Legal Assistance with Visitation

love muffin · #1 05-17-2002, 12:33 PM

Okay Guys, For all of you that have read the story, you know that the NCDOC took my visitation privileges away from me.
This was in October of 2001. I have been trying ever since to regain those privileges to no avail. NOW I NEED EVERYONE'S IDEAS AND HELP.

I received a letter today from the NC General Assembly House of Representatives. They are telling me to file a law-suit. This is my thinking: I cannot afford an attorney right now. Do any of you know an attorney who could help me to at least write a letter using the attorney's name to the Secretary of Corrections stating something like this:

My client Renee Cerniglia has hired me for employment in her pursuit in obtaining her visitations rights with her Fiancee who is incarcerated in the NCDOC. According to the NCDOC Ex-Employee Policy at the time she was employed, she could visit after 6 months had past from her last day of employment. Due to her short time employed there Nov 14, 2000 thru Dec 03, 2000 her right to visit with an inmate in the NCDOC is valid.

Ms Cerniglia is a model citizen with no criminal record. She is of no risk to the NCDOC, security or otherwise.

Therefore I am requesting that you reinstate Ms. Cerniglia's privileges immediately to avoid a future lawsuit. END

Of course I realize an attorney could find out the exact policies then and now and make this letter sound much better. The Consulting Firm that tried to help me with this I believe failed because he had no legal backing. He was not an attorney.

Also if I can't find an attorney, could I write a letter such as this making it look as if it came from an attorney and do it legally?

Does anyone know an internet site of any kind that could help? FYI I have tried the Rutherford Institute and they told me they could not help me.

I really need your opinions and help in any way possible. D Johnson has been trying to help me come up with an idea on how to get a copy of the DOC Employee Policies. Does anyone know how to do this without having to pay an arm and a leg? They are not listed on the internet, just the NC inmate policies.

Help Help I feel my hands are in

Thank you,

Budwoman · #2 05-17-2002, 12:56 PM

IT'S GREAT WE FINALLY GOT A POSITIVE RESPONSE, BUT NOT SO GREAT THAT WE NEED TO HIRE AN ATTORNEY. ESPECAILLY SINCE YOU JUST PAID $700 TO GROVER JONES.... AND BETWEEN THE TWO OF US, WE HAVE PUT OUT $10,000 IN HEARINGS AND PAROLE APPLICATIONS...

BUT, AT LEAST, WE DO KNOW NOW THAT WE DO HAVE A LEGAL OPTION....

THERE MUST BE SOME ATTORNEY OUT THERE WHO WILL WORK WITH A FEE CHARGED WHEN WE WIN.... SURELY...

GOD BLESS YOU MY SWEET GIRL.... THIS IS ONE BATTLE MAYBE WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT...

MY LOVE

MOM

DJohnson · #3 05-17-2002, 01:06 PM

Renee....

I could possibly have an idea or 2 for you in the lawyer department. It may take just a little bit though. EJ's cell mate knows quite a bit about the law. He is helping him currently in EJ taking his Police Brutality lawsuit on his own. What I could do is print up your post & send it to EJ, get his opinion on it & talk to his cell mate & see what he can come up with. I believe EJ may still be able to get in contact with or he could give me the info. on a lawyer he met in the county jail that originally gave him the idea to take the lawsuit on himself.

I say it may take a bit because the prison is still on lockdown so I will have to write EJ. The mailroom has been screwing w/his letters & he doesn't get them until like 5-6 days later. Which is crap because I get his in 2...anyway getting off track. I am

issed at the prison right now & I want an excuse to snap on them all!!

Once EJ calls me I will talk to him about it, but I am still going to print this up & send it out to him. That way he can have the total info. on your situation & get some good ideas from there.

Renee girl you know I am here for you & like I said in yesterday's e-mail if it costs an arm & a leg to have the booklet sent to me it will be MONEY WELL SPENT, ok? For you & Butch to be able to see each other...HEAVEN!

Take care!
Diona

love muffin · #4 05-17-2002, 03:24 PM

Thanks Diona I would appreciate anything that you could come up with!!!!!! I just want to make sure I do this the right way.

jdswifey02 · #5 05-17-2002, 03:47 PM

Renee...
Any decent attorney should offer a free initial consultation.. and if all you are asking them to do is write a letter, they should be able to charge you a very minimal fee to do just that.... you could let them know that is all you want for now to see what would happen.... Have you tried talking to any attorneys in the area?? When I started searching for an attorney, I searched the web and found the Illinois Bar Association website and could search all the "registered" lawyers by specialty... "Inmate Rights" was one of those specialties.... They would at least be the ones to contact because they should have some background knowledge of DOC policies and/or how to get the specific info you need..... Have you ever tried requesting that specific policy in writing from the state office of the NCDOC... it seems to me like it would be your right to know what the policy says considering you are an ex-employee.....

**David** · #6 05-17-2002, 04:10 PM

I think what you are wanting to do is legally apply pressure to the D.O.C. and see what gives. Are they willing to fight this?
What I think would be most effective is to locate a "free world" attorney that will brand his name on the paperwork, state that you have retained him to pursue this to the end of this earth, and that is ready to fight them. Of course, you cannot afford to do this, but you need to make the DOC think you are. I think you can find an attorney that would be willing to draft a letter like this for a few hundred dollars, maybe even free??
I wouldn't create a ficticious letter, or one from anything less that a genuine attorney, because if they did find out it was "hollow", they would do their best to ruin your future visitations. I am sure someone from the D.O.C.'s legal department will probably contact whatever lawyer you hire just to ask him a few questions, etc.
Do it right and you very well could get your priv's back with little money spent.

David

love muffin · #7 05-20-2002, 09:12 AM

Thanks Shawna & David

I will try to find one who can do just the letter. I haven't been able to find one in this area that wants to get involved but surely there is one somewhere.

torrey · #8 05-20-2002, 10:25 AM

Hey Renee,
I'm going to play the Devil's Advocate here.

You are going to have to file suit against the DOC and over turn the law in place. The law is to protect inmates from employees of the system that has the authority to take advantage of those inprisoned. The claim it is consensual "love" does not apply any more. Legally there is no such thing.

1.) Your claim to only work there a short time, and have a consensual love with a prisoner is not a defense but an admission that you broke the rules.

2.) Your claim that you were aloud to visit for 6 months is also a false defense. It was a flaw in the system that allowed the visit to happen in the first place. So that won't hold water either.

This is the way I'm looking at this. Only a legal marriage would remove the DOC from the liablitity of employee(x-employee) prisoner relationship issue. Which is the bases of the law. It would give legal authority of contract that would relieve responsiblitly that DOC allowed consensual fraternization.

love muffin · #9 05-20-2002, 11:03 AM

Okay Torrey,

I agree with #1. But the Ex-Employee policy on visiting inmates at the time that I was employed was once an Ex-Employee had been away from the DOC for 6 months they could visit with any inmate in the NCDOC, so my visits from June 3, 2001 until they supposeably changed the policy was valid. I don't see how they can let you visit for all that time and then take it away due to a new policy, if in fact this policy does exist. I haven't been able to obtain a copy of the Policy.

torrey · #10 05-20-2002, 11:16 AM

Of course I don't know the actual written policy either. Like I explained I'm playing devil's advocate and talking like the DOC idiots. LOL

I'm just going by what I heard on the news.
There was a case it must have been settled by now but it was over a woman parolee that had a mutaul friendship with a CO. He offered her a place to stay ( He owned rent houses) and help in looking for a job. Even though she was paroled out the DOC found out and forced him to retire.

The parolee later sued DOC and the retired CO for him coercing her to stay at his rent house. She claimed in the suit it was not consensual balhhhh,,,,,blahh...... blah....

So the DOC ended any form of "mutual" relationship including prisoner visits with employees or x-employees"

In other words Butch could claim you were forcing him to communicate with him by just the power of you being a former employee. You could have a hold of some kind over him. Such as you still have CO friends that could rough him up if he did not continue the relationship.

Sounds crazy but I believe this is where they are coming from. They fear legal reprimands from this directions. And so the legisltion passed laws as such.

I'm not agreeing Renee, I'm just trying to show you where you are going to have to fight this thing.

love muffin · #11 05-20-2002, 11:33 AM

Oh I understand what you saying. I just feel that there may be a small chance to make them keep me under the old policy and not the new one, see what I mean. See, they knew I was visited with Butch before and they didn't care until I started writing letters and pissing them off. They realized I knew too much about how the system works and they said " well we will show her" Ha Ha

Shortie · #12 05-20-2002, 08:29 PM

let say something i called a friend of mine who is a paralegal and she said that the policy is only valid if you were employed by the doc when it was implemented.. Just make sure you point this out when you are contacting an attorney

love muffin · #13 05-21-2002, 08:53 AM

Thanks Shortie, Does that mean that the policy was inforced while I was there or it was created while I was there. Because it was a policy when I was employed.

soraya · #14 05-21-2002, 08:57 AM

sorry I can't be of any help with this question, I just want to wish you both good luck with this!!

bookgirl · #15 05-26-2002, 03:27 PM

The DOC will go to great lengths to discourage inmate involvement with employees or former employees, and I think the main reason is because it is, above all, a security risk.

I know women who have lost their jobs at the DOC over becoming involved with an inmate, and once they were no longer employed, they still were not allowed to visit. I've seen former employees get by with a few visits, but as soon as the DOC figures out they're dealing with a former employee, they pull the plug on visits.

I don't want to say that your case is hopeless, but I do think that the DOC probably had enough policies in place before you ever went to work for them to bury you in court. I concur with Torrey on everything except the marriage issue. I seriously doubt the DOC would EVER allow you to marry this man while he's still in prison.

Just as a word of warning to you...You never know who is monitoring this website. I'd be extremely careful about putting too much identifying information on these boards. Anything you say here can be read by anyone in the whole world, including DOC officials. Be careful.