ABUSE BY the JUDICIAL SYSTEM!!

IS THERE A NEED FOR THIS BLOG?

How it all Started

In May 2014, an old friend from Junior High School, that I hooked back up with on Facebook Shared a News Story on her timeline. I received this share in my news feed: JUDGE THROWS OUT PLEA DEAL; OGDEN TEEN SENTENCED TO PRISON: 

Posted 10:48 PM, May 12, 2014, by Gene Kennedy, Updated at 12:10 PM May 13, 2014: http://fox13now.com/2014/05/12/judge-throws-out-plea-deal-ogden-teen-sentenced-to-prison. So I went to the link; watched the report and got pissed.

See I am one of those people that cannot tolerate Government abusing its citizens. Putting a first time offender into the Adult system is abuse that cannot and will not be tolerated.

So I went to the site that his family set up, to bring awareness to this travesty of Justice, and made contact. In the ensuing days, it turned from just a gross miscarriage of Justice in my eyes to a personal matter, as I found out that Marc Van Huizen, Cooper’s father and I had gone to school together a number of years ago, where he played football and I was one of the team trainers.

Now even though I was ready to do whatever it took to get Justice for Cooper, and get him back into the Juvenile system, it became an obsession.

I had been introduced to Change.org a year or so before this, and knowing how having public support behind you, which is what a Petition off of Change.org does for a cause, I suggested that we also set up a Petition. Well we got it up and going and in just a matter of days we had already gotten a little over 250 signatures, and they were not just from locals in Ogden, but from around the United States and around the World.

There were many advocacy groups that made contact to offer their voices to the cause, and then we started to hear from other families whose Kids had gotten in trouble with the law, and instead of utilizing the Juvenile Court System as was intended, and was empowered by the highest court in the land, the US Supreme Court to handle cases of those under 18 years of age that get in trouble with the law, decided to make examples of these poor defenseless teens, and threw them to the wolves called the Adult Judicial System.

Prior to getting involved in Cooper’s case I did not realize how bad the situation is, and just how many kids are being abused by the system every day of the year. Marc and I talked about it on several different occasions and thought that maybe there was a purpose that this difficulty was put on Cooper, and in turn onto us his supporters.

In side remarks and wonderings we both thought out loud in these discussions that maybe we should become the voice for these other hundreds of kids when we get Cooper back into the Juvenile system.

After Cooper was sentenced to 2 terms of 1 to 15 years in the Utah Correctional System for Adults, (Prison), where one of two things were going to happen. First he is either going to be placed into the most dangerous position a young man his age and stature could be placed, and that is in General Population with Rapists, Murders, Gang Bangers, Drug Dealers, CHILD MOLESTERS, and the list goes on, OR, he was going to be placed in PC – Protective Custody / Segregation where he would be locked in a 12’ x 6’ cell 23 hours a day, and the only human contact he would have is when the guards stop by on their rounds, when his meals are brought to him, or when Mental health comes around to check his mental health, and make sure that he is not contemplating suicide.

Shortly after Cooper was remanded into the custody the Utah State Department of Corrections to be taken to the Utah State Prison in Draper, a wonderful supporter found the Greatest Attorney in Utah, Ms. Elizabeth Hunt of Beehive Legal and made a $5,000.00 down payment towards her Retainer to take Cooper’s case.

When she contacted Marc and Mindy (Cooper’s Dad and Mom) they were VERY reluctant to even talk to her. They were at their wits ends as they had already hired and paid cash for Two (2) Highly recommended attorneys and their son ended up in Adult Court, and then in Adult Prison. When they voiced their concerns and told her they just had no more money to pay her fees, she told them about the anonymous donor and said this case was hers, even if she did not receive another dollar, she wanted this case, to make sure that Cooper would receive Justice.

In just a matter of days she had been to see Cooper in Uinta 1, a couple of times, she had gotten a sworn statement from Cooper’s second Attorney Roy Cole of Ogden about the erroneous advice that he gave to the Van Huizens, leading to Cooper pleading guilty and thus being sent to Prison. She also filed several Motions, which she suspected would be denied, but as she told Marc, Mindy and Cooper that was not going to slow her down, nor was it going to change what she had in mind for Cooper’s case.

Over the next three or four weeks, she filed several more Motions and special requests and overall just put the State to work, to defend their actions. Between her hard work and all the voices of the supporters from around the world, we have begun to see Justice for Cooper.

On May 24^th Cooper was moved from Uinta 1 at the Point of the Mountain to Daggett County Jail. This move is not only better for Cooper’s health and sanity, but his Defense as well.

The Prosecution used Violence, and other Enhancements to get Cooper placed into the Serious Youth Offenders Program, which he used to bind him over from Juvenile Court to District Court.

So you are asking how this move assists in Cooper’s Defense, well it comes directly from the Sheriff of Daggett County, Jerry Jorgensen, and the statement he made to Jessica Miller reporter from the Salt Lake Tribune.

“Daggett County Sheriff Jerry Jorgensen said Wednesday that Van Huizen is one of about 80 prison inmates housed at the county jail. He said the jail has a contract to house prison inmates, and that he personally screens the prisoners that they do hold in their facility. He said he doesn’t allow inmates with gang affiliations or violent offenders to come to his jail.

Jorgensen said Van Huizen is now held in a general population housing unit with 13 other inmates.

"People need to know that we are taking care of him," Jorgensen said. "He’s in a good place ... We’re going to be attentive of his needs and hopefully do some good for him.”" (Miller, 2014)

So as you can see things are looking up for Cooper. Thanks to his great attorney, who is showing what happens when you are a TRUE Advocate for your client. Also our voices are being heard, so we need to step it up and give Liz all the background support we can muster.

Thank you and God Bless!