WEST BATH DISTRICT COURT CORRUPTION COVER UP BY CHIEF JUSTICE VALERIE STANFILL
THROUGH ADMINSTRATIVE ORDER JB-05-16
October 15, 2026
By Associate Editor:
While other states across the nation are expanding on transparency, Maine has doubled down on hindering judicial transparency. Maine ranks as one of the least transparent states in the nation regarding judicial broadcasting and electronic records access. Maine has spent over $15 million digitizing its courts, yet the public is locked out of online document access. One must physically walk into the courthouse to request a paper copy, and even then, access is limited if you are not a party to the case.
While a state standard model allows trial live-streaming by default, Maine is banned by default. Evidence filming is allowed if admitted into the record, while strictly prohibited at all times in Maine. And we already mentioned the lack of digital access to public despite spending $15 million. Lastly, it is a state norm for legislative oversight subject to state level open records bills, while completely exempt from state FOAA (Freedom of Access Act) oversight in Maine.
The thing I find most concerning is the correlation between the extreme hindrance in judicial transparency in Maine and Maine’s DHHS being Federally flagged for aggressively separating families and placing children into over-burdened foster care systems and Juvenile Detentions Centers, resulting in Maine becoming #1 in the country in child abuse and #2 in childhood mental illness, and #3 in developmental delays in children.
Maine’s alarming ranking as #1 one in the nation for child abuse, #2 for childhood mental illness, and #3 for child developmental delays is directly fueled by a broken State wide system focused on family separation.
Rather than fixing these problems, Maine courts are at the absolute forefront of removing children from their homes at rates far outstripping the rest of the country. This high rate of forced removal inflicts severe separation trauma and toxic stress on vulnerable youth. Ultimately, the aggressive family separation pushed by Maine courts is not a solution, but a primary cause of the severe psychological disorders and developmental delays destroying our children’s lives….and it’s all happening behind closed courtroom doors. With Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill’s Administrative Order JB-05-16 in place protecting this courtroom corruption, leaving victims helpless against corrupt court proceedings taking place behind the closed courtroom doors.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, Maine has failed year after year. Executive accountability-failed, public access to information-failed, legislative accountability-failed, ethics enforcement-failed.
Let’s put this into perspective. On an international level, the United States just reached a historic low in the Transparency International CPI (Corruption Percentage Index). Transparency International-failed, WLP Rule of Law Index-Failed, OECD Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook-Failed, Financial Action Task Force (watchdog for money laundering)-Failed. On top of the United States failing across the board internationally, UN Convention on the Rights of Children-Failed, ICESCR (International Covenant on Economics, Social & Cultural Rights)-Failed (means children’s rights are below federal human rights standards), and HRW (Human Rights Watch) global scoreboard notes that NO U.S. state meets international children’s rights standards.
Maine is a failing state within a failing country, aka the bottom of the cesspool of corruption and Administrative Order JB-05-16 supports Judicial corruption, eliminating any personal recorded evidence against any corrupt court employee which expanded on the previous Administrative Order JB-05-15 banning media recording after court corruption was exposed, and the West Bath District Courthouse being a high-density hub courthouse for family and juvenile matters hidden behind closed cartel courtroom doors.
Maine is also the only state in the country that has faced a catastrophic system breakdown regarding citizen’s basic rights to a lawyer. And how did Maine respond? It jumped through hoops to avoid responsibility, appealing the ruling to either temporarily release citizens from jail or drop the charges, further hiding behind the “sovereign immunity” arguing that citizens should not be allowed to sue the state for failing its constitutional obligations.
Lack of accountability breeds arrogance, and Maine’s Judicial arrogance is unmatched. With judges deciding and entering pleas for defendants, practicing law from the bench, denying witness testimony, excluding concrete evidence while accepting 3rd party hearsay as fact, and outright falsifying records, citizens cannot rely on missing and altered court transcripts governed by the very same judiciary abusing its power.
To hide this corruption, Chief Valerie Stanfill updated Administrative Orders banning audio evidence collection of hearings that prove altered transcripts (which occurred in my case along with a tampered case file) and other corruption beyond the courtroom doors and expand that ban from courtroom to courthouse to further hide corruption by bailiffs and court clerks. The addition of the Judicial Branch security cameras being completely exempt from FOAA request is another Administrative Tactic to add to the Structured Obfuscation and the Spoilage of evidence for ALL pro se litigants and others, eliminating transparency while protecting corruption.
No more taking pictures of your own case file for evidence of fraud and file tampering, (which is a federal crime 18 USC §1506, §2701, §1512, §1519), Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill made sure of that with Administrative Order JB-05-16…..completely hindering transparency and collection of evidence.
Allowing parties to record their own court cases ensures citizen’s rights to court reporting independent of a court overseeing their fate where judicial accountability and transparency do not exist without the financial burden of hiring costly and limited professional independent court reporters. Citizens First Amendment is a right Maine courts cannot afford. What happens behind closed doors, must stay behind closed doors and West Bath District Court is the Cartel of Closed Doors.
Chief Justice Valerie Stanfill, openly stated during a public address that “Maine’s Justice System is failing citizens,” all the while issuing Administrative Order JB-05-16, buckling down on citizens rights to address public grievances by denying the right to document evidence of the very lack of justice she claims to stand for, while simultaneously doubling transcript fees, now paying twice for mismanaged and altered transcripts. It is you Chief Justice Stanfill who is failing our citizens, because true justice embraces transparency, only fraud hinders it.
Federal databases, independent oversight boards, and legal studies document Maine’s high rate of family separations and confirm that the major legal mechanism for these separations is a court order. (most commonly from judicial abuse and traumatic family separation, followed by further state abuse). An enormous amount of destruction of families, disruption of life, displacement of children, and an array of financial, emotional, and physical abuse that could not have occurred without actions by the judiciary, through abusive court hearings hidden behind closed doors. Make no mistake, this is not a coincidence, it’s a correlation.
When institutes systematically close courtroom doors, ban recordings, and restrict phones, they are engaging in a form of systematic isolation that directly mirrors the playbook of an abuser. An abuser isolates their victim so there are no witnesses, and no evidence; these policies achieve the exact same result on a bureaucratic scale. By ensuring that no one can record, show proof, or verify what happens behind closed courtroom doors, the system effectively controls the narrative, neutralizing exposure of corruption, shielding itself from accountability leaving the public defenseless.
If you want to know more about the level of child abuse happening at the hands of our Judiciary or how these same isolation and control methods are now implemented throughout public schools…then stay tuned for the upcoming articles.
