THE ERA LITIGATION FUND
& PROTECTIVE MOTHERS’ ERA CASES ON APPEAL
NATIONAL ERA & PROTECTIVE MOTHERS’ ATTORNEY, ARLAINE ROCKEY, ESQ., IS REPRESENTING THREE PROTECTIVE MOTHERS WHO LOST CUSTODY OF THEIR SEXUALLY &/OR PHYSICALLY ABUSED CHILDREN TO THEIR ALLEGED ABUSERS (THE children’s FATHERS), SEEKING JUSTICE IN THE NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS USING THE FULLY-RATIFIED EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT. PLANNING TO GO TO U.S. SUPREME COURT AND WILL ASK EACH COURT TO DECLARE THAT
THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT
IS THE VALID 28TH AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION.
To reach Attorney Arlaine Rockey regarding press, speaking, podcasts, questions about the ERA LITIGATION FUND, requests that your organization become an Amicus listed on the main Amicus Brief which will be about the ERA’s validity (include info about org, website, interest in ERA, and questions you might have) or if your organization and or others want to submit its own Amicus Brief. All Amicus Briefs will likely need to be done by November 1, 2025. [NOTE: The same Amicus Brief by each group can be filed in all of the three ERA cases on appeal. If we go to the N.C. Supreme Court, you may want to refresh your Amicus Brief, but it should still be filed in all cases on appeal to the N.C. Supreme Court, and the same goes for the U.S. Supreme Court. I’m hoping we’ll have at least one of the cases get to the U.S. Supreme Court]. (In your email with the form at the bottom of this page, include info about each org, who your Amicus attorney will or might be and their contact info and website, the orgs’ websites, interest in ERA or Protective Mothers, and questions you might have) or general questions about the cases, please use the contact form at the bottom of the page. Please understand that her clients’ identities must remain confidential. Ms. Rockey will forward your Amicus questions to the appropriate person. [Some helpful Amicus topics may be: The effects on abused children having to live with their abuser, enduring more abuse, having to lie to professionals under duress or threats of additional abuse, emotional effects on the children of losing their mothers, the safe parent; The effects on the Protective Mothers in these situation, some have even committed suicide, because of the incredible loss, discrimination, and inability to protect and sometimes even to communicate with their children; The Common Law and how it created the inherent legal discrimination against women, and made them a suspect class; The Constitutionality of the ERA; Why the ERA is needed to address various issues in sex discrimination, choose any of the topics in the graphic or in the Equal Means Equal (.com) documentary, be expansive, look at cases and events in the near past, including the legal, employment, loss of due process, financial and societal current effects that the ERA would cure]. As counsel for the parties, Ms. Rockey cannot control the number, topics or types of groups, who want to do Amicus Briefs. The impact of the ERA is widespread. Read the Amicus Brief I submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2020 EME case because it includes history and stats and talks about how women do not have political power because they were are only about 28% of Congress and state legislatures (except notably Nevada), when women make up 51% of the population, with the theme that equality of all citizens is essential to American Democracy.
Ms. Rockey, who has represented hundreds of Protective Mothers for 35 years, 24 nationally, accepted these three Protective Mothers’ cases to correct the courts’ unconstitutional custody orders that gave custody to the abusers / the Father’s (with the Mothers having no legal decision-making power), so the #ProtectiveMothers can get custody back to protect their children. She also accepted them as legal impact cases to get the ERA declared the valid 28th Amendment in the higher courts of appeal, including in the U.S. Supreme Court. Courts of Appeals’ opinions create caselaw, “precedent” that lower courts must follow. Further, if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the ERA is the 28th Amendment, it can be used to correct 250 years of sex discrimination. It will also likely strengthen (or save) Democracy.
Equal Means Equal, Kamala Lopez’ award-winning documentary about the Equal Rights Amendment, the history and how it is needed. Photo used with permission.
PLEASE MAKE YOUR NON-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS
TO THE ERA LITIGATION FUND BELOW.
To understand why Protective Mothers have been losing their children to their abusers, the children’s fathers for decades all over the country, please read PROTECTING YOUR CHILD.
Ms. Rockey will be providing a link to a redacted excerpt from a motion to modify or vacate the unconstitutional Temporary Custody Order, she filed in the only ERA case, of the three, that is not confidential or under seal in the NC COURT OF APPEALS. This Motion, filed in the trial court, uses the ERA, along with other legal reasons, to argue why the Order that is now on appeal is unconstitutional and should be modified or vacated immediately. [It has only the physical abuse issues on appeal (“ERA Case B”); whereas, the other two cases have child sexual abuse issues on appeal, which are required to be sealed automatically, and one of those also includes severe child physical abuse as well - photo above of knife wound under earlobe12 days after it and the other stab wounds occurred (“ERA Case A”)].
Ms. Rockey suggests that all Protective Mothers in the United States currently in custody and /or Domestic Violence Protective order cases, should discuss with their attorneys or other legal counsel about using the ERA now, because the ERA can and must be argued at the trial court level for the ERA legal issues to be raised on appeal, preferably from the start to give Protective Mothers the best chance of winning at trial.
Read more about Ms Rockey’s 36 years of practicing law and her resumé at LEGAL EXPERIENCE, as well as having led the successful coalition that finally eliminated the North Carolina Marital Rape Exemption, which prevented husbands from being prosecuted for raping their wives. Sexual assaults are a form of domestic violence.
GETTING THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT LEGALLY RECOGNIZED IS ONE OF MS. ROCKEY’S LIFE GOALS. The other is having her biopic film of Elizabeth Cady Stanton released so that all people realize what an brilliant and passionate person she was. She was The First Suffragist, having called for women to have the right to vote at Seneca Falls in 1848, at the first women’s rights convention. Just demanding the Right to Vote for women, in The Declaration of Rights and Sentiments was incredibly radical.
These ERA cases are taking well over 50% of Ms Rockey’s time ($350/hour), and she typically works about 50 hours/week, which is why these Protective Mothers and Ms. Rockey need a litigation fund to complete the ERA cases on appeal, at all three appellate levels, including the U.S. Supreme Court if at least one of the cases has not won in the NC Supreme Court. Ms. Rockey is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. Ms. Rockey has already spent over $150,000 in her time and for litigation costs. So we need everyone to contribute, even though it is not tax deductible, because we don’t have the money without your help. The beauty is that the ERA will help so many women and girls.
Attorney Arlaine Rockey is passionate about helping #ProtectiveMothers protect their children from ongoing abuse. These are nightmare cases. The trauma induced by the sex-based prejudice in these cases and the manipulative abusers, often facing prison, who will lie under oath in their court cases and to the Child Protective Services system, therapists for the children, law enforcement officers, the criminal courts, and forensic child abuse investigators, to manipulate the Court decisions, and the fathers continuing efforts to relentlessly push the mothers out of their children’s lives is unfathomable.
“I really want to support you because of your passion, wisdom and vision.”
Jean Sweeney, Esq. ERA Publication activist
PLEASE READ MORE ABOUT THE ERA STRUGGLE AFTER IT WAS FULLY RATIFIED ON JANUARY 27, 2020 at Ms. Rockey’s ERA LEGAL BLOG.
Please also see Equal Means Equal, the top national advocacy organization, that was successful in getting the ERA fully ratified, and has continued fighting along with other ERA activists, including the National ERA Publication Task Force — on which Ms. Rockey to have the ERA get recognized as the 28th Amendment.
If you do need to email Ms. Rockey after she responds to your inquiry, please always put “ERA CASES” as well as your last name or business name in caps and key words in the subject line as well. Thank you.
MORE ABOUT THE FULLY-RATIFIED ERA AND WHY IT NEEDS TO BE RECOGNIZED AS THE 28TH AMENDMENT. ** BELOW THE DONATION PORTAL **
HELP CHANGE THE TRAJECTORY FOR WOMEN’s EQUALITY!
The status of the ERA & why Women need a Court Order declaring it to be the 28th Amendment
To learn why Women need the ERA recognized by the Courts and published in the U.S. Constitution, and the many areas of rights where it will help end sex discrimination, watch #KamalaLopez in her documentary, EQUAL MEANS EQUAL
See the trailer & reviews here, on demand, as it is the background on the ERA, with interviews of national feminists, like Gloria Steinem, and with an explanation about all the rights it will protect. She and her activist group, Equal Means Equal (.org), (for which I have served as a Legal Advisor since 2023), used that documentary in states that had not yet ratified the ERA, working extremely diligently to gain the last three states needed to finally fully ratify the ERA. They, as always, PERSEVERED! They were successful in getting Nevada, Illinois, and on January 27, 2020, the last necessary state to finally RATIFY THE #ERA, Virginia! The ERA on that date, per Article V (five) of the US Constitution, legally became the 28th Amendment to our national Constitution.
However, under Trump’s Attorney General, Bill Barr, the Dept. of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel declared in an Opinion that only applied as the official legal analysis for only the federal government, that the unconstitutional Deadline in the Resolution language — not in the TEXT (words) of the Amendment — was valid, until there is a Court Order finding it is valid and it is the 28th Amendment. Then, the Archivist refused to certify and publish it until there is a court order saying that it is the 28th Amendment.
The Archivist’s duty to publish immediately is a federal law, 1 USC §106b, which gives the Archivist a legal mandate that she/he must publish forthwith (immediately) all amendments, for which the Archivist receives ratifications of it, from 3/4 (38/50) of the states, which had occurred after Virginia ratified. That list of ratifications is on the Archivist’s website.
Further, under Article II, every President has a legal DUTY to “TAKE CARE that the laws be faithfully executed,” which means carried out. But, President Biden refused for his entire term, despite constant pressure from EME, the National ERA Publication Task Force, and other women’s rights organizations. EME has also filed lawsuits seeking a court order declaring that the ERA is fully ratified, with a class action, E in federal court now. Ms. Rockey was lead counsel for the over 80 friends of the Court and file the Amicus Curaie Brief in all levels of federal court, which is included at this link.
Please post about the ERA LITIGATION FUND on social media and follow ArlaineRockey.bsky.social.
To reach Attorney Arlaine Rockey regarding press, speaking, podcasts, questions about the ERA LITIGATION FUND or general questions about the cases or Amicus involvement (read more at the top first), please use the contact form below. Please understand that her clients’ identities must remain confidential.
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If you want to reply to an email from Ms. Rockey after she responds to your inquiry, please always put “ERA CASES” as well as your last name or business name in caps and key words in the subject line as well. Thank you.