There's this new judge in Los Angeles county, downtown at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, named Anne Richardson. She's a former sexual-harassment litigator. I was in her court last month while she served as a temporary judge during COVID, and watched the following scene unfold.

A tall, meek, mid-20s black man had been hit with a restraining order hearing for keeping his son past an exchange date. He was trying to recoup custody after his ex suspended 5 months from February, misusing COVID to keep her child from his father even though custody orders were still in full force and effect during quarantine.

The judge didn't care. She referred to his actions as abusive, ignoring and justifying mother's equally "abusive" actions. She gave him a choice: return his child an give up on the time he lost, or she would be forced to seriously consider granting the order and suspending his custody. She was strong-arming him with criminal possibility, to the detriment of his child.

He folded. Of course he folded. In the hallway, while he was discussing with what appeared to be his mother as his sisters and their children and his happy AF son stood by, one of his sisters said out loud, "She gets to steal him for five months and you get threatened after just a few days? This is bullshit." She caught my eye and I nodded, affirming.

That might've been a mistake because at that moment her brother started walking down the hall with her nephew and the combination of the two gave her power. She got louder and louder, shouting "No justice for men! This ain't fair, he needs a father!" Her sister got involved too. Sheriff's poured out from the court rooms and a female black bailiff took point to calm the sisters down, taking the action stance with other sheriff's behind her.

The worst of it was the sisters were right. This sort of gender discrimination is illegal and prohibited by the judicial code of conduct. Richardson could and should have protected the child's stability. Had he rejected her offer, the judge probably wouldn't have taken action, or if she had, she would have overstepped and he could have appealed and won.

It will likely take a series of ongoing appeals for the other judges notice and to deal with Richardson's anti-male bias. Or someone will have to run a counter election campaign against her seat. More likely, she will continue to misuse law to "help" women being "abused" by joint custody, harming men and their children.