
Leon R. Koziol, J.D.
Former litigation attorney
Director, Parenting Rights Institute
President, Citizen Commission Against Corruption, Inc.
Author’s Note:
This is the third in a series that together constitutes my Law Review and News Alert focused on the continued dilution and eventual termination of the fundamental right of parenting. This right has long been recognized as the “oldest liberty interest” protected by our Constitution. But ominously, it is following the fate of the fundamental right of privacy (abortion) with the surprising decision of the Supreme Court in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June, 2022.
Both “fundamental” rights were made vulnerable by their express absence from the text of the same Constitution. Apathy of the mainstream in preserving the parenting right has led to the break-down of family values, vast harm to society, and the protests we see today in our school systems. Once again, ahead of the times, I acted to forestall this ominous trend in my putative class action lawsuit, Parent v State, filed in federal court in 2009 and decided in 2011.
This law review brings you up to speed on my precedent-seeking litigation and our cherished right with a sophisticated analysis from an aggrieved father and accomplished attorney. Highly educational, it is a rare publication designed to benefit those who would seek constitutional recourse for abusive family court treatment in federal court. If you would like a complete copy of this 12-page document, e-mail me at leonkoziol@gmail.com or call our office at (315) 380-3420.
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PART THREE:
B) The parties could have been placed under jurisdiction of a special master to navigate complexities, avert politics and achieve a just outcome for all victims.
If this federal judge was truly committed to his oath of office, he would have dispensed with political obstacles by appointing a special master to investigate the case while proceedings were held in abeyance. Precedent for this already existed in the one belatedly appointed to the highly lawyered Oneida Indian land claim spanning more than forty years in the same district court.
Assigned to a different presiding judge, that claim began as a widely neglected filing deemed to lack merit due to demands over tracts of land as large as 6 million acres and based on treaties violated as early as the 18th century. But its status changed dramatically when the Supreme Court gave approval in a 5-4 ruling in County of Oneida v Oneida Indian Nation, 470 US 226 (1985).
That change morphed into a string of Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Indian gaming facilities across upstate New York authorized by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA). The first among them was the Oneida Nation Turning Stone Casino constructed by the only tribe of the six-nation Iroquois Confederacy which sided with the patriots during our Revolutionary War.
Opened in 1993, Turning Stone was marketed to surrounding landowners as a modest enterprise serving no alcohol and committed to weeding out criminal activity and gambling addictions. However, like the broken treaties at the core of its land claim, these promises were soon cast aside in favor of the Vegas-style, mega-resort with state-of-the-art sports betting that it is today.
Meanwhile, the 250,000-acre land claim languished with state and local officials balking at such high settlement figures as $500 million and 15,000 acres taken off the tax rolls after transfer to the Oneidas. Emboldened by their 1985 Supreme Court decision and growing influence, they moved to convert their federal suit into a class action to eject 20,000 landowners from that tract.
Outraged occupants countered with an intervention motion and later an original action in state court challenging the validity of the 1993 gaming compact. Like the 1794 land treaty violated by New York due to lack of federal approval, the counter-suit was based on the compact’s lack of approval by the state legislature. That compact had been financing the high cost of litigation.
As a prominent attorney beholden to no political interest, I was retained solely to strategize this counter-move. However, knowing the ominous challenges, I organized landowner assemblies to update thousands of organizational clients on our proceedings. This grew exponentially into protest caravans that surrounded the resort and, months later, the steps of the state Capitol.
It resulted in a 60 Minutes feature and the collapse of a pending settlement being nursed by this court-appointed special master, dean of Seton Hall law school, who had joined me on a tour of the region. The Indian-landowner war then escalated with Nation and United States attorneys moving to extinguish my challenges to the gaming compact in their now complex federal action.
In a highly unexpected decision, the judge denied that move and authorized me to proceed with my state case, Oneida Indian Nation v County of Oneida, 132 F. Supp. 2d 71 (NDNY 2000). But the success did not come without its elitism. I was inaccurately aligned with the law firm, Bond, Schoeneck and King, in that decision when published. This has remained a mystery to this day.


