Florida Divorce * Child Custody * Domestic Violence Law Lawyer | Boca Raton

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.

Read more in this UK Daily Mail article: Give me a divorce and my daughter, says Angela Cannings, who was wrongly jailed for murdering her sons.

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.

A Washington state mother lost primary residential custody of her children to her husband in their divorce.

He had an attorney. She didn’t - because she couldn’t afford one.

On appeal, the mother argued that the state should have provided her with a lawyer, just as it provides lawyers to indigent criminal defendants. Her rationale was that the state requires people to go through complex public court proceedings to obtain a divorce, and ordinary people cannot be expected to participate in them effectively without counsel.

The Washington Supreme Court affirmed, finding no obligation by the state to furnish counsel in a divorce. The court contrasted couples’ divorces with cases initiated by the state which threaten fundamental constitutional rights, such as termination of parental rights cases.

Interestingly, the Court noted that the legislature may wish to consider enacting enabling legislation for the state to make counsel available to divorcing indigents.

Both the dissenting opinion and the Washington state bar association echoed the mother’s sentiments.

Read more in this KOMO TV article: State Supreme Court: No right to lawyers in divorce cases.

Fathers often “advise” how difficult it would be for them to obtain custody of their children in family court in the US.

Men’s News Daily reports that, in France and Germany, twenty (20%) percent of divorced fathers have custody of their kids.

And, in the US, it is reported that thirty-five (35%) percent of divorced fathers have custody of their kids.

But, in Israel, it is contended that only two point three (2.3%) percent of divorced fathers have custody of their kids.

Quite a sharp contrast.

An Israeli parliamentary subcommittee is holding hearings to investigate the basis for Israel’s very low statistic.

Men’s News Daily also reports that tools for protection from domestic violence are widely used fraudulently, arguably contributing to the skewing of custody in favor of mothers.

Read more in this Men’s News Daily article: Only 2.3% of Israeli Divorced Dads Have Custody?!

Statutes and cases set out the factors that should determine child welfare adjudications by courts.

But there are often other factors, just as influential, that are not set out in the law - and not known or anticipated by the lawmakers.

Such as the broken-down elevators in the Bronx Family Court.

Although there are four elevators in the building, only one or two are typically in service in a courthouse that serves 3,000 people a day.

Lines to get on an elevator to a courtroom for a hearing can stretch two city blocks and take hours to progess through.

At best, it leads to postponements of hearings - for example, for return of child custody - sometimes for months.

At worst, it leads to people missing their hearings - sometimes with huge penalties - for example, defaults leading to loss of child custody.

Read more in this New York Times article: At Bronx Court, Elevator Woes Slow Justice - and be glad if you don’t have a case pending in the Bronx Family Court.

A Utah mother deployed to Iraq gave legal custody of her 5 year old quadriplegic daughter to her boyfriend, who had previously served in Iraq.

Boyfriend reportedly suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse problems.

Boyfriend allegedly neglected child to the extent that her weight dropped from 35 pounds to 13 pounds.

The girl had a grandfather who succeeded in obtaining a child custody protective order and rescuing her.

The child rebounded dramatically within 3 months in her grandfather’s care.

The boyfriend was sentenced to one to 15 years’ incarceration.

The criminal court judge thought the boyfriend was “salvageable” despite his alleged squandering of the child’s disability checks and her mother’s military payments while neglecting the girl.

Particularly considering the child’s special needs, one can’t help but wonder what the child’s mother was thinking when she transferred legal custody of her child to this man.

The mother does appear, however, to have gotten custody back upon the end of the mother’s deployment.

Read more in this Salt Lake Tribune article: Man gets prison for nearly starving quadriplegic child to death.