My question involves restraining orders in the State of: New Jersey
I should preface this by saying that I do not care if I out myself because I have nothing to hide in this world nor do I care what anyone thinks about me. However, nothing I say will allow me, the victim, or any other parties to be identified, and all the details are necessary, so I apologize that this is going to be a really long post.
I recently was present as the party seeking the dissolution of a restraining order through a Carfagno Hearing. I do not believe a just ruling was rendered by the judge who apparently put his personal views into the decision to keep the restraining order in place.
Background:
In October 2013 I met a girl through an online dating site. We went on two great dates and then went on a third date where she judged me critically by extremely shallow measures. I also presume she might have met someone else through the dating site with whom she had a fling or became more physically attracted to. In any case, she started to engage in dodgy behavior and started lying to me in her text messages and making excuses to prolong going on a date again. Eventually she agreed to another date, but the day before we were supposed to go on the date, she sent me an ungracious, curt text essentially telling me "I am not the girl for you. I will not be responding to your calls or texts anymore. Have a nice life."
I was shocked because I did not expect such behavior from someone who I thought was morally upright and honest. I gave her the benefit of the doubt with her lies in the preceding week ("Cell phone died on Thanksgiving"; "I'll text you tomorrow by noon"). Anyway, I was indignant, angry, and hurt because this wasn't the first time this had happened to me, but I held her to a higher standard than some of the other girls I had dated in the past because she went to a good college, was planning to go to medical school, and was only in this state for a two-year job assignment. At any rate, I exercised extremely poor judgment and texted and called her incessantly (she never picked up) for the next two weeks. I never said anything threatening, I just wanted answers and tried to persuade her that she was making a huge mistake by not giving me another chance because we had such a great time on our first two dates and I couldn't understand what was going on.
One night, upset that she would not even hear me out, I drafted a long letter explaining the extremely disadvantaged circumstances I come from and then explaining why what she did to me was wrong and why it'd be a good idea to give me another shot. I went to a set of two basketball games I knew she'd be at. After the first or two games was over that night, she walked to an isolated part of the gym and I went over to talk to her. I calmly explained that I was no threat to her and had only come to give her the letter because she would not listen to me. At first she said she was scared that I had shown up and then she started to say that "she wasn't feeling it on the 3rd date" and that "she couldn't see herself even being just friends with me" and then she used the incessant texts and calls as an excuse. Then it finally came to light what her real issue with me was. She is three inches taller than me and made a hand gesture to signify that she was not satisfied with my lack of height. This did not affect me because it was inane and vapid, but I was just surprised that someone who purports to care about so many social causes could harbor such discriminatory prejudices.
After that night, a few days passed and she logged back into the dating site and went to check my profile two or three times and then she logged out. I was frustrated that she had the nerve to do that so I sent her a message that was song lyrics to a song about abandonment and she deleted her dating site profile. The next day I made the last in my series of awful decisions and called her from a stranger's cell phone, surprised that she had blocked my number, but I didn't get to say much before the stranger wanted it back. Long story short, she filed a harassment charge that night, we went to family court a week before the trial and she got a final restraining order against me, but did not follow through with the charge because of how emotional the FRO hearing was, so it was dismissed without prejudice.
Fast-forward to the present time (one year later). I am matriculating at a Top 30 law school this fall with a full tuition scholarship and want this restraining order removed. It simply serves no purpose anymore. I have no criminal record, never made any threats to her, regret ever meeting her, and have no desire to ever see her again. Additionally, her address and place of employment changed so I would have no way of possibly getting in contact with her if I were a threat to contact her again.
On Friday we had the Carfagno hearing. I spent nearly $200 to get the transcript from the hearing last year and the original date was postponed because I was never informed that I needed the transcript by the court until I showed up for the first hearing and had spent five hours in court. Additionally, I paid $100 in court fees for the FRO last year, paid about $60 in parking garages fees (+ gas expenses) because the original FRO hearing last year kept getting postponed because her dodgy self kept not appearing in court. So I expended a lot of time and money throughout this whole ordeal. I was entered in the state domestic violency registry after the FRO hearing even though I am a peaceable person with no criminal history whatsoever.
I don't want to go off on a tangent I'm just trying to explain the entire situation. So back to the Carfagno hearing. I start by presenting my argument. Carfagno requires certains factors be met for the continued existence of a restraining order. The factors that this judged weighed most heavily were that the victim still has a "rational and objective fear" of me and that she's acting in "good faith" in opposing my motion to dissolve the order. I tell the judge that I have no criminal history, no problems with the law at all, have gone on dates with several women since Oct. 2013 with no issues, the original judge from last year put the FRO in place because he saw it as a deterrent force to prevent future acts of DV by me even though I obviously was not capable or inclined to commit them, and that circumstances had changed in such a way that any fear on the victim's part at this point would be both subjective and irrational.
The victim then went saying that she still fears me even though she is unsure of whether the fear is subjective or objective and she would only feel comfortable with MAYBE having the order dissolved when she moves out of the state to hopefully attend med school and I move out to go to the T30 law school. Anyway, she brought up something I said in the letter to her "Have you seen me on the 6 o'clock news with chloroform and a hand cloth?". She said that line still resonated with her and scared her. I wrote that in the letter because I was sickened by her rash judgments of me and was simply stating that I'm not the deranged stalker she so desperately wanted me to be to justify her own amoral actions.
So anyway, she didn't present any real arguments of value to keep the order in place. In my rebuttal I explained that there is zero chance of my contacting her as it is not only impossible based on the change in circumstances, but also because: 1) I would never want to talk to someone who tried to ruin my life when legal measures were unnecessary and 2) I would not jeopardize everything that I worked for in life to overcome my socioeconomically disadvantaged upbringing to contact some callous girl. The reason I jeopardized it last year was because I saw the situation through a risk-reward analysis where I felt I could reach her and change her mind about me.
I also explained that I think I understood the reasons why she ended our relationship (for lack of a better word) the way she did and I was sure they were quite disgusting ones. Anyway, fast-forward to the ruling. The judge said that in rendering his decision he would be considering only the way things are on February 27, 2015 and not as they were last year. Then he proceeds to mention that my language today has been troubling and that he found the chloroform reference alarming (a reference to something I mentioned in a letter over a year ago when he just said he would only be considering the present day factors). He said that based on my language and the victim's opposition to the order that he found both an objective fear and good cause to keep the order in place.
I responded by saying that I did not understand his reasoning and how any of my "language" created an objective fear. I asked him to explain how exactly there was an objective fear present when everything I said in court suggested that I wanted nothing to do with her and pointed toward recurrences of future acts of DV entirely unlikely. He said "look I'm not here to argue with you" and repeated his ruling.
I then asked him "What would be an acceptable timeframe to dissolve this order since you say that 1 year is not enough even though 5, 10, 15 years won't change this situation whatsover?"
He responded by saying "I'm not your legal counsel."
Are you telling me that now I'm going to have to order ANOTHER transcript (Remember, I ordered the one from the FRO last year because that judge retired so the judge from the Carfagno hearing needed it to familiarize himself with the proceedings of the FRO hearing) and now I have to come back to this state in a few years time just to get an order that SHOULD have been dissolved on Friday removed?
So now because of this judge's awful ruling where he simply did not like that I did not show contrition (I did actually. I said that my actions were wrong and criminal and that everything I said was not meant to make me a "victim" it was simply explaining WHY I did what I did. There are explanations behind things, FYI. I'm not some mindless brute who just terrorized her out of the blue)????
Can I appeal this ruling or do I really have to waste MORE time and money in a few years to get this restraining order dissolved by saying the exact same things I said in court on Friday? (Oh, but right it'll be different because now more time has passed. What is this a Lifetime movie?)
I really don't have time for this. Going by the factors enumerated in Carfagno there was NO reason for this order to stay in place. The fear is not objective and rational. There is zero chance that I contact her again. "Good cause"? Please. She doesn't have good cause. I know her and she's obstinate and egotistical and feels that my getting the order dissolved would make her feel embarrassed about the whole situation so she wanted it kept in place to make herself feel like it was always justified and I'm a menace to women worldwide. I really want this nonsense to go away. Any advice going forward?
I should preface this by saying that I do not care if I out myself because I have nothing to hide in this world nor do I care what anyone thinks about me. However, nothing I say will allow me, the victim, or any other parties to be identified, and all the details are necessary, so I apologize that this is going to be a really long post.
I recently was present as the party seeking the dissolution of a restraining order through a Carfagno Hearing. I do not believe a just ruling was rendered by the judge who apparently put his personal views into the decision to keep the restraining order in place.
Background:
In October 2013 I met a girl through an online dating site. We went on two great dates and then went on a third date where she judged me critically by extremely shallow measures. I also presume she might have met someone else through the dating site with whom she had a fling or became more physically attracted to. In any case, she started to engage in dodgy behavior and started lying to me in her text messages and making excuses to prolong going on a date again. Eventually she agreed to another date, but the day before we were supposed to go on the date, she sent me an ungracious, curt text essentially telling me "I am not the girl for you. I will not be responding to your calls or texts anymore. Have a nice life."
I was shocked because I did not expect such behavior from someone who I thought was morally upright and honest. I gave her the benefit of the doubt with her lies in the preceding week ("Cell phone died on Thanksgiving"; "I'll text you tomorrow by noon"). Anyway, I was indignant, angry, and hurt because this wasn't the first time this had happened to me, but I held her to a higher standard than some of the other girls I had dated in the past because she went to a good college, was planning to go to medical school, and was only in this state for a two-year job assignment. At any rate, I exercised extremely poor judgment and texted and called her incessantly (she never picked up) for the next two weeks. I never said anything threatening, I just wanted answers and tried to persuade her that she was making a huge mistake by not giving me another chance because we had such a great time on our first two dates and I couldn't understand what was going on.
One night, upset that she would not even hear me out, I drafted a long letter explaining the extremely disadvantaged circumstances I come from and then explaining why what she did to me was wrong and why it'd be a good idea to give me another shot. I went to a set of two basketball games I knew she'd be at. After the first or two games was over that night, she walked to an isolated part of the gym and I went over to talk to her. I calmly explained that I was no threat to her and had only come to give her the letter because she would not listen to me. At first she said she was scared that I had shown up and then she started to say that "she wasn't feeling it on the 3rd date" and that "she couldn't see herself even being just friends with me" and then she used the incessant texts and calls as an excuse. Then it finally came to light what her real issue with me was. She is three inches taller than me and made a hand gesture to signify that she was not satisfied with my lack of height. This did not affect me because it was inane and vapid, but I was just surprised that someone who purports to care about so many social causes could harbor such discriminatory prejudices.
After that night, a few days passed and she logged back into the dating site and went to check my profile two or three times and then she logged out. I was frustrated that she had the nerve to do that so I sent her a message that was song lyrics to a song about abandonment and she deleted her dating site profile. The next day I made the last in my series of awful decisions and called her from a stranger's cell phone, surprised that she had blocked my number, but I didn't get to say much before the stranger wanted it back. Long story short, she filed a harassment charge that night, we went to family court a week before the trial and she got a final restraining order against me, but did not follow through with the charge because of how emotional the FRO hearing was, so it was dismissed without prejudice.
Fast-forward to the present time (one year later). I am matriculating at a Top 30 law school this fall with a full tuition scholarship and want this restraining order removed. It simply serves no purpose anymore. I have no criminal record, never made any threats to her, regret ever meeting her, and have no desire to ever see her again. Additionally, her address and place of employment changed so I would have no way of possibly getting in contact with her if I were a threat to contact her again.
On Friday we had the Carfagno hearing. I spent nearly $200 to get the transcript from the hearing last year and the original date was postponed because I was never informed that I needed the transcript by the court until I showed up for the first hearing and had spent five hours in court. Additionally, I paid $100 in court fees for the FRO last year, paid about $60 in parking garages fees (+ gas expenses) because the original FRO hearing last year kept getting postponed because her dodgy self kept not appearing in court. So I expended a lot of time and money throughout this whole ordeal. I was entered in the state domestic violency registry after the FRO hearing even though I am a peaceable person with no criminal history whatsoever.
I don't want to go off on a tangent I'm just trying to explain the entire situation. So back to the Carfagno hearing. I start by presenting my argument. Carfagno requires certains factors be met for the continued existence of a restraining order. The factors that this judged weighed most heavily were that the victim still has a "rational and objective fear" of me and that she's acting in "good faith" in opposing my motion to dissolve the order. I tell the judge that I have no criminal history, no problems with the law at all, have gone on dates with several women since Oct. 2013 with no issues, the original judge from last year put the FRO in place because he saw it as a deterrent force to prevent future acts of DV by me even though I obviously was not capable or inclined to commit them, and that circumstances had changed in such a way that any fear on the victim's part at this point would be both subjective and irrational.
The victim then went saying that she still fears me even though she is unsure of whether the fear is subjective or objective and she would only feel comfortable with MAYBE having the order dissolved when she moves out of the state to hopefully attend med school and I move out to go to the T30 law school. Anyway, she brought up something I said in the letter to her "Have you seen me on the 6 o'clock news with chloroform and a hand cloth?". She said that line still resonated with her and scared her. I wrote that in the letter because I was sickened by her rash judgments of me and was simply stating that I'm not the deranged stalker she so desperately wanted me to be to justify her own amoral actions.
So anyway, she didn't present any real arguments of value to keep the order in place. In my rebuttal I explained that there is zero chance of my contacting her as it is not only impossible based on the change in circumstances, but also because: 1) I would never want to talk to someone who tried to ruin my life when legal measures were unnecessary and 2) I would not jeopardize everything that I worked for in life to overcome my socioeconomically disadvantaged upbringing to contact some callous girl. The reason I jeopardized it last year was because I saw the situation through a risk-reward analysis where I felt I could reach her and change her mind about me.
I also explained that I think I understood the reasons why she ended our relationship (for lack of a better word) the way she did and I was sure they were quite disgusting ones. Anyway, fast-forward to the ruling. The judge said that in rendering his decision he would be considering only the way things are on February 27, 2015 and not as they were last year. Then he proceeds to mention that my language today has been troubling and that he found the chloroform reference alarming (a reference to something I mentioned in a letter over a year ago when he just said he would only be considering the present day factors). He said that based on my language and the victim's opposition to the order that he found both an objective fear and good cause to keep the order in place.
I responded by saying that I did not understand his reasoning and how any of my "language" created an objective fear. I asked him to explain how exactly there was an objective fear present when everything I said in court suggested that I wanted nothing to do with her and pointed toward recurrences of future acts of DV entirely unlikely. He said "look I'm not here to argue with you" and repeated his ruling.
I then asked him "What would be an acceptable timeframe to dissolve this order since you say that 1 year is not enough even though 5, 10, 15 years won't change this situation whatsover?"
He responded by saying "I'm not your legal counsel."
Are you telling me that now I'm going to have to order ANOTHER transcript (Remember, I ordered the one from the FRO last year because that judge retired so the judge from the Carfagno hearing needed it to familiarize himself with the proceedings of the FRO hearing) and now I have to come back to this state in a few years time just to get an order that SHOULD have been dissolved on Friday removed?
So now because of this judge's awful ruling where he simply did not like that I did not show contrition (I did actually. I said that my actions were wrong and criminal and that everything I said was not meant to make me a "victim" it was simply explaining WHY I did what I did. There are explanations behind things, FYI. I'm not some mindless brute who just terrorized her out of the blue)????
Can I appeal this ruling or do I really have to waste MORE time and money in a few years to get this restraining order dissolved by saying the exact same things I said in court on Friday? (Oh, but right it'll be different because now more time has passed. What is this a Lifetime movie?)
I really don't have time for this. Going by the factors enumerated in Carfagno there was NO reason for this order to stay in place. The fear is not objective and rational. There is zero chance that I contact her again. "Good cause"? Please. She doesn't have good cause. I know her and she's obstinate and egotistical and feels that my getting the order dissolved would make her feel embarrassed about the whole situation so she wanted it kept in place to make herself feel like it was always justified and I'm a menace to women worldwide. I really want this nonsense to go away. Any advice going forward?
Termination: Unjust Ruling in Carfagno Hearing
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