Franco marks anniversary, fights for fathers' rights


Reminder Publications photo by G. Michael Dobbs

Michael Franco is seen here with his daughter's bicycle, toys and other items. His separation from his daughter spurred him into a life of political activism.

Feb. 22, 2010

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

HOLYOKE -- Last month marked an anniversary for Mike Franco. For the past 10 years, Franco has become well known for bucking the local political establishment through his campaigns as a Republican candidate for the House and Governor's Council.

He also has become known for his work as an advocate for a father's right to be part of his child's life.

His activism, on both counts, has come at a price. Franco is not a "lock step Republican" and has been willing to be critical of Republican policy and candidates. His efforts to be able see his own daughter, Victoria, have resulted in a legal quagmire that is financially oppressive enough to lead many middle class people into bankruptcy.

Local media outlets have publicly criticized his public stances, such as a recent one about jury duty, and, yet, Franco soldiers on.

All of his activism stems from one incident that took place in January 2000. His late father was scheduled to pick up Franco's young daughter for visitation. The girl and her mother never turned up at the arranged meeting place and the elder Franco was crushed.

Only after this incident did Franco learn why it had happened. He received a judgment in the mail from the court denying his petition for shared parenting of his daughter and awarding full custody to his former wife.

His former wife had already taken his daughter Victoria out of the state by the time he received the notice.

Franco had co-parented his daughter from her birth, until the age of three and a half years old. The last time he saw her was when she was five years old. Victoria is now 12. Her mother has long since remarried and settled in Texas.

She has stopped calling Franco "dad" and calls her stepfather "dad." He has occasional telephone contact with her of five or 10 minutes. He said it used to be several times a week, but now it's several times a month.

When his daughter went to public school in Texas, Franco established relationships with her teachers and principals. His daughter is now home schooled.

"It's been a decade since I started to be protective of my rights as a parent and her rights as a child to have meaningful access to me," he said.

***

It was being accused of violating a restraining order before his ex-wife left the state -- a jury found him innocent -- that spurred Franco to research the legal system.

"Like a lot of fathers I became a crusader in my own case," he said.

He began to speak to attorneys and attend court to learn more. He said his behavior was typical of a lot of fathers who still believed there could be "some equal justice."

He added, though, going through the process alone can often result in spending thousands of dollars without changing the circumstances of the case.

He charged his ex-wife was "looking for an expedited method for taking Victoria from the Commonwealth. And when I figured that out that's the point I became very desperate inside to vehemently oppose the removal of Victoria from the Commonwealth."

That's the point when Franco reached out to several fathers' rights organizations. There were several organizations operating in Western Massachusetts that eventually came together as the Fatherhood Coalition.

Franco worked with a Hampden County-based organization -- the group grew from 30 to 40 men to several hundred -- and established four chapters of the Fatherhood Coalition in Western Massachusetts outside of Hampden County.

Having been a businessman and an Air Force officer -- his last two bosses have been women -- Franco said he believes in equal rights regardless of gender or race.

However, he said, "I scratch my head as to why men were treated differently in the probate and family court when it came to domestic matters. I would use that to show the hypocrisy of our government, primarily the state government, because Massachusetts courts are under the state government."

One of the main concerns of fathers' rights groups is ensuring the safety of children. Members are trained in how to assess risk and what to do about it.

"Is smoking pot in a house putting a child at risk? Or does that risk mean having a third level pedophile hanging around?" he asked.

"Years and years in this business you start to see some real tragedy -- [such as] 27-year-old girls who come to a meeting and talk about their experience of not seeing their fathers for years and breaking down and crying," Franco said.

He described the men in the group as "hurting" and in need of support and education.

Being in the Fatherhood Coalition provided Franco with the inspiration to run for public office. He believed from his first exposure with the legal system that the courts were politicized on the subject of fathers' rights and that scared him.

He ran for state representative and twice for Governor's Council unsuccessfully and said he would consider another run for Governor's Council.

He believes the law governing restraining orders needs to be amended to place greater responsibility on the person taking out the order.

"They don't want that. They won't want tightness in the law. Judges want to use their own discretion," he said.

He would also seek change in the laws governing the custody of children in divorce cases to reflect a stronger inclination toward shared custody.

"The term 'best interests of a child' is sort of a joke because it is whatever the judge says it is on that particular day for that particular case," he said.

Another issue he supports is the recertification of judges as advocated by Holyoke Police Chief Anthony Scott. He believes people should be able to examine how a judge has ruled and then reconfirm them in an election against that record.

Franco is now involved with the area's "Tea Party" movement, which he has described as an independent grassroots organization not connected to mainstream Republican politics.

***

Franco switched his attorney for his shared parenting request and hired a well-known veteran lawyer to handle the case. Franco was seeking a shared parenting arrangement with his daughter staying in the martial home four and half days a week while her mother was working as a flight attendant.

He said he handed the case "on a silver platter" to his new counsel. According to Franco that attorney did not handle his case in an expedient manner and then changed the proposal going to the judge for shared parenting.

Franco attempted to fire the attorney for not representing his wishes, but was not allowed to by the court. The judge subsequently did not grant the shared parenting request Franco made.

Franco then became involved in court actions concerning payments to the lawyer. He wanted a jury trial and properly requested it in a cross-complaint action. Instead he was forced into a bench trial before one judge, Richard Carey, District Court First Justice in Hampshire County.

"I went forward under total duress," he said. He lost that ruling and the following appeal.

"My most serious concern and frustration comes from the fact I don't feel I got a fair hearing in a local court before a jury of my peers . I feel my Constitutional rights have been violated as they have been all along," he said.

"I lost faith in the appellate process as well as the entire Massachusetts trial court process. I won't take it any farther," he said

The attorney is now attempting to have a property removed from a family trust so the court can seize it and sell at auction.

Franco may also be facing bankruptcy as the drain the legal battles have had on his finances have been considerable.

Despite the considerable heartache and the losses at the hands of the legal system, Franco is not willing to walk away from his involvement.

"I gave this a lot of thought and I feel as though if I were to give up, especially while living here in Massachusetts, that in a way I would be at just as much blame as the people in the system, the judges and the lawyers. I feel so obligated to what I've started and if I don't fight what I see as tyranny I'm just as responsible as those who are creating the system in which it thrives," he said.

Comments From Our Readers:

markbell 2/22/2010 2:44:51 PM	The legal system has become a means of perpetrators being able to perform as they wish because they do their deed first. In Alec Baldwin's book 'A promise to ourselves' the system is shown as one in which predictable court deadlines are used in a ploy to 'run out the clock' on those who did not pull the rug out from under the morality or rights of their adversary. Crimes remain unpunished. Balwin wrote about his ex, Kim Bassinger, as a person whose interests in rearing their daughter was taken over by a phenomenon where 'the hatred towards the ex-spouse exceeds the love for the child.' I've known Mike Franco for a few years. Mike is a person whose kindness cannot be overstated. If for some reason in his marriage, his mistakes of the marriage caused such issues that his ex could be angry, it is criminal that their daughter has been the pawn of her feelings. The 'losers' are winning, and typical of losers, they're dragging in whomever they can...lowering the bar.... The future will be about kids, who, like the 27 year olds Mike spoke about, will wonder where their childhoods went, and will again be caught in the circumstance of hating a parent...in the end, hating their kidnapper/abuser. Is one supposed to forgive their kidnapper? The courts are not social workers, yet are performing the biggest mortgaging of the psychology of youth that I hope we'll ever see as amateurs. One day, some of these kids will awaken as lawyers and understand what happened as they review court files showing the loving parent's attempts at sharing parenting, while the other was abusive, and the state not only allowed it, but helped it along. Perhaps there will be Nuremberg-type hearings where today's judges will sit and say they were just obeying orders. But by that time, the damage will have been done. Perhaps the lawsuits against states will create something like the tobacco industry lawsuits...billions and billions of damages. Judge David Sacks wrote an article for a legal publication according to his state website: 'Massachusetts becoming a parental termination jurisdictional. Didn't you always think it was one?' The article cannot be located according to the publication's editor, and Judge Sacks. However, this wise judge shines a beacon on what has come to be. Instead of enjoying the pleasure of his teenage daughter, Mike stands out as a beacon as well, this one being the right to parent your children...something Judge Sacks, or others in the judiciary, or those preferred by their connections to the state, seem to have no problem with. They have their kids, and if one of their ex's have run out of state, I'd be interested in hearing about it. Is this different than any sort of ethnic cleansing we read about happening in 'other' countries? Maybe we can call it 'gender cleansing,' as a woman seems to be able to conceive a child with one man, blow him out of the house with divorce and 209A actions, then chose another to rear it, taking away rights from the other parent she would never relinquish on her own in the same manner without calling it severe abuse. Mike Franco is an example of exactly this sort of abuse. I'm not sure what Judge Sacks thinks of it, but he hasn't quit yet. Where rights are taken away, there are wrongs.
mkcimini 2/23/2010 7:44:10 AM	These matters once required criminal actions for the state to get involved. Now the state imposes its will and punishes innocent people. All divorce and child support law comes to us from English Common Law. The Common Law required harm to be proven in a court of law before any remedy could be assessed. If there was no harm there could be no remedy or no action under the Common Law. By misusing the police powers of the state, i.e., using police as a standing army, the state now arbitrarily punishes one person, mostly men so not acting arbitrarily, is punished. The legal profession - in the late 1960's, early 1970's - adopted a Soviet divorce model under the guise of the Wisconsin Model, i.e., no fault divorce. This Soviet style divorce and custody system is no longer used in Russia. Russia now treats divorcing parents equally. What these legal geniuses forgot was that under the Common Law the intrusions into family live were Common Law punishments for illegal behavior, e.g., adultery, abandonment, or abuse. But given that the state, thanks to Title IV money, derives a profit from arbitrary custody and child support decisions this Soviet style divorce and custody model flourishes. You see, for every dollar collected in child support the federal government gives 8 to 12 cents to the state. Tens of millions of dollars per year as incentives to destroy families. Going from a Common Law harm based determination of these matters to arbitrary judicial decisions is treason because of the massive civil rights violations of the 'non-custodial parent'. A non-custodial parent who has arbitrary restrictions on their personal liberties, is legally required to earn as much as he can (so as to maximize the child support collections and hence Title IV kickbacks), and is subjected to other punishments without any wrongdoing. In fact now harms or injuries, such as adultery, are rewarded by courts. The victim is not permitted redress of grievances. Instead the victim is subjected to additional harms imposed by the state. A social compact is about banding together to protect individual rights. When the state misuses police power to punish victims and deny them redress then why bother even having a constitution. But, then again, who uses the Constitution any more?
joeu 2/23/2010 7:44:38 AM	Thank you Michaal Dobbs for this article. The injustices faced by Mike Franco in his legal ordeal are just the tip of the iceberg. Some 30-50,000 restriaing orders are issued each year in Massachusetts, the overwhelming majority against men who will lose their children, homes, financial security and physical wellbeing Families are being destroyed daily due to wrongheaded poltical correctness and the special interests of the legal industry. There are many other victims whose stories need to be told. Please consider digging deeper into the problems men and fathers face in the courts and society.
br1guy 2/23/2010 9:42:44 AM	It is time for the Commonwealth to abolish all of these illegally issued quasi civil-criminal contacts that deny the defendant's rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness without due process of the law as a citizen of the United States of America as protected by our Constitution. All ex-parte issued civil abuse prevention restraining orders are just illegal contracts that rail-road the defendant onto the Domestic Violence Registry Database and CORI, denying the defendant's rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness without due process of the law and the Commonwealth considers the civil issuance or allegation as a conviction of domestic violence and the Commonwealth doesn't allow any redress to correct the defendant's CORI record due to error, mistake, and/or fraud upon the court per the plaintiff. The defendant is placed on CORI or criminal probation forever by the Office of the Commissioner of Probation for a alleged civil allegation even before the outcome of the 10-day extension hearing and when the temporary ex-parte issued civil abuse prevention order is dismissed/vacated at the 10-day extension hearing, the Commonwealth still will not remove the record from the defendant's CORI record or the Domestic Violence Registry System. It is time for the courts to exercise their responsibilities of judicial review and strike down all ex-parte issued restraining orders and the Statewide Computerized Domestic Violence Registry Database as unconstitutional. Child support orders when neither parent is actually unfit and/or absentee are illegal contracts and it is time for the Commonwealth to establish the presumption of equal custody and shared parenting and at the time of a child's birth to both the child's natural Mother and Father. Child custody should be determined at the time of a child's birth and not when a couple's relationship status changes and sole custody is child abu$e. And for the 'best interest of the children'. ; Children do better in life with everything when they have as equal access to both of their parents. It is time to end the discrimination between two fit, willing, and loving parents. The label non-custodial parent artificially/falsely creates an abusive and/or absentee spouse/parent without due process of the law, which is unconstitutional per our Constitution as citizens of the United States of America. Thank you, Brian Hutchings Divorced Father, Plymouth County, Massachusetts Norwood-Brockton, Mass. / Cranston, R.I. RI and Providence Plantations Bureau of Behind The Scene with Hector Montalvo Br1guy@yahoo.com
jasoni 2/24/2010 10:37:32 AM	I first became familiar with Mike Franco a few years ago; when I joined a fathers' rights group. I was going through a divorce, and I found Mike and the other activist/members extremely helpful and dedicated to the cause of establishing a just and fair legal process for people involved in a custody battle and divorce proceedings; mainly here in the state of Massachusetts. As I write this response, I am sitting next to my six-year-old son, who is playing a game of "Magic Bus" on the computer. To get to this point in my life I have had to fight tooth-and-nail; hard and even more hardened still. I had my ex-wife file restraining orders, criminal complaints, the whole nine yards; all against me in a cynical attempt to take my children away. Currently, I am the children's (I have two; a six- and a three-year-old)primary caretaker; since my ex-wife has her fancy job and her own life. And the children are, to her, a lower-priority. I don't even have physcial custody over them; just joint legal custody! Yet nearly everyday I am the one who wakes them up, feeds them, brings them to school, bathes them, etc. However, my point in writing this is: looking back I don't know how I did it; because it was so hard and gut-wrenching and painful. But I fought and I fought, and I don't think I would have been able to be sitting here next to my son had it not been for good people like Mike Franco. And I classify myself as left-wing; in most of my political views. Yet I both like and admire people like Mike and the others involved in the struggle to attain fairness and rationality here in the disaster that is also known as Massachusetts Family Courts. One final thing: I started out anti-authoritiarian when I was in high school, became radicalized when I went to BU and had professors like the nearly-departed Howard Zinn (a great professor and an even better man); but going through a divorce here in Massachusetts has turned me into a revolutionary. And I am not kidding...
StateNational 2/24/2010 1:36:52 PM	The Common Law Writ of Error may be the only solution to appeal these dreadful probate "orders". The adhesion contracts you and yours have wittingly/unwittingly entered into (marriage license, birth cert, using the 'benefit' of the probate which was unlawfully converted into an equity court, and 14th amendment US citizen status), give consent for the statutory private law to roll you. www (dot) NotMyGovernment (dot) us