General legal information furnished as a service of Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach family law attorney Janet Langjahr
Flash backward:
Minnesota court finds that Husband physically abused Wife.
Husband and Wife’s seven year old girl reveals to therapist that she is being physically abused by her father and that she doesn’t feel safe with him.
Girl reports the same thing to court-appointed investigators / advocates for her.
Ample artwork by both children seems to support their accounts of abuse and cries for help.
Outcome of this Minnesota child custody case?
The girl and her older brother are placed in the custody of her father.
The Court concluded that the abused Wife was unstable and had coached the children, and that the children were better off with the abusive Husband.
Flash forward:
The seven year old is now twenty-three years old. Now able to choose, she lives with Wife.
She maintains that she told the truth during the custody trial - and the legal system turned a deaf ear to her and her brother.
Grown up now, she wants to advocate for abused children and children’s rights in family court cases that, too often, are all about the parents and the parents’ rights - at the expense of their children.
Experts agree that all an abuser has to do to gain custody of innocent children in many courtrooms is utter the words “parental alienation syndrome” in the same breath with the other parent’s name.
And the abused parent who tries to protect their children from the abusive parent is labeled the bad parent whose visitation should be restricted.
Read more in this Minneapolis City Pages article: Reporter’s Notebook: Jennifer Collins speaks about her family’s case.
American Wife and Belgian Husband separate. Wife allows children to travel to Belgium to spend the entire summer of 2006 there with Husband.
Husband keeps children in Belgium beyond date they were supposed to return. Further, Husband, filed for - and won - sole custody of the children in a Belgian court.
This isn’t a case where the Wife was reckless or foolish in handing over the kids for this international jaunt. No, a US Court ordered Wife to send the kids to Belgium to visit Husband for the summer.
The US Court was presumably influenced by the fact that Belgium is a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. But Wife hasn’t seen her kids for two years now - except via webcam, on occasion.
The family did live in Belgium for a time, but it was reportedly agreed to be only on a temporary basis while Husband completed his studies there. Further, when Husband, according to Wife (and her mother), became physically and verbally abusive and threatening toward Wife and the children during a visit to the US in 2004, Wife refused to return with him to Belgium.
Due to the Husband’s defiance of US court orders, the first entered anywhere, the US court refuses to entertain any arguments by the Husband against child custody jurisdiction in the US.
But that doesn’t transport the children back to the US and their mother, Wife.
Read more in this Lake County [IL] News-Sun article: Couple’s custody dispute has a 4,000-mile barrier.
On October 1, Florida’s new law governing co-parenting after separation goes into effect. The new law represents a major rewrite.
At least as far as definitions and terminology. No longer will the terms custody or primary residential parent or similar terms be used.
Instead, Florida will join the ranks of states in which separating parents will have to adopt a parenting plan … a very, very detailed parenting plan … to conclude their family court cases.
The new statute’s sponsor is of the opinion that child custody battles were just about labels. So now, separating parents won’t have any reason to fight over child issues. Therefore, family court litigation will diminish.
The new statute’s sponsor also describes the new law as giving both parents “equal rights”.
Some are hailing the new law as a dramatic substantive change.
Others are saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same; a rose by any other name”.
Soon enough, time - and Florida’s court dockets - will tell.
Read more in this [Central Florida] Voice article: Victory for fathers’ rights in divorces.
Japan may be a modern country technologically. But not legally, according to reports.
In approximately 80% of divorce and paternity cases in Japan, the father loses all parental rights, excluding the “right” to pay child support. In the remainder of cases, it is the mother who is stripped of her parental rights.
Visitation? That’s not a concept that is part of Japanese family law.
When parents break up, the “other parent” fades out of their children’s lives. Another family member may even adopt their children without their consent.
How does a parent win custody in Japan?
One alleged way to get a leg up on a custody award in Japan is to abscond with the child, even across international boundaries.
Statistics suggest that some 10,000 children in Japan have no access to their foreign parent.
Japan is a not yet a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Although there are rumors that it will adopt the convention in a couple of more years, one has to wonder whether it will really matter.
Japanese family law is in need of a paradigm shift. Without that, change may be a pipe dream.
Japan did sign the Convention of New York, the purpose of which was to assure children access to both parents. It didn’t.
Family law activists in Japan are lobbying for a long overdue overhaul of the Japanese family law.
Read more in this Singapore Straits Times article: Over 160,000 Japanese children split from one parents every year.
Husband and Wife meet right here in Southeast Florida. Wife confides that she is an illegal immigrant.
Husband and Wife marry. Husband sponsors Wife for a green card.
Marriage breaks down.
Husband asks for postnuptial agreement. His apparent intention was that it serve as a divorce settlement.
Proposed agreement reportedly removed custody of any future child of theirs from Wife.
Wife refused to sign agreement. Husband threw Wife out of house.
Then took her back. And so on.
Child was born. Divorce began.
Wife was awarded primary residential custody of Child. Until the day Homeland Security showed up and instructed her to turn Child over to Husband despite the Court’s order.
Husband apparently put Homeland Security onto Wife, claiming to have learned of her illegal status only after the marriage.
Wife was detained for some time and threatened with deportation. Wife was eventually freed, due to Husband’s history of domestic violence.
But when Wife returned to their home, Husband and Child had vanished. Husband claimed to be in Panama with Child.
Wife had never consented to issuance of a passport to Child, so Husband’s story seemed questionable.
Wife obtained court orders requiring Husband to return Child to her custody. To no avail.
About nine months later, Wife got word that Child, now almost 2 years old, had died of pneumonia in Panama.
There were some seeming irregularities in Husband’s and the attending physician’s accounts of how Child died and the circumstances leading up to Child’s death. Wife believes Husband was negligent in caring for Child.
Wife plans to sue Husband over Child’s death. And hopes that he is prosecuted for passport fraud and parental kidnapping.
But none of that will bring Child back …
Read more in this NBC6 TV article: S. Fla. Mother Wants Answers To Baby’s Death In Panama.
Maltese Wife, Turkish Husband and their 6 year old daughter lived in Turkey.
Wife told Husband she wanted to return to Malta.
Husband then blocked Wife’s access to the Child and applied to the Turkish Family Court for temporary custody of the Child.
The Turkish Court then prohibited the Child from leaving Turkey before a custody decision was made.
Wife nonetheless removed Child from Turkey to Malta without Husband’s knowledge.
Then the Turkish Court awarded temporary custody of the Child to Husband.
The Husband filed an application for return of the Child to Turkey under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
The Maltese Court ruled that Turkey was the habitual residence of the Child.
Under the Hague Convention, that ruling would normally mandate return of the Child to the country of habitual residence for a custody decision to be made there.
But the Maltese Court nonetheless held that the Child should remain in Malta.
The Maltese Court based its ruling on the following:
Read more in this Malta Independent article: Court: Court bars return of child to Turkish father.
Local Boca Raton area couple divorced in 2001.
As part of an agreement between them, Husband paid Wife an extra $1.5 million on the condition that she not fight him for custody of their children. There were also provisions to block Wife from fleeing the jurisdiction with their children.
If Wife later challenged any part of the settlement agreement, the agreement required her to refund the $1.5 million paid to her.
Wife sheltered her settlement money offshore.
In 2003, Wife accused Husband of violating their agreement - and sought a modification of the settlement.
The Court ruled that her sought-after modification was a challenge to the settlement agreement, and ordered the Wife to refund the $1.5 million. The Court subsequently held her in contempt.
Warrants were issued for Wife’s arrest. And then Wife went on the run.
For two years. But Wife finally turned herself in early this year.
And served five months in confinement. Before agreeing to refund $1 million into a trust fund for the couple’s kids.
As part of this latest settlement agreement, Wife agreed not to contact their younger kids except by mail or e-mail, or to see their older minor child except under supervision - if the child gives written permission for any visitation. Wife also agreed not to live in the same town as the children - or any neighboring towns either.
And if Wife violates this settlement agreement, the agreement entitles Husband to recover not only the $1 million but also additional monies that he claims she owes him for her previous violations.
This case went up to the Florida Supreme Court while Wife was a fugitive. Three of the justices actually questioned the legality of the original settlement agreement, at least as to custody. But the majority of justices refused to entertain that position of the Wife while the Wife was on the run.
Read more in this Palm Beach Post article: Jailed mom let go, will return some divorce money.
An experienced upstate New York family court judge has reportedly been reprimanded as a result of an anonymous complaint.
The Commission on Judicial Conduct, a judicial review board, reviewed hundreds of hours of transcripts of the judge’s cases over a fourteen year period and found three cases where the judge’s conduct was deemed objectionable - although not harmful to the parties or their cases. All three of these cases had been in and out of the judge’s courtroom over a long period of time.
In one case, the judge rebuked two parents, both incarcerated, each seeking custody of their children.
In a second case, the incarcerated father sought custody of his children, although the mother was not incarcerated. The judge criticized the incarcerated father.
In a third case, the judge passed disparaging remarks about one of the parents seeking custody of his child, after the hearing was concluded and the parties had left the courtroom. The basis for the disparagement was not specified.
The judge apparently listens to child abandonment, abuse and neglect cases every day, all day long.
The judge was reprimanded for the above few remarks.
Read more in this Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin article: Judge admonished for language in court.
Seven year old Florida girl. Father and Mother were never married, didn’t even date.
Since girl’s birth, Father and Mother have taken turns reporting one another to social services and seeking restraining orders against each other.
Each parent has refused to return the child after timesharing with her.
Both parents have tried to inject others into the middle of their battle, including the girl’s preschool.
The Court file was stuffed with hundreds of pages. Then things really got going.
The Mother reportedly withheld visitation one time too many - and was threatened by a judge with incarceration if she pulled that one more time.
And then the girl turned up for visitation with her Father with bruises on her face.
One of the Mother’s boyfriends subsequently pleaded no contest to the charge of battery on the girl. He was sentenced only to probation, but was ordered not to have any further contact with the girl.
Yet the Florida Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) kept returning the girl from her Father to her Mother. Despite cases like this until that point, Florida’s custody laws are gender-neutral; the law does not favor either parent based solely on their sex.
Then things really escalated in the case. The Mother reportedly accused the Father of sexually abusing the girl.
At which point DCF instituted dependency proceedings, to terminate the Father’s parental rights permanently.
The Court appointed a guardian ad litem (lay advocate)(“GAL”) for the girl in the case. Interestingly, the GAL did not buy the Mother’s version of events.
But still DCF and the Mother proceeded to trial. But the Mother changed her testimony mid-stream.
In the end, the Court did not terminate the Father’s parental rights. Probably not so surprising.
But what happened next was …
In a hearing on whether to terminate the Father’s parental rights, the Court swapped the stakes and awarded the Father primary residential custody of the girl! Over DCF’s objections.
Further, the Court ordered the Mother to undergo counseling and awarded her only supervised visitation with the girl.
It turns out that the abuse allegations were inspired by the Father’s application of medicine for the girl’s recurring urinary tract infections.
The Father’s attorney criticized DCF for not doing a thorough investigation into the allegations in the first place. According to him, the girl was coached, later recanted and was then scolded for recanting.
The girl has been living with her Father and his wife over a year now. She is reportedly thriving there.
The Mother has not seen the girl since the Court’s ruling - although Father has reportedly tried to facilitate same.
Mother filed an appeal of the ruling, but it was dismissed. Mother was not represented by counsel at the hearing, because she intended it to be “her hearing”, to terminate Father’s parental rights.
Her appeal was based on the premise that she should have been afforded the opportunity to retain counsel when the hearing morphed into Father’s modification of custody hearing.
But, when you play with fire, you have to expect that you may get burned …
Meanwhile, the Father plans to sue DCF for its negligence, impliedly arising from bias against fathers. He has since become a fathers’ rights advocate.
Dads can win custody of kids, sometimes even when they really don’t go looking for it.
Read more in this Lakeland Ledger article: Custody Case Opens a Window on Family Court.
Maryland courts awarded Father custody of the older of two children and Mother custody of the younger child. Later, that Maryland court awarded Father custody of the younger child too.
About seven years ago, Mother allegedly abducted the two children to Egypt.
Father hasn’t seen them since.
He has occasionally spoken to them, only to find that they have been alienated from him.
Father sought to enforce his Maryland custody awards and have the children returned to him in the USA.
He even won a judgment in Maryland against his ex-wife and her mother for $3 million in damages for their interference with his custody of the boys. His ex-mother-in-law even served three years of a ten year sentence for her part in abducting the children.
And a warrant was issued for his ex-wife’s arrest.
But none of these measures have gotten Father any closer to even seeing his boys.
Egypt is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and has not honored any of the court orders entered in Father’s favor.
Read more in this Arab Times article: Lonely dad lives death.
Couple have four children, ages 4, 3 (twins) and 1 years old.
At about 8pm, Husband allegedly left children, alone, to pick Wife up at a bar. Wife refused to leave with him, however.
So what did Husband do? He reportedly headed for a different bar with a friend.
The children had no food. Their apartment was littered with broken beer bottles and trash.
Husband allegedly didn’t return home until many hours later, about 8am the following morning.
In his absence, two of the children, the twins, wandered outdoors, to the entrance to an interstate highway. They were nearly run over.
The perpetrator became their savior by calling the authorities.
Husband allegedly admitted to authorities that this incident wasn’t the first where he had left his children unsupervised such that they wandered out into the street.
Police arrested and detained Husband for child abuse. Interestingly, Wife was not charged - because she said she didn’t know Husband had left the kids alone. After all, she was reportedly off in a different bar when all this happened.
The children are now in protective custody, however, pending a determination of whether the children should be released to their mother …
At the bar?
Read more in this Arizona Republic article: Dad accused of child abuse after tots strayed to I-17.
American Indian father and non-Indian mother living on an Indian reservation seek a divorce.
Wife files first in the non-Indian state court of South Dakota. The next day, the Husband files in the American Indian tribal court.
Which court has jurisdiction, the Indian tribal court or the South Dakota state court?
To make things interesting, the American Indian tribal court may well have jurisdiction over some or all aspects of custody of the children, who are part American Indian.
Well, the South Dakota Supreme Court just ruled that the non-Indian state court can hear the divorce case.
Interestingly, the Court also ruled that the trial court must make written findings of fact and law before transferring certain child custody matters to the Indian tribal court.
And, by the way, the Court’s ruling may have gone differently if the Husband had filed first in the Indian tribal court.
Read more in this [Bismarck, SD] KX TV news article: Ruling says state court can handle divorce of Indian man….
Canadian woman takes up with Australian man. Couple has son in Australia and family lives there.
A year and one-half later, Mother leaves Australia with son, claiming to fear Father’s abuse.
Now, Mother is seven months pregnant - and also has another child by another father.
Father files an application for return of the son to Australia under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
The Hague Convention mandates the return of the child to his or her place of habitual residence, in this case, Australia. But there are exceptions under the Convention, including substantial risk of abuse.
The Canadian court has reportedly indicated informally that it intends to order the two year old boy’s return to Australia. But the court won’t formally rule.
An unusual situation. How come? In the presiding judge’s own words:
“Quite simply I am most uncertain about the atmosphere I would be sending [the son] Daine back into should I simply send Daine back to Australia and into the care and control of his father.
“I am hesitant to simply order the return of Daine without knowing that the Australian courts and Australia’s social agency networks have been engaged . . . In particular, I wish the Australian Embassy to advise me as to whether an agency, the equivalent of Ontario’s Children’s Aid Society, exists.”
To place the two year old boy into foster care in Australia, rather than expose him to danger in his father’s care in Australia.
Under the express language of the Hague Convention, however, no country, such as, for example, Canada, is required to order the return of a child if
“there is a grave risk that his or her return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation”.
So, does the shoe fit?
Read more in this Owen Sound [Ontario, Canada] Sun Times article: Mother may have to send toddler to Australia in custody battle.
Kuala Lumpur’s Association against Parental Alienation recommends that all parents planning to divorce benefit from early intervention by the maximum breadth of the legal system.
The Association favors a panel of experts working with each family throughout a divorce case to protect kids from alienation, among other things. The experts would address the gamut of issues from finances to education.
The objective of all this expertise is to protect kids from the adverse impact of divorce.
Currently in Kuala Lumpur, custody evaluations by experts are made in only a small percentage of divorce cases.
The Association compares this to the many juvenile delinquency cases that the child welfare system is involved in, where nearly half of kids in “reform school” come from homes where the parents were divorced or separated (or one or both are deceased).
Their reasoning appears to be that it would be better to bring these expert resources to bear in more ordinary family cases in the hopes of preventing the delinquency cases from arising.
Among some of the more noteworthy recommendations by the Association:
The only conceivable drawbacks are that divorce cases there may cost a fortune and take forever and someone would have to devise a “judicial patience index”.
Read more in this [Malaysia] New Straits Times article: Call for panel to guide divorcing parents.
The Florida Department of Children and Families receives about 1,000 reports of abuse per month in Lee County that must be investigated.
Investigations must begin within twenty-four hours, three if a child is believed to be in imminent danger.
An investigation takes at least 4 hours of interviews with the child, the person reporting the abuse, family members, neighbors, teachers, etc.
Investigators typically investigate two reports per day.
Background checks of every adult in the home are par for the course.
Investigators are college-educated and receive ten weeks of training plus substantial oversight and mentoring.
And still children die of abuse or neglect.
One six year old child recently died - after three separate reports of abuse, including one from his school.
DCF investigated but concluded that the child was not at risk and, later, at low risk.
That child was later killed by his stepfather, who now faces criminal charges.
Too little, too late.
Read more in this News-Press guest editorial: DCF needs community’s help protecting children and this WXTX Fox 4 News Team Coverage piece: Jenkins Case File.
Once upon a time, non-parents might have visitation or even custody rights, most commonly grandparents.
Then the US Supreme Court ruled that such third party rights trampled the rights of parents, which should be superior - provided the parents are fit parents.
Since then, some states have tried fashioning constitutional statutes granting third parties visitation or custody rights.
The most popular third parties are still grandparents. But there are other beneficiaries as well.
Stepparents. And the gay parent who is not the biological parent.
Utah is one such unlikely state to pass a new law allowing a non-parent to seek visitation or custody rights.
Arguably, in defiance of local court rulings.
Read more in this Salt Lake Tribune article: Measure would boost rights of stepparents.
When children are taken into foster care due to alleged abandonment, abuse or neglect, it sets in motion a series of events, including various hearings in juvenile dependency court.
Juvenile dependency court is unlike any other court.
Many of the families of removed children are indigent. Parents attorneys’ and children’s attorneys are typically court-appointed. They handle hundreds of cases per year.
They barely know their clients, let alone the parents and the family’s circumstances.
Yet these overburdened court-appointed attorneys are the just about the only thing standing between children - and removal from their parents and families.
The courts don’t allow much time for parents to defend return of children to their families. In California, sometimes just five minutes or less.
That’s all the time a judge has to get the facts and determine the best outcome. Informed only by attorneys and case workers who have inadequate time and too large caseloads to sort out the truth and come up with solutions.
And so children are removed from their homes … whether or not they should be …
Read horror story after horror story in this troubling Mercury News article: How rushed justice fails our kids - BROKEN FAMILIES, BROKEN COURTS: A MERCURY NEWS INVESTIGATION.
A father has not seen his son for more than a year.
The boy’s mother took the boy on a vacation to India.
And never returned.
India is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. And India does not view child abduction as a crime.
As a result, India law enforcement reportedly will not act in cases such as this father’s.
As his last resort, the father has sought the aid of India’s apex child’s rights council because, he argues, his son has been denied contact with his father. He has also contacted the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
The boy in this case is a US citizen, and lived in the US for years prior to his abduction. Even under Indian law, his case should be heard in the US.
But …
Read more in this Telegraph - Calcutta article: NRI dads fight for ‘abducted’ children.
The family court’s mission is to make child custody determinations based on the best interests of the child. But some aspects of child rearing are not black and white and, arguably, not purely parenting decisions.
Take religion. An informal case survey suggests that custody battles are on the rise and that religion is increasingly the issue sparking the custody dispute.
How should the Family Court take these differences into account in custody awards? Which factors should tip the balance which way?
Free exercise of religion is constitutionally protected. This may cause judges to shy away from preferring either parent based on that parent’s exercise of religion.
But both choice of religion and degree of devotion impact on lifestyle of the child. And a child’s lifestyle is very much a parenting matter which is a legitimate concern of the Family Court.
Sampling of tough issues addressed in some recent cases:
According to the survey, judges are as likely to favor the religious parent as the secular parent.
Read more in this New York Times article: Religion Joins Custody Cases, to Judges’ Unease.
A Tennessee husband was just granted a divorce and shared custody of his kids under unusual circumstances. His wife was not present.
She, allegedly struggling with a drinking problem, had an affair with her 17 year old student, after having another affair with a woman. Her own family described her as “troubled”.
She would reportedly lock herself in her bathroom and drink, go into rages against her husband and even her children, eventually abusing one of her kids for revealing details of her affair.
The husband is charged with killing the teenager involved in the affair.
The wife is said to have absconded with their children months ago.
The Tennessee court has appointed an attorney ad litem and a guardian ad litem to search for and make recommendations for the best interests of the couple’s boys.
Every divorce is unique. And some are more complicated than others.
And some cases put judges in the unenviable position of having to make very difficult decisions.
Read more in these Knoxville News Sentinel articles: McLean granted divorce - Judge orders attorney to search for children of slaying suspect and Judge grants McLean divorce, orders search for children.
French-Israeli father. Turkish mother.
Child had triple citizenship, but was born and raised in Israel.
Mother and child depart for Turkey to spend a holiday with Mother’s parents in 2004.
And stay there. Permanently.
An Israeli court promptly orders the return of the child to Israel under the Hague Convention in the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Both Turkey and Israel are parties to the Hague Convention.
The Turkish courts agreed with the Israeli courts and upheld consistent orders through two levels of appeals.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg also agreed with the Israeli courts.
But the little girl remains in Turkey.
For months, the father had no contact with his child.
Then, he was allowed biweekly visits for a time.
But the little girl remains in Turkey.
This where both involved countries are members of the Hague Convention.
Read more in this Turkish Today’s Zaman article: [FAMILY TRAGEDY] From Tel Aviv to İstanbul: One man’s search for his daughter.
A four year old Pennsylvania girl is the subject of an order awarding joint, rotating custody of her. The child will move from one custodian to another every seven days.
Not typical, but not unheard of either.
What is unusual is who the alternating custodians are: the child’s two maternal grandmothers.
The little girl’s father murdered her mother and then himself in the middle of their own custody battle, leaving the child an orphan.
The grandmothers settled on this custody arrangement in the middle of a custody trial. They also agreed that one grandfather, a Florida resident, would have visitation rights and be permitted to participate in the little girl’s therapy sessions.
The arrangement may need to be modified when the child starts school in a year. But, at least until that time, the two grandmothers share parental responsibility.
Read more in this Lockhaven [PA] Express article: Joint custody of 4-year-old to continue.
Some legislators in South Dakota are working to revamp much of the state’s child custody laws that reportedly are not serving the divorced parents of the state, or their children, well. Their stated goal is to focus on the best interests of kids.
Under current South Dakota law, temporary custody of children is apparently awarded to the parent who has been the primary caregiver for the thirty days prior to filing. Unfortunately, a snapshot of such a short slice of life may not accurately reflect which parent has been the primary caregiver over the longer haul.
The new proposed legislation increases the thirty day period to twelve months. That is a much more realistic indicator.
Under current South Dakota law, violation of visitation or custody orders may be punished by fines or imprisonment. Judges have allegedly withheld those sanctions as too harsh.
The new proposed legislation allows more flexible remedies / sanctions, such as ordering attendance of parenting classes, awarding makeup visitation time and awarding legal fees.
Interestingly, the new proposed legislation contemplates “joint legal custody” (what Florida calls “shared parenting responsibility”) but not that both parents “equally participate” in major decisions concerning their children.
Many South Dakotan legal commentators, however, anticipate increased litigation over less than perfect implementations of joint legal custody.
Beware state-specific definitions.
Read more in this South Coast Massachusetts Standard Times article: Child custody, visitation issues considered.
Baby is taken into protective custody by Missouri.
Baby is placed with Biological Cousin and his wife.
They provide a loving home and seek to adopt Baby.
State removes Baby from Biological Cousin and places Baby with unrelated couple.
Generally, children’s welfare agencies prefer to place children with suitable relatives rather than strangers.
Why would the state remove Baby from biologically-related foster parents to strangers?
Well, Biological Cousin alleges that it was because he was obese.
The Court said that he didn’t properly follow state procedures for bringing a child into the state.
It took six months, but Biological Cousin got Baby back - after having gastric bypass surgery …
Read more in this Kansas City KMBC TV 9 article: Judge Rules In Baby Max Custody Case and this Kansas City KMBC TV 9 article: Baby Max Stuck In Middle Of Custody Battle.
UK Mother is incarcerated for four plus years for murdering her babies, based on subsequently discredited medical testimony. In actuality, the babies died of crib death.
Since Mother’s arrest, Father has had sole custody of surviving minor child, Daughter.
Now released, Mother wants a divorce - and modification of custody to her.
Of course, Mother and Daughter’s relationship deteriorated during and immediately prior to Mother’s unjust incarceration.
Father opposes modification of custody, based on Daughter’s alleged desires - and because Daughter has always lived with him and because it would “break his heart” to lose custody of her.
One may speculate that it broke Mother’s heart to be wrongly tried, convicted and incarcerated for murder and wrongly separated from Daughter for years.
Florida Baby’s biological mother is incarcerated for trafficking in narcotics and prostitution.
Baby’s biological father left the state when Baby was just three weeks old.
Baby was placed in foster care with a loving family, the only family she has since known.
Baby is now four.
Foster family continues to want to adopt Baby.
But, now, biological father, long absent, returns, out of the blue, to assert his right to take Baby to his new home in California.
It was recommended some time ago that social services terminate the biological father’s parental rights, to free the child up for adoption to her loving foster family.
Only it never happened, let alone in a timely fashion. Had it happened, the courthouse door would most likely have slammed in biological father’s face.
What is particularly sad in this case is that the foster family could have - and undoubtedly would have - asked the Court themselves to terminate the biological father’s parental rights - if they had only known that they had that power and right.
But no one ever told them … until it was too late.
Meanwhile, the biological father is allegedly still battling substance abuse problems of his own, even as the Court appears to be ordering reunification.
But the biological father has rights.
And, according to the family courts, Baby apparently doesn’t.
Read more in this Orlando Sentinel article: Orlando-area family faces losing foster child.
In recent years, the national (and international) trend has been one of increased tolerance of the notion of rotating custody, or timesharing that is more evenly distributed among parents than in traditional visitation schedules.
That is why the situation in Norway is so noteworthy.
Norway has an Ombudsman for Children, a government official who is supposed to be a mixture of spokesperson and advocate for kids.
And Norway’s Ombudsman doesn’t think children should have to “commute” between their parents’ respective homes after divorce.
He thinks this puts the parents’ rights above the children’s needs. And that the “commute” is too stressful and disruptive to most children.
The Ombudsman points out that some separated parents even want their children to attend different schools.
A Norwegian politician criticized the Ombudsman for failing to “equate the positions of mother and father”, concluding that therefore “it will continue to be the fathers who are discriminated against”.
The politician expressed no opinion as to the best interests of children though, arguably conceding the Ombudsman’s argument.
Read more in this Norway Aftenposten article: Child custody spurs debate.
A journalist for the Miami Herald observes that Miami-Dade’s family court is loaded with courtroom dramas.
The court processes some 4,500 child custody cases a year, most of them in its juvenile dependency division.
Those aren’t divorce or paternity cases. They’re cases where children are abandoned, abused or neglected, by one or both parents. So the state must intervene.
The children will typically be placed with extended family for a time or in foster care.
Cases can be very complex. As one court bailiff opines, ‘’[w]hen it’s just two parents who don’t like one another, a lot of times those are the easy ones”. That’s typical of family court.
Juvenile dependency court can be another can of worms entirely. There the mission is to educate parents who may not know on how to parent, and to assist them with the challenges that get in their way. Cases can continue for quite some time.
Twenty percent of the children involved are under the age of one year old. Thirty-three percent are under the age of five years old.
Read more in this Miami Herald article: Dramas large and small play out in family court.
Neighboring Georgia has just revamped its child custody statutory framework with the goal of streamlining its procedures.
The Georgia legislature attributed the changes to a desire to spare kids drawn-out, traumatic custody battles.
Odds are, the desire to spare family court judges and the judicial system’s infrastructure from the same was just as powerful a motivation.
But that, by itself, shouldn’t detract from the legal changes.
Under the new Georgia framework, each parent is required to propose a parenting plan.
This methodology has gained favor in several states and is under serious consideration by the Florida legislature as well.
Another change is that Georgians may now opt to submit their cases to binding arbitration, a somewhat less expensive and more informal process than taking their case before a judge in court.
This option is already available here in Florida, although rarely utilized.
Another significant change is that, under previous Georgia law, kids at least 14 years old could choose the parent with whom they wanted to live primarily. No longer do the kids necessarily get the final word.
Since the law continually evolves and changes with the people and times, it is very instructive to follow the experience and evolution of family law in our sister states.
Read more in this Atlanta 11 Alive TV article: 2008 Brings New Child Custody Laws.
Four month old baby removed from parents’ home by social services.
Baby placed with foster family.
Biological parents’ parental rights are terminated.
Foster family wants to adopt Baby, who is a dual citizen of the USA and Mexico.
Twenty two months later, Baby’s biological grandmother in Mexico seeks to adopt him.
Trial court holds that Baby should be turned over to biological grandmother in Mexico.
Appellate court agrees.
Case draws national and international media attention.
Oregon’s child welfare services agency took something of a beating in the case, accused of misleading all concerned. Then agency arranges a mediation in Oregon - which lasts for ten hours.
As a result, everyone agrees that Baby should remain with foster parents in Oregon and that foster parents may adopt him.
They also agree that biological grandmother should have visitation and access rights and that Baby should learn to speak and write Spanish fluently.
Last, but not least, agency agrees to pay the Baby’s foster parents’ legal fees in the matter.
Read more in this Newport News-times article: Foster child to remain in Oregon.
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