After helping to generate a lot of comments on this blog last year (here and here), Chris Savoie largely disappeared from the mass media. But he is still alive and kicking.
While enjoying some personal contemplation time in the bathroom last night, I came across an article on international child abduction in the American Bar Association’s ABA Journal, with Savoie’s story front and center, along with some personal updates.
Savoie, the managing partner of a mediation firm, tried to reach his ex-wife, but his calls went unanswered—until he dialed from a number Noriko wouldn’t recognize. “My-father-in law picked up and said, ‘Don’t worry. The kids are here with us,’” Savoie recounts. “I said, ‘What?’ I blacked out. I was in a fetal position screaming and crying. The anger also came out: Why didn’t they believe me that this could happen?”
Frustrated with what he describes as intransigence toward his parental interests, Savoie traveled to Japan in September 2009, where he tried to re-abduct his children while they were walking to school. He was detained by Japanese police and later released. The children were released to their mother.
Savoie, now a student at the Nashville School of Law who wants to work in the child abduction field, says he won’t give up on trying to see his children. “My ex-wife doesn’t allow any contact with the children at all,” he says. “I haven’t spoken to them since I saw them dragged off by the Japanese police. But you don’t lose hope as a parent.”
More media cameos undoubtedly forthcoming. Perhaps a reality show, too.
Throughout all of this, Savoie hasn’t made a very good case for his skills as a mediator.
He’s on Twitter, BTW. I believe that he called his ex-wife “evil”.
I feel sorry for the man’s plight. But honestly, I think his whole difficulty stems from too much legal machinating, even before he gets to the bar. (I don’t know if “machinating” is a Sarah Palin word.)
Once he agreed to actually be a Japanese, he just made it much tougher to carry out his strategy. He’d have much more respect from me if he had just stayed American–the story is much cleaner that way. When he sought out and obtained Japanese citizenship, he basically became a Japanese who is having a marital dispute and trying to involve America in it, because he’s holding on to his American passport.
The last thing we need is more lawyers who seek to complicate matters that are otherwise very clear. The big law firms are full of them, and it’s one of the reasons American law is breaking down.
Semantics matter. Chris Savoie did not try to re-abduct his children. He held a legal custody order and his wife did not, therefore his custody order was the only one in existence, and he was therefore de-facto legal custodian in both countries. He may have tried to recover his stolen children, but it cannot be phrased as a “re-abduction” because he was the sole legal custodian, and one cannot “abduct” or “re-abduct” one’s own children as the sole legal custodian.
Machinating is a real word!
I feel sorry for Savoie as well, but looking back on this case months and months later, I can’t help but think that he missed out on possible conciliatory moments. His trying to prevent his wife from going back to Japan could have sparked her decision to abduct. If he had let her go back and she had abducted, just about everyone would be on his side (even skeptical Japanese when they heard how much money was involved, I would imagine). And more importantly – he decided to grab the kids (together with a bunch of guys?) without trying to have a reasonable word with anyone after he went to Japan (!?) I’d understand it a bit more if he had tried to dogeza outside their house for a week in the rain and they had still refused to let him see the kids. Now, even if Japan signs on for the abduction treaty, his wife’s lawyers will have flat out proof of violent behavior, his new wife calling his ex a hysterical monster on message boards, and comments about “evil”…. he’s totally screwed.
In any case, will be interesting to hear what the kids have to say about all of this in a few years.
I wonder how the bar association will look at his case. Sure, he doesn’t seem to have broken American law, but he very, very blatantly violated Japanese law by retaining his American citizenship when he naturalized, and I suspect that the bar would at least be within their rights to reject him for insufficient respect of the law or whatever the exact term is. What term am I looking for, lawyers?
@japan abducts: You are correct from an American perspective, but not from a Japanese perspective. That’s the big problem in almost all of these cases: two conflicting legal systems trying to govern the same subject matter.
@Roy: The standards for admission in most states are “good moral character” and “fit to practice law.” The biggest red flag in this investigation is unpaid debts, particularly child support and alimony arrears. For instance, see the New York rules:
http://law.justia.com/newyork/codes/judiciary/jud090_90.html
However, there are convicted felons who eventually get bar admission on the grounds that they have done their time and been rehabilitated; I recall a recent case where a convicted murderer passed the NY bar and I think he got admitted after several applications and reviews, though I can’t find the link at the moment.
Savoie is in a bit of a gray area since he was gaming the system so much, but I think his position is defensible as American bar examiners would understand it. They will not know about Japanese nationality law and will probably not hear any of the counterpoints to Savoie’s side of the story (well, unless Noriko’s lawyers intervene somehow).
I gotta ask – is a “Palin word” a “Palin-drome”? Or possibly “Palin-drone….”
Boo.
I got curious to see if there were any more details about the case that we did not hear of last year and it turns out that Japanese media reported that not only was Norkio knocked down during the incident but Chris or one of the goons put her in a “full nelson” while his buddies ran off with the kids. Sympathy level going down again….
cjsavoie’s latest tweet:
“Joke of the day! Opposing attorney’s argument is that I voluntarily allowed my kids to be kidnapped! Rethinking if I want to be a lawyer!”
http://twitter.com/cjsavoie/status/19339395040
A palindrome is a word or phrase spelled the same way backwards and forwards. For example:
Wasilla’s all I saw.
If a palindrome is elected, it serves out its full term before it tries to cash in on the big money.
I’ve tried not to comment about this lately, because I just find it a bit sad all around. I’m pretty sure I’d flip out if I was in Savoie’s predicament, and I’d want to scream to anybody who would listen. But the media have exploited Savoie blatantly. Note the article on the recent NK terrorist’s trip to Japan in the Japan Times:
“But the angriest reactions came from Americans involved in Japan’s other abduction issue — children of Japanese and non-Japanese parents living in a foreign country who are illegally taken to Japan by an estranged spouse.
Members of Bring Abducted Children Home got the House of Representatives to introduce a resolution in May condemning Japan as a haven for child abductions and has since found enough cosponsors in Congress to bring it to a vote.
They compared the Justice Ministry and Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, who issued Kim’s special permit to enter Japan, to the characters in “Alice in Wonderland.”
“Is Japan’s Ministry of ‘Justice’ secretly being run by the Queen of Hearts? Japan denies visitation with kidnapped kids,” said Christopher Savoie, who was arrested in Fukuoka last year when he came to Japan to try to take his children back from his ex-wife, who had fled with them to Japan. A U.S. court granted her custody and she originally agreed to remain in the U.S., while Savoie was granted visitation rights.
“Yet the same ministry allows convicted mass murderers into the country in order to preach about the tragedy of child abduction,” he said.”
Say what? I mean, I can see why Savoie would leap at any opportunity to publicize his cause, but isn’t this taking it a little far? An abduction by an aggrieved parent is not the same thing as an abduction by an authoritarian state.
Fat Tony, To the left-behind parent, there is no difference. You are shut out of your children’s life forever once a child is abducted to Japan. Since the re-establishment of a Japanese sovereign government in 1952, Japan has never returned a single one of thousands of children abducted to Japan from foreign countries. Japan stands alone in the world in this regard. Those thousands of parents never see their children again, and have absolutely no recourse in Japan, where compliance with family law is voluntary, rendering the Japanese legal system powerless to help.
“To the left-behind parent, there is no difference.”
Wouldn’t there be some solace in the fact that the child is safe with family rather than, say, potentially in a torture camp in a insane totalitarian hellhole? Using the NK abduction comparison is wrong-headed.
In a way, I think this is a part of the general collapse of public dialogue. Why can’t something be “wrong”, why does it have to be LIKE HITLER?
“To the left-behind parent, there is no difference.”
That’s kind of my point. As M-Bone notes there is a substantive difference, even if the “left-behind” are so distraught that they can’t see it. I say that without a hint of sarcasm. I’m sure it is hell. And I’m sure if I was in that position I would jump at the chance to tell my story to anyone.
But potentially alienating the very people you want to win over, which in this case means the Japanese public (the JT is published in Japan, after all) by ignoring the difference is not a wise course of action. It’s a good thing the mainstream media in Japan is not as exploitative as to link two issues that really aren’t connected.
Well, think about that statement again: “*To the left-behind parent*, there is no difference.” It’s actually true in many cases, because by the time the case reaches its baby-snatching climax, each parent is mentally likening the other parent to Kim Jong-il. I worked on a couple of these cases at an early stage in my legal career, and the allegations that flew back and forth between the parents were ludicrous: e.g., Dad says that “Mom locks the kid in his room and starves him every time she has visitation,” then Mom says “Dad makes the kid watch him shag his girlfriend,” et cetera, et cetera, back and forth. There is never any evidence, of course, so the parents just both come across as the hate-filled loons that they are.
“Japan stands alone in the world in this regard.”
Actually, no, it doesn’t.
Isn’t the Hague Convention on Child Abduction a two-way street, and therefore the US doesn’t send children back to Japan either? I mean, yes, it’s still fan to blame Japan more since the US has signed and Japan hasn’t, but it’s just false to say that Japan is the only country not returning children.
Child abduction is a federal crime in the US and it is prosecuted even when the treaty does not apply; big difference from Japan.
Not if the “abducting” parent has custody in the US though, right? Then the foreign parent with custody abroad would be the criminal. I don’t see what the difference is when it ultimately comes down to US family court custody rulings.
When I said “no, it doesn’t,” I was referring to any number of nations that have not signed the treaty. In FY2009 more American children were abducted to India (34) than Japan (23). Around the same number, meanwhile, were abducted to the Philippines (20). None of these nations are signatories to the Hague convention. Actually, the convention doesn’t seem to be a deterrent. Roughly half of the 1,600 or so American children abducted were done so to treaty partners, and only about 400 abducted children were returned that same year.
Actually I think that Japan should sign the treaty, but – and here we go again – putting the Japanese in a box apart from everyone else and poking them with a stick to make them think they are some kind of freakshow will only reinforce the resentment they feel towards the measures you want them to take.
Actually, sorry, I was wrong. It’s not a federal crime–it’s a state crime, and not in all states. That means the treaty (a federal law) supersedes any relevant state laws with regard to applicable international abductions.
@Fat Tony: Be careful with those stats — who collected those numbers? There is no way that they could be exhaustive.
State Department. The point is that they show the degree of relativity.
Japanese citizens obviously can’t appeal to Hague to reclaim their children but they can still use local legal processes to do so. British, Irish and Danish courts have all ruled for the Japanese parent in such cases. That’s not some something a foreign parent has been able to do through Japanese courts.
I mentioned before that Hague is no magic bullet. Many of the high profile cases that we hear about in Japan wouldn’t now be covered by it not least because time is an important factor. The convention puts the child’s interest first so no return would be ordered if a court decides a child has put down roots in the country. There’s a window of about a year to act.
Many parents who appeal to Hague had no custody orders in their favour when their children were taken out the country. More typical cases are where one parent decides the marriage is over and decamps without telling their spouse. Consequently, it’s hardly surprising that Hague doesn’t always rule in favour of the left-behind parent. Tony’s figures indicating a 50% return rate for US applications is higher than I would have expected.
“The convention puts the child’s interest first so no return would be ordered if a court decides a child has put down roots in the country.”
Sounds like Chris Savoie would be at a disadvantage. His children were born in Japan and spent almost all of their lives there, and had only just arrived when he filed for divorce and used courts to force the mother and children to stay in America.
I think in his case the most he could have realistically hoped for is visitation rights in Japan, but the Japanese family law system’s preference towards sole custody with no visitation rights for the other parent is its own problem.
“Sounds like Chris Savoie would be at a disadvantage.”
Savoie would have had one of the strongest possible cases under Hague. His wife consented to the terms of his children’s residence in the US and she broke a court order by not returning with them.
Two different lines of discussion developing here. In the first, I think that it is worth pointing out that someone like me who wants Japan to sign the Hague Treaty in the end is only put off by the NK abduction comparison. I can see why parents might think that but this goes way beyond the parents – the same thing is often argued by supporters online.
In the second, one of the reasons why I support signing the Hague is that it very well could have improved Noriko Savoie’s awareness of international custody issues, the idea of country of habitual residence, etc. and from the beginning we might have seen a “just” resolution to this whole thing – a divorce in Japan and periods of visitation for Chris Savoie including, perhaps, a period each year when he could take the kids to the US. The ambiguous legal situation opened up no end of devious and/or desperate behavior in this case.
Oops, that last comment is also assuming that if Japan signed the Hague, there would also be some measures put into place to ensure visitation, etc.
Had another idea – from what I know of cases where a Japanese mother has ran from England, US, Australia, etc. with the kids (mostly from online descriptions by the fathers left behind) it seems as though there is a common pattern. 1. Divorce, 2. Japanese woman awarded primary or shared custody, 3. Dual-nationality children barred from traveling internationally. It seems that things are usually up in the air at stage 2, but at stage 3, many, including Noriko Savoie, run with the kids.
However, if Japan signed the Hague, wouldn’t US courts allow travel to Japan? So in effect, might not Japan’s not having signed the Hague be not only enabling child abduction, but actively inspiring the US court decisions which spark some/many immediate decisions to run? “Protecting” Japanese spouses abroad may be one motive for the Japanese government not signing in the past, but I wonder if this has actually precipitated situations that see them unable to move and led to desperation that wouldn’t have been as extreme otherwise.
Signing Hague is really only the first step. The US State Department identifies three criteria to assess compliance:
1. Central authority performance
2. Judicial performance
3. Legal enforcement performance
Their report last year identified Switzerland as one convention partner showing “patterns of non compliance” at the judicial and enforcement stages. The problem they identified is that Swiss courts seem to view a Hague hearing as an opportunity to make a custody ruling whereas it is supposed to determine which legal jurisdiction has the right to make that decision. Hague doesn’t instruct a child to be returned to a parent, rather it rules a child should be returned to a convention partner (in practice, of course, this generally works out to be the same).
Japan has signed international treaties (such as the convention outlawing bribery of foreign public officials) without any follow-up enforcement so there’s no way of knowing how Hague, with a much higher public profile, will be handled. If a Japanese court did order a child returned it would be bound to draw a lot of public attention. I wonder, if that did happen, whether the Japanese parent might be the one drawing comparisons with those North Korean abductions.
M-Bone, I’m surprised to hear the idea that some abductions are prompted by a court forbidding a Japanese parent to take the children for a visit to Japan. It is certainly plausible but, at least in Britain, no court has made such a ruling. If any court order has been breached in British cases, it hasn’t been on account of the parent leaving with the children, it’s because they didn’t come back. I’ve no idea about the situation in other courts but there are several cases similar to Savoie’s where the foreign parent has sought to ban travel but courts have ruled it allowable. I think judges are generally reluctant to punish an individual for the legal system in their home country and prefer to give the benefit of the doubt.
I also wonder whether the general awareness of Hague among foreigners in Japan is much higher than among their home populations. The convention may have some deterrent effect but a lot of abductions are undertaken by people who know nothing about it. In one case a couple of years ago, a British mother took her children back home from America and was shocked to discover she had to return them. She was quoted saying that she saw her actions as no different from moving out of a British husband’s home to go and live with her mother. Her problem was that only a British court could be involved in resolving custody in that instance but she had no right to insist a British court should rule in her case.
That’s right Mulboyne, I just put the UK in there absent-mindedly, but this seems to be more of a US thing (also seems that more US left-behind-fathers are taking to the net to tell their stories).
Concerning awareness, I recall earlier discussion of N. Savoie having sought divorce advice in Japan and the US. It is regrettable that she was not told at an early stage that a US court could ban the children from returning to Japan if she divorced there.
My experience is mostly with Canada and the US and I’ve had to write elaborate letters and make myself available for a phone call at times that my wife has crossed the US border with our son (for a day shopping trip!). She’s been made to wait over an hour just to check on custody status, etc. so it might not even be possible to bolt without awareness of international custody problems given these precautions. We don’t have any problems, and I don’t think that she looks particularly suspicious….
I’ve looked at a few dozen cases online and on a page like japanchildabduction dot com 5 of 6 abductions discussed seem to have taken place after a passport block / travel ban for the children and in the other case, the child was kidnapped before divorce.
Just to clarify – my wife and I aren’t divorced or anything. They really are strict.
*Leaving* the US is unfortunately extremely easy since there are no outbound immigration checks.
“Leaving the US is unfortunately extremely easy”
Yeah, I’m just not seeing the logic of my wife’s border hassle at all.
It’s possible that one effect of the Savoie case will be to make US judges more reluctant to allow children to travel to Japan. Especially if he has any success with his current lawsuit. His case is more about the process behind the decision to allow his ex-wife to travel rather than the decision itself but judges in future cases could conclude that the risk of repercussions from permitting travel will be greater than if they deny it.
How come all the juicy topic pops out when I’m completly cut off from internet?
I have things to say when I get back to the civilization.
Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll all be here when you get back.
“It’s possible that one effect of the Savoie case will be to make US judges more reluctant to allow children to travel to Japan.”
Still, suing A JUDGE is probably going to turn the whole darn club against him personally. I can’t see how he can expect to practice in Tennessee after having declared war on the local bench. I’ll say this for the guy – he isn’t afraid to throw down.
Plus, check this out from his Twitter – http://twitpic.com/2a3yjz
Is this creepy or am I just hitting a cultural difference here?
I assume Amy is an adult right? If so, well – we are talking about Tennessee here. I’ve never been, but from what I gather it seems pretty normal for out that way.
Savoie’s name came up on FG and I checked his twitter feed again. On the 6th October, he gives a link to a video feed of his testimony to the TN Senate Judiciary Committee the day before. He appears around 2:57:00 in. The hearing is his complaint against the judge who allowed Noriko to leave the country with their children.
It is not just Japan which is causing consternation, but also the United States too.
A Hague case is going before the US Supreme Court involving US government officials from the Hague Central Authority at the State Department who are implicated in aiding and abetting a child abduction from England.
The kid was then put up for an illegal adoption and given to a pedophile while being denied medical treatment which has allowed her to go blind in an eye.
The dad has a blog – http://emilyrosehindle.blogspot.com and is on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbweTH-HsBs
The deposition of the pedophile is also on Youtube (it’s a video depo):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkX9bCAgbew
This case has been dragging on for almost 8 years – delayed because the State Department officials, had the British father arrested, deported and banned from coming to the US.
A British TV piece is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5_78sF-TY
This phenomena is best viewed in two distinct ways, none of which is revenge. First it is simply a jurisdictional issue if the children were abducted from a country other than Japan. These abductions are criminal acts which as a matter of urgency should therefore be heard before the appropriate court within the original jurisdiction. This is a pillar of international law. Japan should stop using economic muscle to appease a populist desire to harbour criminals, which is then justified on the grounds of cultural uniqueness. Hopefully these courts will show leniency as often the children involved are young and the abductors are more often than not mothers. The children come first and their right to inheret their birthright: Dual nationality from birth must be enshrined retroactively and the abductors must be extradited and tried in an open and humane manner.
If the abduction happened inside Japan the issue is qualitatively distinct but still does not necessarily involve a complete readjustment of the Japanese family law. Japanese nationals who enter into relationships with foreign nationals are looking for something other than the norm, therefore the breakdown of these relationships could easily be managed outside standard Japanese family law norms. The children come first so all that is really required is for the Japanese authorities to acknowkledge that by depriving a mixed heritage child half their cultural inheretence more harm is being done to this mixed child than is being done to a Japanese child. The Japanese child is losing half their family inheretence, something I find barbaric, but none of their cultural inheretence. The point is the breakdown of wholy Japanese marriages is not my business. The breakdown of mixed relationships involves more than just the Japanese. Japan should stop acting in a tardy fashion, sign the requisite Hague conventions and begin to heal the wounds which have caused so much animosity towards Japan in general.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20101209a8.html
So wait, Savoie was suing a judge for helping his wife abduct their kids on what grounds?
It was probably planned to get the case back into the papers.
Still can’t see how he expects any sympathy from local judges after pulling this, however.
If you watch that video I mentioned above on Oct 13th, then you’ll learn all about the action Savoie wanted to take. I just checked, and it’s still online. ( I tried to link directly back then but the post didn’t make it through). Savoie appears at the 2:57:00 mark.
It does seem that he had a genuine complaint. The judge should not have offered to preside over the case and his attorney should have told Savoie that. I ended up listening to the whole hearing, including the other cases, and got the strong impression that a number of judges in that district seemed not to recuse themselves when common sense, or the law, says they ought to have done so.
Nevertheless, because he gave his consent to Judge Martin sitting, Savoie didn’t have much hope of taking any successful action against the man. Savoie tweeted the following after the decision:
“What they didn’t mention is Martin’s law firm was kept on the hook for his conduct. Bizarre ruling.”
No idea what that means. Possibly that Martin’s actions were thought to be inappropriate but that he couldn’t be held accountable through a prosecution.
I just got a “resource not found” on the video linked in his Twitter – am I doing something wrong?
Did find the court doc, however, and it seems as though going after Martin for something he did as a judge was just swinging for the fences while there seems to have been a legitimate beef over the earlier mediation –
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/tennessee/tnmdce/3:2010cv00327/47277/64/
While acting as judge, the guy seems to have provided his own “recollections” of the earlier confidential mediation hearings. While judicial immunity is obviously in effect, it certainly doesn’t make him immune to being thought a major @sshole.
I think some Twitter clients have an ampersand encoding issue so you might want to check that.
The end of the URL for the video should look like this: “MediaPlayer.php?view_id=107&clip_id=3304” but it won’t point to anything if the URL is rendered instead as something like “MediaPlayer.php?view_id=107&clip_id=3304”.
The beginning of the URL is “tngaDOTgranicusDOTcom” in case that gets through the spam filter.
Thanks for that, I was able to watch it.
Savoie was, it seems, painfully aware of the potential for blowback. He makes a reasonable case, but it doesn’t seem that he ever had much of a chance.
… I wasn’t entirely clear on this, but it seems like the judge testified in a case that he was adjudicating!?
@M-Bone
“The case was originally assigned to Circuit Court Judge Timothy Easter but got transferred to Martin, who had served as a mediator while the Savoies were divorcing. Before the hearing started Story told Martin that Christopher Savoie had no objection to his hearing the case. Martin asked Story and Savoie if they wanted to postpone the hearing Christopher Savoie told Martin he would “rather go through mediation,” according to a transcript.”
Source: The Tennessean: http://goo.gl/lVz1b
@Eido Inoue
Savoie’s argument was that Judge Martin had no business being offered the case, when Easter was no longer available, because he had already served as a mediator in arbitration between the couple. Martin ought to have known this and recused himself from the case. Indeed, a specific statute cited during the hearing seems to demand that Martin should have done this.
Instead, Martin asked Savoie’s attorney, Story, if she had any objections to him hearing the case. Savoie argues it was wrong for Martin to do that. He then argues that Story should have known this was wrong and objected. She didn’t, and failed to explain to Savoie that there was a legitimate reason why they could, and should, have objected. Savoie gave his consent to Martin sitting but was never made aware that it was highly irregular for him to take the case and his consent should not have been sought, let alone given.
The hearing at which Savoie spoke, recorded on video, was looking at how disciplinary procedures work for judges acting badly. What many of the cases revealed is that an attorney suggesting a judge might have a conflict can experience sudden career death. Assuming Story is a competent attorney, Judge Martin placed her in an invidious position. He was saying “I don’t think I’m conflicted, do you?” despite rules requiring him to recuse himself.
Martin’s conduct during the case demonstrated why he should not have been hearing the case. He frequently referred to discussions from the earlier arbitration which is a major reason why rules exist to stop such conflicts occurring.
The feeling seemed to be at the hearing – which wasn’t trying Savoie’s complaint – that he had been badly served by the judge but it was unlikely he would be allowed to pursue a complaint because he had given his consent to Martin taking the case.
It might sound like Savoie would have a strong case against his attorney but there was a good deal of sympathy for Story because everyone realized that she had been placed in an impossible position. It didn’t seem like anyone thought Savoie would succeed in any action against her because it sounds like she did what everyone else would have done. That case may still be outstanding, however.
Eido – I believe at one point in the video Savoie claims that Martin specifically asked to be assigned to the case, which adds another dimension to the problem.
“Martin ought to have known this and recused himself from the case. Indeed, a specific statute cited during the hearing seems to demand that Martin should have done this.”
Indeed, I agree fully with Mulboyne’s assessment here and there are two points that come to mind for me – First, if Savoie did give consent at any point, was he informed of possible problems and that it was against the rules? A layman should not be expected to know about these rules, given that some of the authorities at the hearing in the video did not know the details. Second, this evocation of judicial immunity does seem rather strange. There are rules for judges, but they seem unenforcible and likely to result in little more than the “stern letter” that Savoie describes, because of judicial immunity. The rules might prevent a judge from pulling a fast one, but if they do something dodgy, there is seemingly little supervision and no recourse.
Mulboyne, M-Bone: Interesting points (I have not seen the video, I’ve only read the justia doc above), thanks for the insight.
The most surprising part of the memorandum for me was the immunity for Woolverton and her alleged actions in withholding information about Noriko planing to leave and not relaying all info to Martin and resigning her position as coordinator so she didn’t have to contact Savoie anymore. [pg 15-16]
One thing’s for sure: things got very ugly really quickly in this overseas divorce.
Our hero also seems to have a new venture
http://www.tennmediators.org/christophersavoie/
Specializing in, inter alia, “business dissolution, divorce, and child custody & parenting plans.” I suppose you can’t argue with his experience.
“Christopher Savoie, M.D., Ph.D.”
Really? He’s an MD and PhD?
Apparently he got his PhD in 1995 and his MD in 1999.
What a cry-baby. I’m sure he married that woman simply because of his asian fetish that too many white males have today. He thought she’d be submissive and worship him because he’s white. Take him to the cleaners Japanese ex-wife of his!!!
Another major media story about Savoie, this time from Time.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2056454,00.html?xid=fbshare
It basically presents his side of the story unquestioningly, but at least it points out that the situation for international divorces/custody battles is just an extension of the situation for purely domestic situations, rather than a system that is extra biased against foreigners.
Let this be a lesson to ALL Asian and ethnic women ( men ) chasing a fantasy of marrying whites. You lose more than you gain. Western courts ALWAYS side with the WHITE parent – male or female.
If white men do not want to be in this mess, they should not have unprotected sex with non white women, You cannot deny a mixed child their ethnic heritage, roots, culture, family and country. Sickening to think white men want to have kids with Asian women, then raise the kids as white all american kids, with their white stepmothers. MIXED KIDS ARE NOT AND WILL NEVER BE WHITE.
This guy will never see the Asian kids again.
Now, I am hearing that he wants to sue the mom for $ 6. 1MILLION! LOL at this white man who thinks. His race and gender makes him superior.
To ethnic women with white men…make sure you embed your kids in YOUR culture. Don’t let them become all american. They are not. They are a part of your roots too. Make SURE they are as much your country as they are America. If white men want all american kids, they should sleep with all american women ONLY.
Mixed kids ARE NOT ALL AMERICAN LILLY WHITE KIDS. It is a duty for them to be as much Asian, Latin,Muslim and African as their white heritage. The funny thing is, mixed kids tend to look more ethnic than white.
Good thing ‘ ethnic ‘ countries are not apart of this crazy hague treaty.
People were screaming for Elin Nordegren to take Tiger Woods money and American born mixed race non white kids BACK to Sweden and raise them with a Swedish white man, yet they scream when non white foreign moms do the SAME THING?
Get smart, get savvy and get ruthless. He may me a white man from America, but he is not god, and has no right to treat like you are inferior to him.
Wow. I don’t even know who that’s offensive to!
(For those who missed it, I am alluding to the greatest SNL segment of the first Bush administration.)