“Governor Murphy's announcement today reinforces New Jersey's leadership in the protection and promotion of a woman's right to choose.”

“You thought you had found a primrose path…” Judge Marcy McMann

According to Silver v. Silver, there are three things that must be assessed before a court can enter an FRO:

1.    The parties’ particular relationship with one another.

2.    The alleged predicate act of domestic violence perpetrated by the defendant.

3.    A need to protect the alleged victim.

Judge Marcy McMann of the Superior Court of New Jersey put aside the law so that a vindictive man could weaponize the courts against his victim, as he had threatened to do if the victim did not get an abortion.

She put aside common sense as well, ruling that a 220lb man should have a final restraining order against his 115lb pregnant partner, giving him a weapon he continues to wield against his victim over a year later.  With the help of the Morris County Prosecutor's Office, the abuser is using the FRO given to him by McMann to not just avoid child support, but put his victim in jail so he can make good on his documented threat to “put the baby up for adoption” and punish the victim.  

   Again and again, the abuser makes transparently malicious claims that the indefensible FRO has been violated.  He invents phone numbers and identities, reaching out to harass the victim with cruel taunts, such as contacting her weeks before her due date to say (in the form of three different male first names with three different phone numbers) that all of her personal belongings, all of her clothes, furniture, sentimental items, were being destroyed.  
   The man then takes the victim's replies such as, "Who is this, what is your full name?" to the Morris County Prosecutor's Office and claims the FRO has been violated, as--after all--it was the man sending the threatening texts, and so the victim had unknowingly answered her abuser.  Your tax dollars pay for the torment inflicted on the victim from there.  

   He has now kept the woman involved with the court system for nearly 18 months with the weapon Judge McMann gave him.  He has never paid a dime in child support as the woman dares not file, which was part of his intended goal.  

    Judge McMann passed on the enormous cost of this vindictive campaign to the taxpayer when she indefensibly gave him a legal tool clearly secured to weaponize. Judge McMann also sentenced a baby to suffer alongside the victim, and passes the cost of the public benefits the mother now needs to the taxpayer, as well.

   Most unsettling of all, Judge McMann struck a blow against a woman’s right to choose:  she listened to the man testify—under oath—that he had attempted to coerce her with a $100,000.00 bribe to have an unwanted abortion.  She refused to consider that the victim had sought help the day immediately preceding the man’s legal attack, writing to a local domestic violence organization that the man was threatening to use his money to use the law against the victim.

    McMann listened to the man lie about the required predicate act, falsely claiming “broken skin,” blood running down his shin, ankle and calf.  McMann watched a video of the malicious litigant walking in shorts taken minutes after police had arrived, showing his uninjured leg. McMann merely shrugged and demonstrated her commitment to ruling against the pregnant victim, saying “It could’ve bruised later.” 

    McMann similarly refused to be reasonable in the face of overwhelming evidence that the man was in fact abusive and controlling; the victim had to concoct an excuse to leave the residence to seek prenatal care at a crisis pregnancy center, because going to a doctor was against the man's "rules," as the victim had written to a local domestic violence group the day before the man attacked her.  McMann mocked this as a "spa trip" and continued to refer to "your spa trips" and "trips to the spa" the entirety of the trial, despite neither side even once referring to a spa. 

   McMann was both sexist and unreasonable in claiming the victim was a gold-digger who "thought [she] had found a primrose path." The victim had refused to see the malicious litigant for a period of ten months, and received over 100 presents from him during that time, a clear rebuttal to his claim at trial that the victim was a "gold digger" and more interested in him than he was in her. 
   McMann simply was determined to appease a wealthy man and his attorney, a former colleague of hers and a prominent figure in the local legal community, justice be damned. 

    McMann demeaned the victim with gendered (and false) stereotypes and abused her with sexist language and insults.  McMann also committed legal error again and again, consistently to the detriment of the victim.  McMann's unethical judicial conduct began before the trial's commencement, interfering with the victim's civil rights to place her at a disadvantage at trial, and weaponizing her non-participation in efforts ordered by the Chief Justice of the Family Part to resolve the matter before trial.  
  McMann denied the victim, then pregnant and homeless and forced to appear as a pro se litigant, the opportunity to ask a relevant police officer a simple "yes" or "no" question by taking over questioning the witness herself.  A former prosecutor, McMann is familiar with police procedure and knew that claims made by the malicious litigant regarding police involvement in the matter were false, as police are simply not privy to the civil matter the malicious litigant lied about in any case.  The victim had also brought the relevant documents to the courtroom documenting the man's lie.  McMann never once commented on the matter.
  McMann refused to allow the victim to call her doctor as a witness, leaving the doctor on hold for five hours.  The doctor had witnessed the malicious litigant's abusive and controlling behavior when the malicious litigant had ripped the phone out of the pregnant woman's hand during a telehealth video call and begun screaming concerning statements.  According to McMann his testimony could not be admitted as he had not been there in person.  Again, this was a video call.  
  Her misconduct continued after the trial, refusing the victim an indigent fee waiver for appeal despite being forced to find her indigent, and further subjecting her to sexist and demeaning attacks.  
   McMann claimed in her written waiver denial that a "wealthy family friend" had paid for the appellate attorney and that the victim was living with this "male family friend,” furthering her offensive “gold digger” narrative. Neither contention is true: a GoFundMe had been made by the victim's friends, which paid for the appellate lawyer. McMann enjoys this undignified sort of sexist slander, and enjoys depriving female defendants of their rights under the law.  

  There is no training or education that can redeem Marcy McMann as fit for the bench.  Because of the scandal involving Judge James Troiano in 2019, McMann had to postpone a hearing in this case to receive judicial training, as she was then newly appointed.  While this petition wishes to acknowledge that there were legal issues not widely reported that affected the tenor of the general public response to the Honorable Troiano issue, Marcy McMann received her ‘Troiano Training’ and still chose to behave and speak as she did.  

Anything proscribed, denounced or condemned by the judicial ‘Troiano Training’ should be held against McMann to the fullest possible extent.  Why?

Because Marcy McMann spoke every undignified word from her seat on the Judge’s bench to the face of her longtime colleague, former prosecutor Matthew Troiano.

Yes: Representing the abuser was Judge James Troiano’s son, well known to McMann from their time together in the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office.

Today in McMann’s courtroom, any wealthy and malicious man can try to coerce a pregnant woman into an unwanted abortion with McMann giving him the power & the legitimacy of the law.  Any man with enough money to hire a former prosecutor can punish a woman for leaving him or not doing as he says, as long as he arranges to have Marcy McMann as a judge.

In a room where a man named Troiano stood facing her, McMann disgraced the bench. To recall Judge McMann, Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey or either house of the New Jersey State Legislature can instigate removal proceedings. Or the Supreme Court of New Jersey can file its own motion to remove Judge McMann.  It is unknown what can be done to grant the indigent victim the indigent transcript fee waiver McMann refuses her.  

   Sign this petition to convince those in power to remove Judge Marcy McMann and to protect yourselves and your loved ones.

 Please educate yourself about coercive control and domestic violence, and take threats as seriously as punches.  

Links:

https://www.change.org/p/governor-phil-murphy-recall-judge-troiano

https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/after-abuse/it-s-post-separation-legal-abuse-not-high-conflict-divorce