General legal information furnished as a service of Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach family law attorney Janet Langjahr
The mother of a nine month old baby has been charged with kidnapping.
The baby had been placed in the custody of social services because the baby’s doctors recommended he have surgery and the mother wanted to exhaust all possible natural remedies for his problems before resorting to surgery.
The baby’s condition was not imminently life-threatening and the mother reportedly feared that the operation would be lethal.
In a last-ditch effort to avoid the procedure, the mother sneaked the baby out of the hospital.
The boy was recovered and returned to the hospital in good condition.
Read more in this Seattle Post-Intelligencer article.
I’ve previously posted about the defending campaign to Save the Internet Now: Act to Preserve Free Speech and Equal Access.
Blogs are under imminent threat.
By pending legislative telecom reforms that may end the net neutrality the public has benefited from since the beginning of the world wide web.
But Congress can still end that threat - and see to it that the various weblogs you read for valuable, free information, are here to stay.
Blogs like this one. And the ones we link to. And countless others.
If you want to protect the blogs you read, you owe it to yourself to read more about the threat to blogs in this informative article, Digital Gatekeepers, written by the the host of a weekly radio show on WHPK, the radio station of the University of Chicago, who is also a contributor to Chicago Indymedia and Third Coast Press, and an organizer with Chicago Media Action.
The time to Save the Internet is just about up.
Learn more at:
And if you want to Save the Internet and support blogs (like this one, the ones we link to and countless others), act right now. Call, fax or e-mail your Senators - today.
For many custodial parents, collecting their child support is a never-ending challenge.
Some custodial parents in Texas recently came up with a way to finally beat the system - or so they thought.
According to news reports, some thirteen custodial parents opened new accounts in their ex’s name and then forged child support checks on those accounts payable to the state’s child support agency.
How did that help the custodial parents?
It seems that the child support agency is known not to wait for the non-custodial parents’ checks to clear before issuing their own state checks to the custodial parents.
Therefore, by the time the forged checks bounced, the custodial parents had already deposited the state’s good child support checks.
The custodial parents allegedly collected, collectively, approximately $40,000 in payments not funded by non-custodial parents.
Their “accomplishment” is tempered by the fact that they are now all facing felony charges for their trouble.
Read more in:
I’ve blogged previously about Florida being a “sunshine state”, with a strong policy favoring open, public records. See Public Right to Know Vs. Individual Privacy.
I’ve also blogged previously about a nationwide trend making it more and more difficult to seal divorce cases or even parts of them. See Private Finances and Corporate Records: Should They Go Public in Divorce?.
More recently, a political firestorm has been touched off by local media’s discovery of secret dockets filled with totally hidden, secret cases, right here in Palm Beach County, in neighboring Broward County and also in counties which are part of the Tampa Bay area.
The Chief Judge of this Circuit has promptly reviewed all such cases, released case numbers for them and affirmed the propriety of the sealing of the cases (except for two which appear to have been products of clerical errors).
The Chief Judge also reported that the majority of the hidden cases were family court cases.
Read more in this Palm Beach Post article: Lawyers chafe at secret docket of files.
Two boys, 2 and 4 years old, were forcibly taken from their grandfather at knifepoint. Before the incident ended, the 4 year old was dead and the 2 year old was wounded.
Because of Indiana guidelines, an Amber Alert was not issued for 7 hours.
Because the person who took the boys was allegedly their father, and he was still married to their mother.
It was irrelevant to the Indiana guidelines that the abductor was armed and had threatened the boys’ caretaker.
It is unclear whether the father’s reported criminal record or the order of protection the mother had just gotten were given any consideration either.
Read more in this Ft. Wayne [IN] Journal Gazette article: Late Amber Alert.
According to this [LI] Newsday article, divorced fathers are increasingly becoming primary residential parents.
In Long Island, the number of single fathers rose 221% between 1970 and 2000, compared to the 65% increase in the number of single mothers there for the same period.
According to the article, single fathers face the same challenges at home and in the workplace as single mothers, and they have the same interests and concerns as single mothers.
A young mother died in a motel room in nearby Hollywood (Florida). Her boyfriend was shot and wounded there. Miraculously, their four month old baby daughter was present, but not injured.
What happened?
The police concluded that the mother committed suicide. The father is reportedly blaming the mother for shooting him.
The young woman’s family insist she would not have killed herself, and characterize the couple’s relationship as very stormy.
At stake is custody of the baby.
Typically in Florida, a surviving parent would be the baby’s sole guardian and custodian. That’s what the baby’s reported father is fighting for - but it was not reported that any court order has ever legally established paternity of the baby.
Under the uncertain circumstances of the case, a Broward County court awarded temporary custody of the baby to her grandparents, pending outcome of the police and coroner’s investigation into her mother’s death.
Read more in this NBC 6 news article: Grandparents Get Temporary Custody Of Baby In Motel Incident.
A recent New Jersey case serves as a reminder that “getting the goods on your spouse” via their computer may not be all it’s cracked up to be.
In this New Jersey case, the spied-on wife walked away from their divorce with an extra $7,500 because of it. That’s bad enough.
But unauthorized interception of real-time electronic communications is illegal in some states, including Florida. This parallels non-consensual phone-tapping, which is also illegal in many states, including Florida.
The “goods” probably won’t be allowed in family court - and you may go to jail for your trouble.
And even if the goods are admissible, the risks may all have been for nothing.
Real-time communications, such as in chatrooms and instant-messaging, are likely to show only infidelity. In no-fault states, such as Florida, one spouse’s infidelity often has no impact on their divorce case.
Read more about the consequences of interception of real-time electronic communications in this ZDNet article, Police blotter: Husband spies on wife’s computer and this other ZDNet article, Court: Wife broke law with spyware on a Florida case.
Ten weeks. That’s how long it’s been since an Irish woman has seen or spoken to her seven year old daughter.
The daughter is reported to be with her father in Algeria, his homeland.
The father allegedly decided to remain in Algeria after taking his daughter for what was supposed to be a visit with extended family members.
Algeria is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
The missing child has since been made a ward of the courts in Ireland, the child’ s home or habitual residence - but the mother fears she may nonetheless have to litigate custody in Algeria, where mothers reportedly don’t have many custodial rights.
Read more in this BBC news article.
For father’s day, it’s sobering to see one divorced father’s musings on divorce and it’s aftermath in this New York Times piece called Keeping Divorced Dads at a Distance.
Sadly, this father seems to feel on the outs from his own kids.
He apparently attributes that feeling to perceived flaws in the legal system and a pact (nearly conspiracy) between his kids that he views as a consequence of those flaws in the legal system.
Right or wrong, it may be enlightening to know how many divorced parents share the author’s view of the non-custodial parent’s life after divorce?
A seventeen year old boy is fighting for custody of the three year old baby he reportedly fathered when he was thirteen.
Right now the baby is with her mother, a 30ish former teacher’s aide, who met the boy through her former job at a religious school.
The mother is reportedly a convicted registered sex offender who may have only supervised contact with children, including her own. In effect, the mother’s rearing of the child is supervised.
The mother’s conviction arose out of the unusual circumstances of the conception of her child.
The boy has another child with his current girlfriend. He plans to work nights to support his children while attending college in the fall.
Read more in this KPRC Local 2 news article.
With Father’s Day right around the corner, recognition is properly given in this Miami Herald piece, that Divorced dads juggle kids and job.
The article reviews recent changes in custody and visitation awards that are more likely to allow more fathers more substantial timesharing with their children. According to the article, more than 1 million fathers fall into that category.
Fathers with substantial timesharing face the same challenges of single parenthood that divorced mothers have faced all along.
Only divorced fathers may suffer the ill effects of different, gender-biased expectations, affording less tolerance in the workplace of the demands of parenting on single fathers.
Today’s divorced fathers pursuing substantial timesharing are pioneers.
The family of a wealthy elderly man who married a much younger woman, a previously convicted prostitute, wants to see through to its end the annulment begun while the husband was alive, despite his death.
Whether the law would permit a posthumous annulment is a question that has never been ruled on in Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, the deceased man’s surviving wife is fighting to dismiss the annulment case.
The man owned a million dollar home, the fate of which rides on the outcome of the annulment case.
Following an interesting procedure, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has indicated that it will take the case up on appeal after the trial court rules on the wife’s motion to dismiss, regardless of how the lower court rules.
The dead man’s family believes that the wife married him for his money - and planned to kill him to get it.
Read more in the Cape Cod Times article Ex-madam case before the state’s high court.
The Baton Rouge Advocate recently published an article titled Restraining orders useful but limited, which has important implications for victims of domestic violence.
Some highlights of the article include:
Over 200,000 children in the US alone are abducted by a parent or other relative every year, according to Melissa Hart, herself a former child kidnapping victim.
Thirty years after the fact, she still struggles with self-identity issues as a result of being compelled to assume various personas - after discarding her true identity. Because, in Ms. Hart’s opinion, her mother couldn’t come up with a better solution to the situation with her difficult father.
Once grown, Ms. Hart could find no assistance to help her deal with the aftermath of her ordeal. Ironically, all the assistance available was directed to the parents who had created the situation - not the kids twisted in the middle.
That’s why she and others who were abducted as children banded together and founded, Take Root, a non-profit association that helps abducted children heal.
Read more of Ms. Hart’s affecting story in the Oregonian’s article: Abducted by parents, children become the forgotten victims .
Residents of North Dakota are reconsidering the way child custody awards are made there.
On the one hand, there is the Shared Parenting Initiative and the Family Law Reform Initiative.
Both of these groups favor greater custodial rights for fathers, unless the fathers meet the severe test for termination of their parental rights. The latter group also favors reducing the non-custodial parent’s child support obligations and penalties for not meeting them.
On the opposing hand, there is the Concerned Citizens for Children’s Rights Committee.
This group contends that the other two groups emphasize parents’ interests before those of kids by, among other things, reducing non-custodial parents’ legal responsibilities and reducing custodial parents’ buffers against domestic violence.
Read more in this Grand Forks [ND] Herald article called CHILD CUSTODY: Whose best interest?
Divorce has some special twists where one of the couple is a US immigrant.
If one spouse sponsors the other one into the US, the sponsoring spouse typically must swear out an Affidavit of Support, Form I-864. The purpose of this form is, essentially, to assure that an immigrant will not become a public charge, but remain a responsibility of the citizen spouse.
Sponsoring spouses rarely give a thought to swearing out this affidavit when they are trying to bring their loved one into the US. Not so after the relationship takes a turn south.
That affidavit doesn’t mean anything if the couple divorces, does it? Wrong.
The government can hold the sponsoring spouse to the Affidavit of Support.
But that’s not all.
The immigrant spouse can also have the courts order the sponsoring spouse to make good on the Affidavit of Support.
This was confirmed in a recent federal court case litigated here in Florida.
Read more in this Immigration Daily article about the enforceability of affidavits of support in divorces from immigrants.
An Ohio father has reportedly been arrested for interference with child custody for failing to return his son from weekend visitation at the agreed time.
The father plausibly justified his actions, however, with the motive of protecting the child from his mother’s boyfriend, who allegedly served time for a felony conviction for abusing a 5 month old baby girl - and who was to have no contact with the boy according to the divorce papers.
If true, one may wonder: should the father be placed in jail for his actions - or given primary residential custody of his son?
Read more in this Salem [OH] News article.
The parents of a seven year old boy have reportedly been charged with his murder - several years after Michigan social services investigators found that the boy had allegedly been tied up by his parents with rope that left burns on the boy’s wrists.
The state did no follow-up investigation, reportedly because the boy was not seriously injured and did not corroborate the abuse.
Now the state is scrambling to get the dead boy’s siblings placed into new homes.
Read more on this sad story in this M Live article and this Grand Rapids [MI] WOOD TV article.
About ten percent of all households include unmarried couples living together, sometimes temporarily and sometimes for the long haul.
They may pool their resources to cover living expenses, buy things, businesses and/or real estate together.
If they aren’t legally married and either one of them dies or walks out on either the business and/or personal relationship, one or both of them may be unpleasantly surprised by what rights they do - or don’t - have to the property acquired.
There are three main measures people can take to ensure the outcome they want:
All three measures are necessary.
Why?
Depending on how each particular asset is titled, only one of the above measures may come into play.
But it may be a different one of the measures for each asset.
If the assets are significant (to you), you can’t be too thorough and comprehensive in your protection strategy.
Read more about Protecting the assets of unmarried couples in this BankRate article.
Recently, I posted about a PA divorce in limbo after the death of one of the spouses. In that case, the deceased spouse hadn’t yet signed a settlement agreement - because he was murdered first.
Now, another divorce is in limbo after the death of a spouse.
This case is right here in Palm Beach County. The death reportedly occurred in a seaplane accident involving others. And both spouses had already signed a settlement agreement.
Here, the husband is reportedly requesting that the settlement agreement be disregarded, because he was allegedly under the intoxicating influence of a number of different medications when he signed it.
According to this Palm Beach Post article, the pending divorce case bars the husband from acting as the personal representative of his wife’s estate and bringing a lawsuit in that capacity over his wife’s death in the accident. Instead, her father is doing both.
Now, the husband alleges that the couple were reconciling prior to the accident. And the woman’s father alleges that the wife definitely wanted out of the marriage and that the husband is acting out of greed.
Even the most loving of parents can benefit from a primer on good parenting in the context of divorce.
That’s why more and more states, like Florida, require divorcing parents to attend a parenting class geared toward divorce-related topics.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court reportedly went one better. It adopted a Children’s Bill of Rights in Divorce.
Every single parent going through a divorce owes it to their kids to read this Palestine [TX] Herald-Press article.
Since bigamy is a crime, one might be tempted to conclude that a bigamist should lose out in the division of property from his or her prior, valid marriage.
But that’s not necessarily so.
Many states, like Florida, have shifted to no-fault divorce schemes.
Under such schemes, bigamy may be viewed as an example of non-economic fault, which should not normally be considered in a divorce.
And so the New Mexico Court of Appeals reasoned when it recently held that mere bigamy is no reason to deviate from New Mexico’s community property scheme requiring a 50/50 split of marital property.
Read more in this KGWN TV news article.
When domestic violence is in the background of a divorce, custody or paternity case and there is no documented history of police reports or orders of protection, the denying party will always point to that lack of documentation as though it were proof that they are not violent.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Sadly, many aggressors escalate their violence when their victim seeks help - or tries to get out of the relationship.
Victims know that. That is what often holds them back from seeking help or leaving the aggressor.
This is true of victims from all walks of life and all socio-economic groups.
But especially vulnerable to such fears are immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants. In addition to fear of the aggressor, they fear deportation - for being a victim.
That may be why an immigrant mother and her pre-teen son were recently bludgeoned to death with a hammer.
Despite previous death threats by her husband.
With never so much as a single phone call to the police.
Read more of this sad story in this Boston Herald article.
The US Senate Armed Services Committee has reportedly approved changes intended to update and streamline the Uniformed Services Former Spouses Protection Act .
Highlights of the proposed amendments include:
These amendments still have to be passed by the full Congress.
Lobbyists on behalf of military spouses reportedly seek additional amendments.
Read more in this Everett (WA) Daily Herald article.
If your ex was just sentenced to jail and you’ve resigned yourself to no child support for the duration, not so fast.
This Charlotte Observer article reports on a state government audit evaluating the Corrections Department on its alleged failure to deduct court-ordered child support from inmates’ wages.
One can’t help but wonder whether a crackdown may follow.
The moral of the story is: don’t give up, follow the proper procedure to implement income deduction - and you just might collect.
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