Pre-Trial Motion

And how those can be used we've been Getting some questions from people asking. How do you use these? How do we file these? well We're not attorneys so we can't tell you how to do those things legally technically well we can't tell you the purpose of emotions and give you some suggestions that you can take to your attorneys and That might help them figure out how to use these So I'm gonna ask Ron a few questions so that he can Respond and give giving all of you the benefit of hearing the answers So that you can save time and get to these right away you can share this with your attorney Have them watch it if they have questions as well if we don't answer some of the questions that you have

Please go to our website that's gonna flash up here on the screen its face family courts calm and Contact us there if you post questions here, we may not see it you're welcome to post them You're welcome to post your comments, but we just may not see them in a timely manner so if you need something right away Tell everyone first why you created the duplicate judgment motion sure so this started with frustration With the attorneys not seeming to do what they're supposed to do and not getting the right framing of these cases in place And so we were looking around for ways to kind of force that to happen And we found the dekotora judgment acts and they seem to be universal across all the states

To some degree and as we figured that is a good way to force the courts to put this on the record And so we created them in that way We have since learned a little bit more about language and things that courts are supposed to do at least according to the rules in Texas and we and your state should have similar rules about pretrial motions pretrial questions of law and pretrial conferences and You should be able to in stay as a standard common thing Set up questions of law that the court needs to answer before trial as a due process Right and so that you can understand who carries the burden of proof. What has to be proven

What laws what statutes? What constitutional provisions apply all of these things are? Questions of law they're not questions of fact she said this he said that those are questions of fact These are questions of law what a law what law applies And how does it applied in the circumstances of this case and those are crucial things that have to be answered before in the trial?

Part of the reason why we're getting such random and absurd results in family law is because the courts are not answering these questions They're just doing whatever the hell they want to do Okay, they are assuming they did it and now you're in a dispositional phase That's the kind of trials we talk about adjudication we talked about dispositional Phases in the disposition phases after a person's been adjudicated and found guilty of something right. Yep. There's something or that some Some action of law allows for certain relief for instance they the courts can violate your Parental rights if they follow the right procedures and provide the right constitutional guarantees So the questions of law are what are those procedures. What are those guarantees and the

adjudication is The purpose of adjudication is for a court to establish its authority to issue the relief requested So in a criminal trial that relief is the punishment phase and putting somebody in jail or charging them applying whatever it is Well you have to prove them guilty before you can put them in jail that's common knowledge in criminal trials in Civil Procedure Right, but that Jailing somebody boom I should say in prison jailing somebody putting them in prison or jailing them prior to a hearing For certain reasons versus punishing them is two different things so that's the law The the court still has to establish it so Thor So your life will feel like you are in prison if you don't follow these steps and let them do whatever

They usually do they follow if you let them continue with the same pattern that they've been using for the last several decades Then you're not going to have a life with the freedoms that We believe you were entitled to constitutionally Absolutely so in a civil proceeding what's supposed to happen is? The courts supposed to evaluate its jurisdiction in its authority to act Motions are pretrial motions Well that tells the attorney what that means like how to use them?

It should unless they're just purely a family law attorney who's never done any other civil. Wall. They should know this How did you figure it out? So we've been working on some appeals and getting very deep into some rules of procedure appellate procedure and Civil Procedure, and we've also been getting very deep into issues of questions of law versus questions of fact and these things came together and I saw a Rule in the civil procedures in Texas that talked about the pre-trial What's supposed to happen in pre-trial the pre-trial conference all those things And it just hit me and said this is what we've been trying to get that attorneys aren't telling us because they don't really want to tell us how they

How they're supposed to be doing these things? But the motive the motions the declaratory judgment Motions are designed to pull this out, and they're designed in a way, that's universal for everybody But you should also have universally pretrial conferences under your civil rules of rules of proceeding and you should be able to raise these as questions of law and certain questions of law are jurisdictional and Meaning that they have to be established before You get into the hearing because they establish the rules of how the hearing is going to be conducted And what either side has to prove or not prove What the what burdens are what the what is the available relief all of these things are actually questions of law

And the questions of law are for the court to answer and you can You can require them to answer them pretrial and so if they don't you raise them as what's called a plea to the jurisdiction and what this is is a argument that the court lacks jurisdiction to proceed and In most states it would stop the court from proceeding at all or if it did if the court did proceed Depending on the specifics of your rules everything that does may potentially be void So that's what we're trying to bring in the plate the declaratory relief motions were done in a way That's we knew was generally applicable to everybody and we're kind of fine-tuning that was some better language. We've learned and

And trying to structure them in a way that will lead into this pre-trial of trial conference and a little more comfortably for the judges so it won't be so foreign to them it won't be such a Even though they understand the deck rhetoric judgments that really throws them for a loop and family law They're not going to be real happy with being forced into a pre-trial conference in family law Because they like to just rush new things, but they'll understand it better and they're they're gonna more likely don't be more likely to follow through and Your attorney can more more easily make their points, and they will be more comfortable with it as well

I think but it's gonna depend on your state's rules right so let's take a pretrial Conferences. I presume if one would make it as a due process requirement We certainly would make the argument that the questions of all that we're raising are jurisdictional questions at least a good portion of them are jurisdictional questions that have to be answered in order to provide a Fair trial right so even if you don't find this particularly in your family code because some of the family law attorneys Like suggests to the family code now remember. That's not the only place. They go for the rules they do go to the Rules of Civil Procedure and In every state if you challenge their jurisdiction

They must hear that before they can proceed every state yes That's a federal due process issue if you challenge of course jurisdiction They have to the court does have to prove its jurisdiction and jurisdictions a tricky subject But the jurisdiction we're talking about here is not their personal jurisdiction over you It's a an element of subject matter jurisdiction that has to do with their Constitutional authority to act and whether or not they've met the criteria that allow them to violate your constitutional rights So let me give you an example of the jurisdiction that they do address Because most of you see it in your temporary orders and also in your final orders at the very very beginning

What do they put they put? How long the person resided in their? State correct if you've resided there at least six months in most states, then they say they have jurisdiction over you Then they also cover a couple of other things those are just basic due process Jurisdictional issues the kind of jurisdiction that Ron is talking about again is substantive Jurisdiction we know what you first mentioned is his Personal jurisdiction they have jurisdiction over your person Because you're within the state boundaries And then that ties into the subject matter jurisdiction in the end that they say we will apply Jurisdiction jurisdiction from a family code perspective after you've been in the state for a certain amount of times

You can't just fly to visit your brother-in-law and get a divorce in that state they want more attachment to the state I mean there are a few states where you can go and get quick divorce right so this is state by state But that's kind of that's kind of the thing right when I was in Germany friends of mine would get married They would go up to I think it was Amsterdam or some other country they'd have a four-day weekend, and they'd get married on the last day and Come home because you had to be in the country for three or four days before they'd let you get married So that happens all over okay?

Okay, so the jurisdictional issue is a big deal because that could potentially Void out anything the court proceeds from there then forward But how so how do they challenge that how do they how do they use that if the court says well? I'm going to go ahead and proceed right so what you would do is in your scheduling you would have your Your attorney address scheduling of your case with the court you would formally request a pre-trial conference You would put in some kind of Memorandum of the questions of law that you need to have asked?

the exact structure of that may vary from state to state But it would be some kind of motion or memorandum but before the court And then you would ask your questions, and that would need to be early enough or soon enough before trial To deal with the ramifications ramifications of those decisions if the court does not want to do The pre-trial conference, then you'll look to your rules to see how you can force it what you can certainly Do is make a challenge to the jurisdiction in Texas it's called a plea to the jurisdiction. I think that's a universal term I'm not certain, but what it says is this court does not have jurisdiction

I'm challenging jurisdiction And now it's on Inherent on the court to prove that it has jurisdiction Both in my person and subject matter and the subject matter We're talking about is not just that there's a Family Code statute That says they can do this if they are if there are fundamental rights at issue Then they have to determine what processes do and they have to provide those guarantees and convey them to you Tell you what they are before they proceed to trial well. That's these motions are Okay, so all the content of all the content of the declaratory relief motions is essentially the same in this Pre-trial scenario, what's different is the wrapper the way you present it to the court all right?

And what may be different is if some of the issues are not? Issues in your case you would remove them, so let's say if there is a child support then you're gonna remove That issue you certainly don't want to present all of these arguments if they do not apply to you They will then claim you're being frivolous you also want to look at the way these arguments are worded and your attorney should be doing that and if it's if they'd like to Change the wording more to their style then they can certainly do that there is There are a couple sections in there that we know are somewhat inflammatory and some attorneys aren't as comfortable with that

But they can still make an argument and just change some of the wording like for instance there was a time when? one of the parents that use the motions said that there That the other side was claiming that they were claiming children were property so Is it not important as well that their attorney understand these arguments so that? If the other side makes a claim These motions aren't claiming your children are property it gives a little bit of history They were property a long time ago about 70 80 plus years ago, but they are no longer But they weren't were for a long time Right so, but if the other side wants to try to shut these down

What are they gonna do what they usually do and that's pick something inflammatory and try to make it look like it's something It's not and if that attorney hasn't really thoroughly read these motions Which has happened before You need to make sure they actually read these motions you have to be willing to pay them to Read this it will be worth your while because this also helps reset your attorney but if they're not willing to it can also reset your entire case and and eliminate a lot of the relief the other side is pleading for it can dramatically shorten your trial and Get a lot of things under control. I was gonna. Ask you that next is

What are the reasons that they should be using me so you said it could shorten your trial which could save you thousands of dollars? it could Reframe your case like Ron said and what does that mean that may mean that now the court doesn't have proper justification To appoint amicus's or guardian ad litems or do investigative investigative search investigative Exploratory exploratory searches they call them investigations in a lot of states So that's a big expense that you could cut out so you can see where you're chipping away at all of the ways they seize your property, which is your money and You could shut potentially shut that down, so yes, while you may be?

Pursuing a little bit of time Taking a little bit of time of money to pursue the learning of these motions with your attorney It's well worth it if you use these properly and you get them in place You are not only protecting the record, but you are potentially also setting your your final up to create proper orders so that your rights are truly are truly protected and also If the judge abuses their power you have something stronger To challenge that abuse of power on and will cover those in some other videos like how how do you challenge it if they?

Ignore these motions and things like that, but right now. We just wanted to explain to you what they are and How you get started using them? absolutely and there are some streamlined approaches you can take if You if you really need to cut this short and streamline it that'll give you most of the effect or a lot less confrontation with the court and there are We're always researching investigating learning new stuff so we've got a new book coming out very very soon that talks about how to prove that the judge must follow the Constitution and it proves it for you and We'll be dealing with that and that's another issue that you bring in in these pretrial

conferences and Get an official ruling Of law on whether or not this judge is limited by the Federal Constitution, and your state constitution and sometimes your state constitution may give you better rights in certain places Certainly here in Texas your free speech right is stronger in certain ways than Beverly Okay, so we hope that helps you out again if you have questions this in essence website. You are welcome to leave comments we just may not see them kindly and We should comment on the website. We will see those immediately So we wish you all justice and that your rights to your children are protected equally, and we wish you all peace and

freedom to continue to exercise those rights freely without being tied to the other parent or Being imprisoned by the family court orders in ways that were unconstitutional We'll see you next time You