OPINIONS BELOW

There were no opinions below. The decision of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia was made orally in open court. A copy of the judgment which dismissed this action without prejudice is annexed hereto as exhibit A. A copy of the decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit which affirmed that decision and which denied the petition for a rehearing are annexed hereto as exhibits B and C.

JURISDICTION

The summary decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was entered on March 20, 1991. The petition for a rehearing and rehearing en banc was denied on May 21, 1991. Jurisdiction of this court is invoked under 28 U.S.C. 1254(1). The time within which to bring this proceeding before the Supreme Court for review is ninety days from May 21, 1991 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2101 (c).

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

1. Can a habeas corpus proceeding be maintained in the United States District Court to obtain recovery of three infant children, ages 8, 2 and 2, who were kidnaped from a foreign county from the lawful custody of their father and brought to America by professional kidnapers employed by non-relative members of a Christian fundamentalist group for the purpose of converting these Muslim children to Christianity?

2. Can a habeas corpus proceeding be maintained in the United States District Court to obtain the release from custody of an 81-year-old retired medical doctor who was kidnaped from her hospital bed in a foreign country, brought by force the United States by professional kidnapers, and is now being held against her will as an incarcerated prisoner in a nursing home in Aiken, South Carolina?

3. Should the federal courts abstain from adjudicating any case brought under the Federal Parental Kidnaping Act?

4. Can an action be maintained for injunctive relief and money damages against two state court judges who engineered and facilitated the kidnapings of the above mentioned grandmother and three grandchildren from Thailand and the United Arab Emirates respectively, all in total absence of all jurisdiction to do so?

5. Other questions presented by this petition are too numerous for a detailed listing, as there are eight counts to the complaint. These questions concern the constitutional rights of an elderly person not to be held a prisoner in a nursing home against her will. Also, there are questions pertaining to the fact that the petitioner-father is a follower of the Muslim religion and accordingly has four wives and six children. The petitioners were all living together in the same house in the United Arab Emirates as the members of a family unit until the above mentioned kidnapings took place. The respondents participated in these kidnapings for the purpose of the distribution all of the bright and gifted children of the petitioner and in order to gain control over the considerable assets and income of the grandmother petitioner, Dr. Helen Marjorie Sloan. The respondents object to the lifestyle of the petitioners and the Muslim religion and claim that they were morally justified in kidnaping these children in order to secure their place in heaven. Among other things, the petitioners contend that the case of Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333 (1890), has already been or, if not, ought to be overruled on the grounds of the constitutional right to freedom of religion. All of these numerous contentions by the petitioners were dismissed summarily by the District Court, citing only Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971).

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS INVOLVED

This Action is brought under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Embodied in these amendments are the constitutional rights to freedom of religion, the right to privacy and the right to raise a family free from outside governmental interference.

STATUTORY PROVISIONS INVOLVED

The complaint alleges violations of the Federal Anti-Kidnaping Act, 18 U.S.C. 1201, the Federal Hostage Taking Act, 18 U.S.C. 1203, the Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act, 28 U.S.C. 1738A, violations of 18 U.S.C. 2, (which refers to the fact that respondent Charles Roberts financed for and paid for the kidnaping of the infant child, Shamema, but did not do it himself), and is brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346 (b), under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1983, under Federal Question, 28 U.S.C. 1331, under Federal Defendant, 28 U.S.C. 1346, under Diversity of Citizenship, 28 U.S.C. 1332, and under Mandamus, 28 U.S.C. 1361, and the amount in controversy exceeds $10,000. The petitioners also allege violations of section 42 U.S.C. 1395i-3, subsection (c) (3) (B), of the Social Security Act regarding "requirements relating to residents' rights", which states that a skilled nursing facility must "permit reasonable access to a resident, subject to the resident's right to deny or withdraw consent at any time, by immediate family or other relatives of the resident" and section 42 U.S.C. 1395i-3, subsection (c) (1) (A) (ii-iii) which guarantees the petitioner grandmother the right to be free from physical restraints, which obviously includes her right to be free to escape from that facility and go back to her own home in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Also cited in the courts below were Section 62-5-312 and Section 62-5-303 of the South Carolina Probate Code which state that the rights of an elderly parent are the same as the rights of a child in a child custody case, but which also gives the elderly parent the absolute right to be present in court in any proceeding to deprive her of her freedoms and liberties, a right which was denied to her by the South Carolina judge in this case.

In the complaint herein, the petitioners cited the cases of United States v. De La Rosa, 911 F.2d 985 (5th Cir. 1990); Jaffe v. Boyles, 616 F. Supp. 1371 (D.C.N.Y. 1985); Meade v. Meade, 812 F.2d 1473 (4th Cir. 1987); United States v. Caro-Quintero, 745 F.Supp. 599 (C.D. Cal. 1990); Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333 (1890); Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967); and Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 152-154 (1973). In briefs, the petitioner has also cited the cases of United States v. Fawaz Yunis, 681 F. Supp. 909 (D.D.C. 1988); Smith v. OFFER, 431 U.S. 816, 846 (1977); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923); People ex rel Portnoy v. Strasser, 104 N.E. 2d 895 (NY 1952); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944); Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651 (1972); Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U.S. 522, 541 (1984); Supreme Court of Virginia v. Consumers Union, 446 U. S. 719, 738 (1980); Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24 (1980) and Forrester v. White, 484 U. S. 219 (1988).

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

The complaint in this action is 50 pages long and comprises 246 paragraphs and eight counts. Although it is difficult to summarize this complaint adequately, the following gives a basic background of the facts:

The petitioners are all members of one family, including the father, his three children, his mother and two of his wives. Originally, the father, M. Ismail Sloan, his mother, Helen Marjorie Sloan, and his daughter, Shamema Sloan, then four years old, were all living in Lynchburg, Virginia. The natural mother of Shamema Sloan is named Honzagool. She resides high in the Hindu Kush Mountains in the extreme northern part of Pakistan, in the tribal area of Chitral, where she is a member of the royal family there. Honzagool is regarded as the second most famous woman in Pakistan. The newspapers sometimes say that she is one of the most beautiful woman in Pakistan, which is impossible for them to verify, because she keeps her face hidden at all times behind a veil. Since 1982, Honzagool has been unable to come to America for family and cultural reasons. Petitioner Ismail Sloan and his mother got wind of the fact that Shelby Roberts, who was working as a baby sitter to take care of Shamema, but who, along with her husband, Charles Roberts, were followers of Jerry Falwell and members of a Christian fundamentalist group, were planning to file a third-party suit for the custody of Shamema. They were allied with Creighton W. Sloan, the son of the grandmother, who wanted to gain control over all of the assets and income of his mother.

At that point, these three petitioners left the State of Virginia. They subsequently learned that Creighton Sloan and Charles and Shelby Roberts had somehow obtained warrants the arrest and detention of the three of them. They therefore went to live in the United Arab Emirates, on the tranquil shores of the Persian Gulf.

Four years passed. While they were gone, Charles and Shelby Roberts filed an ex-party suit for the custody of Shamema and Judge Lawrence Janow, a respondent herein, whose former secretary was the personal best friend of Charles and Shelby Roberts, corruptly entered an ex-party order giving custody of Shamema to the Amherst County Virginia Department of Social Services, without consulting that agency. He then directed that agency to locate the child, wherever she might be found, and have the child brought to Virginia. Creighton Sloan filed a suit entitled Creighton Sloan v. Sovran Bank and obtained from that bank an agreement to freeze the bank assets of Helen Marjorie Sloan, a retired medical doctor, which then amounted to $125,000. This agreement was corruptly "so ordered" by Judge Miller on the next day after that suit was filed. Creighton Sloan also diverted her approximately $4,000 in monthly pension and social security income, so that Helen Marjorie Sloan was totally destitute and without funds.

Neither of these two suits were ever personally served on the defendants, who are petitioners here. The custody suit was served only through an "order for service by publication" in a local county weekly newspaper. These actions were taken to force the petitioners to return to the United States so that Charles and Shelby Roberts could obtain physical custody of Shamema Sloan and so that Creighton Sloan could obtain physical custody of his mother plus gain control over all of her assets and income.

Dr. Helen Marjorie Sloan, who was listed in the First Edition of "Who's Who in American Women", thereafter retained counsel and filed two lawsuits in the Virginia state courts. The first lawsuit was entitled Helen Marjorie Sloan v. Sovran Bank and Creighton W. Sloan. The second was entitled Helen Marjorie Sloan v. Richard S. Miller, et al. That second suit was not only against her son Creighton W. Sloan but also against several of the defendants named herein, including Charles and Shelby Roberts, Judge Janow and Judge Miller, plus her own brother, W. Cassel Jacobson, who was financing and supporting the efforts of Creighton W. Sloan to take control of her assets. Helen Marjorie Sloan alleged that they were trying to kidnap her and her granddaughter and to force them to return to the United States where they intended to take her a prisoner and gain complete control over her money. The second of these cases was dismissed on July 19, 1990 and Helen Marjorie Sloan filed a notice of appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia. The first is still pending today, although Judge Miller has consistently refused to grant Helen Marjorie Sloan a hearing on this matter, unless she agreed to return to America first. (Very recently, in June, 1991, Judge Miller disqualified himself from this case, an action long requested by Helen Marjorie Sloan, but too late to help her now because now she is a prisoner in South Carolina because of the illegal actions of Judge Miller.)

In June, 1990, the petitioner father, the grandmother, and the three children petitioners, two of whom had been born while they were living essentially as fugitives from "justice" in the United Arab Emirates, went on what was supposed to have been a trip to Hong Kong. They stopped over briefly in Bangkok, Thailand, where petitioner Ismail Sloan applied for a new passport. Respondent Stephen R. Pattison, a United States Consular Officer, apparently knew that they were wanted in the United States (although by this time all criminal charges had been dropped by the F.B.I. and by the Lynchburg Virginia Commonwealth Attorney). Pattison prevaricated and delayed for 19 days in the issuance of a new passport. Meanwhile, stranded in Thailand by the actions of Stephen R. Pattison, the grandmother, Helen Marjorie Sloan, then 80-years-old, became seriously ill and had to be hospitalized in the Bangkok General Hospital.

Petitioner Helen Marjorie Sloan, through her son, petitioner Ismail Sloan, contacted Stephen R. Pattison and asked him through the State Department to contact Judge Miller to unfreeze enough money to pay the hospital bills from the frozen bank account of Helen Marjorie Sloan, which, by that time, had $160,000 in the account.

Respondent Creighton W. Sloan who, all this time, had been unsuccessfully trying to get this $160,000 turned over to him, objected the the disbursement of any funds to pay the hospital bills of his mother, Helen Marjorie Sloan. However, after a court struggle lasting six weeks, Judge Miller ordered $6,000 to be sent to pay the hospital bills. (It is noteworthy that Judge Miller took this action and continued on this case even though there was still a suit pending by Helen Marjorie Sloan against Judge Miller personally for his illegal freeze on her assets.)

When Creighton Sloan found out that in spite of his objections, six thousand dollars was going to be sent to pay his mother's hospital bills, he hired two professional kidnapers named Boonchoo and Sobell, also named as respondents herein, to kidnap his mother out of the hospital room before the money could arrive. He went to Bangkok to hire these kidnapers, but never went to the hospital to see his possible dieing mother or made his presence in Thailand known. He then returned to America and waited there for the kidnaping to take place. He also put Charles and Shelby Roberts in contact with the same kidnapers.

The money actually arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok on Friday, August 31, 1990, but Stephen R. Pattison, who, subsequent events revealed, was in on the plot to kidnap Helen Marjorie Sloan, refused to disburse the funds that day, saying that it would have to wait until after Labor Day which was September 3. On exactly September 3, a day when the U.S. Embassy was closed, Boonchoo and Sobell came into the hospital room, forcibly removed Helen Marjorie Sloan on a stretcher, had her taken away by ambulance, got defendant Stephen R. Pattison to issue a new passport in the name of Helen Marjorie Sloan, paid bribes to the Thailand police and got Helen Marjorie Sloan put on a Northwest Airlines flight to the United States.

For this substantial service, they were paid a fee of $27,000, as admitted by Creighton W. Sloan himself in a subsequent court hearing in Amherst Country, Virginia.

However, they were not satisfied to kidnap the grandmother. They wanted the three children as well. They were planning to send Shamema Sloan to the United States to Charles and Shelby Roberts. The other two children, Michael Sloan and Jessica Sloan, both aged two, they were apparently intending to sell on the baby market in Thailand.

In order to kidnap the grandmother, they had gotten petitioner Ismail Sloan arrested on the dubious charge of slandering the good name and reputation of Boonchoo by complaining to the police that his mother had been kidnaped by Boonchoo. (Boonchoo, incidentally, is a notorious person in Thailand and is known in the newspapers of Thailand as a swindler of landless peasants, but he got off of those charges by the well established procedure of paying bribes to the police and the courts of Thailand). Petitioner Ismail Sloan was very fortunate to be able to get out of the Bangkok jail after only five hours, mostly because Ismail Sloan is also a famous person in Thailand, as the leading foreign player of the national game of "Thai chess". By the time he got out of jail, Boonchoo had already bundled Helen Marjorie Sloan on a stretcher on a flight to the United States and had made one unsuccessful attempt to kidnap the three children.

Charles and Shelby Roberts, supported by their church, by their own admission, paid an additional $12,000 to Boonchoo and Sobell to kidnap the three children. In addition, they agreed to pay a total of $25,000 upon delivery of Shamema. With this money and this incentive, Boonchoo obtained a nationwide police interdiction order for the arrest and detention of Ismail Sloan and the three children. He got this story published in every newspaper in Thailand in both the English language and the Thai language on September 12 and 13, 1990. Fortunately, after a road trip to Burma and back through the "Golden Triangle" area to elude the police, M. Ismail Sloan and his family, which by then included Vithanage Santhilatha, who had flown to Thailand to rescue her daughter, Jessica, from being kidnaped, by paying a bribe of only twenty dollars, were able to cross the border into Malaysia.

However, the matter did not end there. Boonchoo and his hired criminals continued to chase Ismail Sloan and the three children all the way to the United Arab Emirates where, after more than one month of hot pursuit, the children were finally kidnaped on October 7, 1990.

Again, this second kidnaping was done with the assistance of United States Consular Officers named as defendants herein. In view of the fact that the respondents admit that Boonchoo and Sobell were paid a total of $39,000 for all of these kidnapings combined, it seems likely that bribes were paid to these United States Consular Officers, particularly to respondent Stephen R. Pattison, who illegally issued a passport to Boonchoo in the name of Helen Marjorie Sloan knowing that she had been kidnaped, and without whose assistance these kidnapings would not have been possible.

One of the three children, Michael Rankoth Sloan, a two year old boy, became difficult to manage after he was kidnaped, so he was abandoned in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 180 miles away from where the kidnaping took place. He was brought to the police station by a stranger and eventually reunited with his father.

During the four years while they lived in the United Arab Emirates, Shamema Honzagool Sloan, both of whose parents are Muslims, learned to read, write and memorize The Holy Koran in the Arabic language and to pray in the mosque. Robert Murphy, the United States Consul General in Abu Dhabi, who frequently interviewed both Shamema Sloan and Helen Marjorie Sloan because he was being constantly bombarded with demands from Charles and Shelby Roberts and from Creighton W. Sloan and even from Senator Strom Thurmond on behalf of his constituent that they be returned to America, wrote that "Shamema is the brightest child that I have ever seen." School authorities in the United Arab Emirates said that Shamema was a "genius" and that she had scored the highest test results of any child within the experience of the Ministry of Education there. These tests were administered in the Arabic language, as Shamema was attending school in the Arabic language medium.

After being kidnaped, Shamema was detained briefly at Heathrow Airport in London, because of suspicions of the authorities there, but her captors were finally allowed to proceed with her. Shamema refused to talk to anybody. Upon arrival in the United States on October 9, 1990, Shamema was forcibly enrolled in the Temple Baptist Church and School for the purposes of her forcible conversion to Christianity. A guard was assigned to her to protect against her being kidnaped back again. Charles Roberts, aged 57, who apparently does not even have a high school diploma and who works as a "grinder operator" making $11.50 per hour in a factory, is known to be heavily armed and to keep an arsenal of weapons in his house. The F.B.I. and the Virginia State Police investigated Charles Roberts at the request of Interpol, but he was protected from being arrested for kidnaping by Judge Janow.

Ismail Sloan thereafter came to America with his son Michael, arriving on November 8, 1990. Almost immediately upon arrival, Michael Sloan was once again kidnaped. Ismail Sloan was also ordered arrested by respondent Judge Janow and held on $10,000 bond on a charge of contempt which only carried a maximum penalty of a $50 fine and ten days in jail. Judge Janow ordered this preventative bond to keep Ismail Sloan from getting out of jail to try to recover his three kidnaped children.

To his great fortune, Ismail Sloan was ordered to have his bond reduced and was released by Judge Goad, who died shortly thereafter.

At the time of these kidnapings, the grandmother was 80 years old and the children were 8, 2 and 2 respectively. Since then, nearly one year has passed, so the grandmother is 81 and the children are 9, 3 and 3.

The complaint herein was filed on December 17, 1990. At that time, petitioner M. Ismail Sloan had gotten wind of the fact that Judge Janow, unhappy with him being released from jail, was going to have him arrested a second time (actually a fourth time). Therefore, Ismail Sloan petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus to obtain the return of his mother and his three children and requested an order of injunction against Judge Janow under the Federal Parental Kidnaping Act and the Uniform Child Custody Act from proceeding in this case, on the grounds among others that the children had been in Virginia for less than six months and therefore Judge Janow had no jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Act.

Judge Turk heard these two motions on December 19, 1990, only two days after the complaint was filed. The result was that not only were the two motions denied, but Judge Turk dismissed the entire complaint, citing Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971). This appeal followed.

However, the matter did not stop there. Because of the refusal of Judge Turk to stay all state court proceedings, a bunch of new state court proceedings were filed in both Virginia and South Carolina. At the time of this writing, several proceedings which grew out of this one case are pending in various courts. There are matters now pending about this in the Supreme Court of South Carolina, the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Court of Appeals of Virginia, the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Amherst County, the Circuit Court of Amherst County, and the Circuit Court of Lynchburg, Virginia. A special judge is presently in the process of being appointed by the Assistant Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia to hear these cases, but no judge has yet been found with a light enough case load to take all of these cases.

In addition, the United Arab Emirates has issued a warrant for the arrest of Charles Roberts and Vithanage Santhilatha in connection with the kidnaping of the three children. That country has requested Interpol and the United States Department of Justice to investigate this matter. The result was that on June 11, 1991, Charles Roberts, the principal defendant herein, was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in the United Arab Emirates for his kidnaping of the three children. Vithanage Santhilatha, a petitioner herein, was also sentenced to life imprisonment, because she temporarily cooperated with Charles Roberts after Boonchoo had threatened to kill her otherwise.

None of this has had any effect. Judge Janow has still allowed Charles and Shelby Roberts to keep Shamema Honzagool Sloan, knowing that they got her by virtue of a kidnaping. Judge Janow is also protecting them from being arrested.

At the time that this action was filed in the federal district court, petitioner M. Ismail Sloan had no idea where his mother was. Subsequently, after searching for her in several states, he went to South Carolina where he learned from the police that she was in Aiken. However, he was not allowed to approach or to speak to his mother. Creighton Sloan had instituted a proceeding in the South Carolina Probate Court on January 16, 1991 to have his mother placed in his physical custody and to take control of all of her assets. This was parallel to the similar suit which he already had pending in the courts of Virginia for the previous five years.

Judge Sue H. Roe of the Aiken County Probate Court had issued an ex-party order on the same day that this case was filed without notice to either Helen Marjorie Sloan or to M. Ismail Sloan placing Helen Marjorie Sloan in the physical custody of Creighton W. Sloan. With this order, Creighton W. Sloan was also able to get control of her $4,000 monthly pension and social security checks.

M. Ismail Sloan contested this matter and a hearing was held on March 4 and 5, 1991. However, Helen Marjorie Sloan was prohibited from attending this hearing over the vehement protests of M. Ismail Sloan and in clear violation of Section 62-5-303 of the South Carolina Probate Code which states that the allegedly incapacitated person has the absolute right to be present at the hearing to determine her rights. Because of the refusal of Judge Roe to allow Helen Marjorie Sloan to attend the hearing to deprive her of her rights, it was a foregone conclusion that physical custody of the 81-year-old Helen Marjorie Sloan would be awarded to her ungrateful son, Creighton W. Sloan.

Ismail Sloan appealed from that decision. The Court of Common Pleas, Judge Rodney A. Peeples, Circuit Judge, ruled that the constitutional rights of Helen Marjorie Sloan had not been violated in spite of the refusal of Judge Roe to allow Helen Marjorie Sloan to attend her own hearing. Judge Peeples affirmed the decision of Judge Roe. This recent decision was rendered on June 27, 1991.

Meanwhile, on October 19, 1990, Charles and Shelby Roberts filed a suit before their personal friend's former employer, Judge Janow, for the custody of Shamema Honzagool Sloan, whom they had kidnaped by the payment of $12,000 to Boonchoo and Sobell. They also arranged the filing of suits for the custody of Jessica and Michael Sloan. On October 24, 1990, Judge Janow awarded temporary custody of Shamema not to the Roberts but to the Amherst County Department of Social Services with the understanding that the Roberts would be appointed as foster care parents. The Amherst County Department of Social Services objected repeatedly at being forced into the position of being a stakeholder in this case and therefore, on June 24, 1991, Judge Janow, who refused to disqualify himself in spite of the fact that this case and several others cases are pending against him arising out of these facts, awarded custody of Shamema to Charles and Shelby Roberts. An appeal from that oral decision is now pending.

Meanwhile, petitioner Ismail Sloan appealed a prior order of Judge Janow to the Virginia Court of Appeals. That appeal was dismissed, saying that it was a non-final order. This was reported in "Virginia Law Weekly", June 3, 1991, page 12.

Petitioner M. Ismail Sloan has also filed a mandamus petition and several other proceedings under the Uniform Child Custody Act to stop Judge Janow from adjudicating this case, on the grounds among others that the child had been in Virginia less than six months and therefore the Virginia courts had no jurisdiction, all with no effect. He cannot even get a hearing on the mandamus petition, because all of the other judges have disqualifies themselves. Needless to say, he has repeatedly demanded that Judge Janow disqualify himself, but Judge Janow, the de facto kidnaper, has refused. Petitioner has also complained against Judge Janow to the Virginia Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission.

In short, petitioner has tried every state court remedy known to exist to obtain recovery of his kidnaped daughter and his kidnaped mother, plus a few unknown remedies, but these have been ineffective because of the corruption of Judge Janow.

Incidentally, while this has been going on, the same basic case has been pending in the Civil Court of Bangkok, Thailand, the Sharia Court (Islamic Religious Court) of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates and the Family Court of Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

There have been hundreds of newspaper articles about Shamema and her mother, Honzagool, in the newspapers of Pakistan since 1982 and every man, woman and child in Pakistan knows their story (a very warped version of that story, however). These kidnapings were reported extensively in the "Gulf News" in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and in all of the Arabic language newspapers in that country. This case was also publicized in every newspaper in Thailand. An earlier version of this case, along with a photograph of Honzagool and Shamema, was on the front page of the New York Daily News on March 26, 1982.

The petitioner did, however, recover the two smaller children, Michael Sloan and Jessica Sloan, with the assistance of the mothers of those two children. The mother of Michael is Rankoth Pedigedera Dayawathie and the mother of Jessica is Vithanage Santhilatha. Both mothers are aged 22, are from the country of Sri Lanka and are petitioners here. They all came back to live together in the same house in Lynchburg, Virginia for about one week in January, 1991. However, for every day of that one week, Charles and Shelby Roberts and Judge Janow got the police sent to their house. As a result, Jessica's mother became afraid that her daughter would be kidnaped again and took her to San Francisco, California by Greyhound Bus, where she is now in hiding. Petitioner M. Ismail Sloan has hidden Michael and his mother in a secret location in New York City for the same reason. As a result, the entire family has been split up again because of the corrupt and illegal actions of Judge Janow.

ARGUMENT

A detailed argument is not necessary in this case. The facts are stated in the complaint, which is annexed hereto as an exhibit. It is submitted that it is abundantly clear that there are grounds for a federal suit here and that the complaint states a claim upon which relief should be granted.

Judge Turk dismissed the complaint with the statement that the federal courts should abstain under the doctrine of Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971). That is pure nonsense. Younger v. Harris concerned a criminal case. The petitioner here is trying to recover his mother and three children who were kidnaped from a foreign country. There is no similarity at all. In fact, it appears that Judge Turk dismissed the complaint without even reading it.

The only contention ever advanced by the respondents has been that this federal complaint contains some state claims which could be litigated in the state courts. However, trying to fight this case in the state courts is like trying to fight with both hands tied. The petitioners all got to this country because the grandmother and the three children were kidnaped in a foreign country. This gives rise to a federal claim which is difficult to raise in the state courts. Even Judge Rodney A. Peeples, who just recently heard this case in the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas, asked the question of why the case has not been filed in the federal court, as the South Carolina courts will not recognize the sort of claims being made here. He did not know that it had been filed in federal court one month before Creighton Sloan filed his case in the South Carolina Probate Court, but that the federal judge had dismissed it after only two days.

Incidentally, by now the court will have realized that the petitioner herein is the same person as Samuel H. Sloan, who previously argued a case orally before this court. That case was S.E.C. v. Samuel H. Sloan, 436 U.S. 103 (1978). Following that decision, in 1979, Samuel H. Sloan changed his name to M. Ismail Sloan, following his conversion to the Muslim religion. All of his six children have been born since that 1978 decision of this court.

Petitioner is aware that he has one serious problem with this petition for a writ of certiorari. The facts of this case are so unusual and there are so many issues presented that there is no one clear issue to seize upon. However, it is unjust to allow the present decision to stand. Consider the plight of retired psychiatrist Dr. Helen Marjorie Sloan, who was a brilliant woman and was listed in the First Edition of "Who's Who in American Women". She spent five years fighting litigation against her son, Creighton W. Sloan, because she wanted to retain her personal freedom and her financial independence. She fled the United States just to get away from Creighton, who had kidnaped her previously in 1984, while she was still working as a doctor in a mental hospital in Staunton, Virginia. She wrote one hundred letters from 1986 until 1990 from the United Arab Emirates and filed a dozen affidavits in court complaining that Creighton was trying to kidnap her and to steal her money. As long as she was strong, she was able to fight him off, but when she became sick, she was kidnaped, as she accurately predicted in her prior affidavits, out of the Bangkok General Hospital. Now, she is a prisoner in a nursing home in Aiken, South Carolina while Creighton is receiving more than $4,000 every month in her pension and social security checks. Creighton Sloan, who has a record of financial irresponsibility, is also presently moving to have her entire bank account containing $160,000 turned over to him. He also wants the court to order the sale of her beautiful home in Lynchburg, Virginia, where Helen Marjorie Sloan has been residing for the last thirty years, so that he can get the money for himself.

It can be stated categorically that unless the federal courts grant some sort of relief, Helen Marjorie Sloan will spend the rest of her life as an incarcerated prisoner in a nursing home and will never be allowed to return to her own home in Lynchburg, Virginia. That home in Virginia is in imminent danger of being sold at the order of the South Carolina courts, which will result in Helen Marjorie Sloan having no place to go even if she somehow manages to escape.

Right now, Helen Marjorie Sloan is locked in a special ward in the Mattise Hall Nursing Home in Aiken, South Carolina, which has electronically controlled doors to prevent her from escaping. She is perfectly strong and healthy, considering her age, and she knows exactly what she is doing. She spends her days walking around the ward, testing all the doors, trying to find a way to break out. Since she was kidnaped on September 3, 1990, she has already been expelled from two other nursing homes for trying to escape. Now, she is trying to break out of this one.

There are many Helen Marjorie Sloan's in America, elderly people who are victims of avaricious children who want to get their money right away. This one happens to have another son who is fighting to protect her freedoms and constitutional rights by filing a petition in this court. However, there are tens of thousands of elderly retired persons just like her, but they do not have cases in the United States Supreme Court.

In addition, it was patently illegal for Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge Janow, a judge of limited jurisdiction, in what is known in Virginia as a "court not of record", in 1986 to order a child not in the State of Virginia at the time, without notice and the opportunity for a hearing, to be turned over to the Amherst County Department of Social Services, contrary to the wishes of that agency, and to direct that agency to search for the child in other states and other countries and have her brought to Virginia, when the child was perfectly healthy and happy and there was nothing wrong either with the child or with her natural parents. This illegal act by Judge Janow emboldened Charles Roberts in 1990 to take it upon himself to hire gangsters and criminals to capture the child in a foreign country and have her brought to Virginia, placing, in the process, the lives not only of the child but also of her family members in great danger.

The strategy of the Roberts has been to get themselves appointed as foster care parents of Shamema and later on to have the "residual parental rights" of the natural parents terminated. However, it is well established that foster care parents do not have standing to sue for the custody of a child. This was the ruling in cases in many states and in the United States Supreme Court. Smith v. OFFER, 431 U.S. 816, 846 (1977). As one court has noted, "The right of a parent, under natural law, to establish a home and bring up children is a fundamental one and beyond the reach of any court." People ex rel Portnoy v. Strasser, 104 N.E. 2d 895 (NY 1952) citing Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923). Here, the Roberts have harassed the natural parents for more than five years almost entirely because they do not agree with the religion of the parents, which is Islam. The Roberts admit that they paid $12,000 (twelve thousand dollars) to a private detective plus airline tickets and expenses to have this child brought to America and delivered to them. The Roberts believe that they have received orders direct from God to steal this Muslim child and raise her up as a Christian.

Meanwhile, the child, Shamema Honzagool Sloan, has refused to utter a single word to an adult in the nine months since she was kidnaped. For example, the officials in the Temple Baptist School where she was forcibly enrolled over the vehement protests of her Muslim parents, admit that the child has not spoken except to children her own age in school in the months that she has been there. They give themselves full credit for the fact that Shamema is a "straight A" student, even though she never talks to her own teachers. They ignore the fact that Shamema was a top student and a gifted child even before she was brought to America. Judge Janow tried to interview the child in chambers but Shamema refused to utter even a single word. Yet, this is a bright and gifted child who was classified as a "genius" by the school authorities in the United Arab Emirates where she was attending school in the Arabic language medium for four years up until the time she was kidnaped.

Numerous cases of the United States Supreme Court have established that a natural parent has a constitutional right to the custody of his children. The state can interfere with this right only after notice, opportunity for a hearing and a finding of unfitness of the natural parent, and then only under the gravest of circumstances. Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944) and Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651 (1972). None of these constitutional requirements have been complied with here.

The judges named as respondents herein are liable to pay money damages and are subject to injunctive relief under the cases of Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U.S. 522, 541 (1984); Supreme Court of Virginia v. Consumers Union, 446 U. S. 719, 738 (1980) and Forrester v. White, 484 U. S. 219 (1988). The respondents who conspired with the corrupt judges, including respondents Sovran Bank and Creighton W. Sloan, who conspired with Judge Richard S. Miller to obtain the illegal ex-party freeze on the assets of Helen Marjorie Sloan, thereby leading to her being kidnaped, are liable under the case of Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24 (1980). The federal courts have jurisdiction over these kidnapings, even though the kidnapings occurred in foreign countries, under the cases of United States v. De La Rosa, 911 F.2d 985 (5th Cir. 1990); Jaffe v. Boyles, 616 F. Supp. 1371 (D.C.N.Y. 1985); United States v. Caro-Quintero, 745 F.Supp. 599 (C.D. Cal. 1990) and United States v. Fawaz Yunis, 681 F. Supp. 909 (D.D.C. 1988). The federal courts have jurisdiction over a child custody matter under Meade v. Meade, 812 F.2d 1473 (4th Cir. 1987).

It must be remembered that these petitioners were residents of a foreign country, namely the United Arab Emirates. They had no desire or intention of coming to America. America is a country where there are murders every day and drug dealers in the elementary schools. The petitioners are only here now because the respondents herein paid a total of $39,000 to Boonchoo and Sobell to kidnap the elderly grandmother and the three infant children. Otherwise, they would never have come to this terrible country. They would still be in the safe and secure environment of the Persian Gulf, where kidnaping is illegal and judges are not corrupt and cannot so easily be bribed.

One major problem which the petitioners face concerns the fact that Judge Turk dismissed this case only two days after it was filed, without waiting for the defendants to appear and respond. Therefore, no responsive pleadings were filed in this case. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit also directed that, as this was a pro se case, formal briefs were not to be filed, again over the protests of the petitioners. As a result, in the Court of Appeals, only one opponent filed a real brief, essentially without permission, that being Northwest Airlines. Even the Department of State and its officers, in spite of being served, never appeared in this case. The Court of Appeals refused to allow oral argument in this case, over the vehement protests of the petitioners. Because no briefs were to be filed and no oral argument was allowed, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the decision of the district court, however wrong, would be affirmed. It was affirmed by a two judge panel because the third judge disqualified himself. This places this petition in a difficult posture. The odds are long against this petition being granted when there are no opinions in the courts below. However, it is submitted that the complaint herein clearly states a federal claim, and therefore this petition should be granted. Perhaps, the decision of the district court should be summarily reversed and the case remanded for the hearing which has never taken place in the district court.

A lot more could be said about this case, but since this court has other cases to be concerned about, the petition will end here. It is only requested that the complaint which was filed in this action be read by this court, which is more than Judge Turk ever did, and which will make it abundantly clear that this complaint ought never to have been dismissed without a hearing.

CONCLUSION

This petition for a writ of certiorari should be granted.

Dated: July 22, 1991 Respectfully Submitted,

M. Ismail Sloan 917 Old Trent's Ferry Road Lynchburg, Virginia 24503

AFFIDAVIT OF SERVICE

Rankoth Pedigedera Dayawathie, being duly sworn, deposes and says that on July 22, 1991 she served the within petition for a writ of certiorari by mailing a true copy of the same to Barbara J. Gaden, Assistant Attorney General of Virginia, 101 North Eighth Street, Richmond, VA 23219, Frank Davidson III, P.O. Box 798, Lynchburg, VA 24505, Leighton Houck, Caskie & Frost, 2306 Atherholt Road, P.O. Box 1160, Lynchburg, VA 24505, Killis T. Howard, P.O. Box 99, Lynchburg, VA 24505, William S. Kerr, P.O. Box 706, Appomattox, VA 24522, Richard Karpinski, Washington, Perito & Dubuc, 1120 Connecticut Avenue, N. W., Washington, D.C. 20036 and the United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

_______________________________ RANKOTH DAYAWATHIE

Sworn to before me this 22nd day of July, 1991

_________________________ NOTARY PUBLIC My Commission expires on

Contact address - please send e-mail to the following address: Sloan@ishipress.com