General legal information furnished as a service of Fort Lauderdale / West Palm Beach family law attorney Janet Langjahr
Child abuse occurs most frequently during November, December and January, according to the University of Miami Child Protection Team, which sees 1,500 cases per year.
Recent horrific incidents include a woman allegedly stabbing her autistic nephew in the eyes and a mother allegedly beating her one year old baby to the extent of twelve broken bones.
The stresses of the holidays are the reason, the final straw - and they actually continue after the last of the Christmas decorations and the confetti are gone.
But the underlying problems were likely in the making for quite some time.
People under stress tend to take it out on those who are most vulnerable … children, the disabled and also the dependent elderly. The stresses of caregiving likely contribute to such incidents.
The number of child abuse cases rises from year to year.
But resources are available to help.
January is just beginning.
Note that the Florida child abuse hotline is 1-800-96-ABUSE.
Read more in this South Florida NBC 6 TV article: Recent Child Abuse Allegations Focus Attention On S. Fla. Kids In Jeopardy.
The holidays aren’t over yet.
And during the time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, one largely hidden statistic on the rise is: child abuse.
Throughout the season of good cheer, parents are under much more stress than usual. And that stress leads to abuse of children.
Not just more abuse, but more severe abuse.
Often by parents who, afterwards, can’t believe they did it.
Yet recognizing the stress and the risk, coupled with simple techniques, such as having a friend watch the kids or deep breathing, can buy the time necessary for parents to calm down and avoid abusive acts.
Read more in this KTTC TV [Rochester, MN] article: Holiday Stress Can Lead to Child Abuse.
Montgomery County, Maryland has been conducting a pilot program that has been providing in home services to high risk, first time parents and families.
After ten years in operation, the family services agency there concludes that the program has reduced both child abuse and neglect dramatically, nearly to nonexistence.
Outcomes are actually superior to those in the general population.
The pilot program fosters self-sufficiency among mothers, which heads off development of risk factors for abuse.
Targeted risk factors include “limited education, maternal depression, insufficient knowledge of normal child development, poverty, substance abuse issues, limited self-sufficiency, or [having] experienced abuse or neglect as a child”.
The results of the study appear to be empowering - and repeatable anywhere.
Read more in this Reuters article: County-Wide Home Visiting Program Found to Reduce Child Abuse and Neglect.
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.
An undoubtedly controversial Australian husband and wife urge couples whose relationships are afflicted by domestic violence to stay together and work through their issues. They say it worked for them.
They believe that domestic violence issues tend to travel with each partner to their next relationship -and expose their children to greater risk of abuse.
They also recognize that sometimes there is no place for the parties to go away to anyway.
The couple, who are not mental health professionals, report that many abusers suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. They claim that many professionals now classify narcissistic personality disorder as a “developmental gap”, rather than as a mental illness or true personality disorder.
But healing the relationship takes work, the couple admit.
Read more in this PRWeb press release: Don’t Say, ‘Just Leave him’ - There are Better Solutions to Domestic Violence.
While many folks are in a festive mood at this time of year, for others, the holiday season is anything but.
More family togetherness due to time off from work and school. More drinking and drugs. More cash flow deficits and debt. More holiday “blues”.
Too often, these conditions are a recipe for abuse escalating in the following order:
These behaviors lead to incidents prompting victims of domestic abuse to seek orders of protection, called injunctions for protection against domestic violence in Florida.
These incidents also lead to more incidents prompting victims of domestic violence to call police and press criminal charges for domestic battery or domestic assault.
The holidays also give rise to false allegations of domestic abuse and violence.
Read more in
Mom and Dad divorce.
Mom is awarded custody.
And Dad is denied visitation.
Then Child Protective Services takes children away from Mom due to Mom’s alleged drug use.
Children are placed with Dad.
According to reports, no one from Child Protective Services read the divorce court case file.
Dads are not denied all visitation lightly.
It’s actually real tough to have visitation completely withheld.
It is alleged that no one from Child Protective Services did a criminal background check on Dad either.
It is also alleged that Child Protective Services never did any followup home visits.
Now one of the children is known to be dead. Her murder was brutal.
The other child’s body has not been found in months, but he is presumed dead.
Mom has sued the state and Child Protective Services for damages for their alleged negligence.
Who watches the ones entrusted with looking out for our children?
Read more in this Tucson Citizen article: Dead kids’ mom: CPS culpable.
Mom and Dad in child custody battle.
Mom’s sisters get access to a senator at a political fundraiser and question her about Mom’s options.
“Who would get custody if something were to happen to Dad and he couldn’t care for the little girl?
“What would happen if Mom were to ‘disappear’ with the child?”
A few days later, Dad is awarded full custody of the little girl.
A week later, Dad is shot and killed in front of the little girl, at a playground before a scheduled exchange of the child.
Senator comes forward and tells what she knows to authorities.
All eyes are on Mom, although she has not officially been named as a suspect.
Mom volunteers that Dad had physically abused her.
Oh, the child?
She was placed with her father’s parents.
Then Mom alleged that they were sexually abusing her.
So now the little girl is in foster care.
Mom is allowed supervised visitation with her twice a week.
The child also meets with a counselor once a week.
Because Mom and Dad each loved her so much and each wanted custody of her …
Read more in this New York Post article: DENTIST IN-LAW PUZZLE SUSPICIOUS QUERIES and this Newsday article: Judge decides girl will remain in foster care.
A mother and grandmother allegedly abducted two little girls from Texas to Ireland in violation of the final judgment of divorce of the mother from the father.
The father had to hire a private investigator who, after several months, tracked them down. To secure return of the girls, the father commenced a return proceeding under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
For purposes of the proceeding, the little girls, who had not seen their father in over a year, were briefly interviewed together by a psychologist. The psychologist opined that the children disliked everything about living in the United States.
Their father finally had a short visit with the girls during the proceedings in Ireland, during which he alleged that they were extremely hostile toward him.
Under the Hague Convention, children are normally ordered to be returned to their place of habitual residence. But, as with any rule, there are exceptions.
When more than a year has elapsed, the Court may decline to order the return of children if it finds that the children are “well settled” in their new location.
And that is precisely what the Court did in this case.
The father contends that the mother alienated the children from him, that is, willfully and methodically campaigned to turn his children against him. But, he insists, the Irish courts don’t “believe” in parental alienation. And, hence, the outcome in Ireland.
The article has an interesting discussion about parental alienation, aptly characterizing it as a form of child abuse, and suggesting that children are extremely and quickly susceptible to it.
The article is one-sided, written from the standpoint that this was a particularly severe case of alienation by the mother. And much of what is reported in the article appears to support that conclusion.
It really should be noted, however, that early in the article it is glossed over that the Court ordered that exchanges of the children for purposes of visitation were supposed to take place at a police station.
That is not where exchanges take place in the typical divorce / separation. Normally, police station exchanges are reserved for cases where there is a history of domestic violence.
So the case in question may not be as cut and dried as it may appear at first glance.
Either way, the father has not given up. Since the removal in this case was in violation of court order, Texas law enforcement can charge the mother, among other things, with custodial interference, a felony for which the mother may be extradited back to Texas.
Read more in this Plano Courier Star article: Kidnapped girls found but not returned home.
HOPE Court.
A place where Washington parents who have abandoned, abused or neglected their kids get a second chance to overcome their substance abuse, learn better parenting and coping skills, and win back custody of their kids.
The program provides a support network (judges, lawyers, social workers, substance abuse treatment providers, child protective services and other government workers) to recovering parents - and accountability.
A lot of parents don’t make it all the way through the program. But some do succeed, and their families are reunited.
Read more in this [Longview, WA] Daily News article: Reunited, drug free.
Many people have preconceived notions about victims of domestic violence. But they often aren’t correct.
For example, one victim of domestic violence is sharing her story. And she doesn’t fit any of the preconceptions.
She is the Dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law.
Arkansas has one of the highest rates in the US of homicides resulting from domestic violence.
The Dean is living proof that victims of domestic violence can escape, survive and flourish afterwards.
But the first step is getting out.
Read more in this Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article: U of A School of Law dean shares her domestic-abuse story.
Woman meets group of friends at local Chinese restaurant.
She arranged everything by e-mail from home.
She specifically chose that desination because she knew she wouldn’t encounter her ex-husband there, because he disliked Chinese food.
The woman’s ex had a history of controlling and abusive behaviors.
When she arrived, she was shocked to see him there.
How did he know?
How do an increasing number of former, controlling and abusive intimate partners in general keep tabs on their ex’s, and continue haunting their steps and their lives?
Unfortunately, computer spyware renders one’s personal computer “an open book”. Every keystroke is visible. All stored information accessible.
It is important for victims and potential victims of stalking and cyberstalking to be aware of this.
And, for sensitive matters, to only use computers that their abuser does not have access to. And to have their home computer “cleaned” after the abuser’s access is cut off.
Cyberstalking is a crime in Florida and many other states.
Read many good prevention and protection tips in this Emerald Coast article: Cyberstalking; it’s frightening, it’s intrusive, and it’s against the law.
One of the regional directors of Florida’s Department of Children and Families thinks the foster care system it administers doesn’t work very well.
Some depressing statistics about foster care:
Florida’s not unique in these respects. And there probably isn’t a whole lot of dispute about the quality of foster care.
But the question remains: how do we improve the foster care program?
The DCF director points out that children of divorce are traumatized by the loss of one parent from their day to day lives. Foster children lose both parents. On top of being abandoned, abused or neglected.
The director would attempt to minimize the trauma by keeping families intact. The director would greatly reduce the number of cases where children are removed from the home.
Instead the director would provide services in the home on an intensive and accelerated basis, with closer supervision afterward.
A small pilot program is underway right now. If successful, a larger pilot project will follow.
Read more in this Jacksonville Florida Times Union article: Strengthen families.
Another October is here and, sadly, we still need this month to serve as Domestic Violence Awareness month.
In Texas, shoes are hanging from the trees by a county courthouse - one pair for every person who died there of domestic assault in the preceding year.
One hundred twenty-six people. In Walker County alone.
The special events coordinator of the “In Their Shoes” event reminds us of the pervasiveness of domestic violence in our society.
“It’s happening between all family types — siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, roommates — and no age group is safe.”
She also emphasizes an important, often overlooked message: “[a]buse can be emotional, verbal, financial, sexual or physical.”
Read more in this Huntsville [TX] Item article: SAAFE House’s ‘In Their Shoes’ focuses on domestic violence.
Fifty-five children of American / Indian unions have gone missing in India.
That is why the US is asking India to join the many other countries tht have joined the Hauge Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
If India did sign on, it would expedite case resolutions and tend to “assign” cases to the proper jurisdiction. It would also make India a less attractive haven for kidnappers.
Read more in this The Times of India article: US wants India to sign treaty on child abduction.
One occupational hazard attorneys face is not-quite-ranting calls from (or appointments with) people who believe, rightly or wrongly, that they - or, worse, their kids - have been unfairly “beaten up” by the legal system, when they were represented by another attorney - or no attorney.
Those folks often have a lot in common with this Tennessee mother.
A Tennesee judge awarded custody of her child to the child’s father. After Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Service had allegedly already made a finding of abuse by the father.
But the story doesn’t end there.
The mother appealed the custody award.
And won. An appellate court reversed the trial judge’s ruling, and remanded to the trial court.
Only, reportedly, the trial judge obstinately refused to alter its custody award in accordance with the appellate court’s ruling. Just plain refused.
Forcing the mother to spend gazillion more dollars to compel the implementation of the appellate court’s ruling.
This Tennessee judge was ultimately publicly reprimanded, according to the article below.
But it wouldn’t be surprising if this mother had to do some almost-ranting before she got her child back, safe.
Still, things did get straightened out in the end.
At least for this Tennessee mother and her child. Who, somehow or other, could apparently afford the appeals.
Read more in this Macon County [TN] Times article: Judge Byrd reprimanded in Wilson County case.
Sadly, we have grown accustomed to hearing of one parent’s abduction of children from the other parent.
But recently there was a different kind of parental abduction in Ohio.
A woman allegedly abducted her own four children - together with her husband, the children’s father.
How is that abduction?
A local court reportedly awarded temporary custody rights of the children to the local children’s services agency.
The biological parents were apparently trying to block the agency from asserting its rights.
The father was reportedly recently released from prison for domestic violence.
Now both parents face charges for felony interference with custody.
Read more in this Logan [OH] Daily News article: Woman, ex-husband arrested after fleeing.
A high profile psychologist who has carved out a high profile niche testifying in child custody and visitation dispute cases to mothers’ alienation of fathers from their children is now speaking out against Florida’s brand new Keeping Children Safe Act.
The legislative intent behind the Act is to protect child victims of sexual abuse from further abuse.
Dr. J. Michael Bone, anticipating numerous false allegations by alienating mothers, is critical of the lack of legal protections afforded to fathers under the Act.
Some of the provisions of the Act are actually not very different from the rest of the juvenile dependency statutes (formally, Proceedings Relating to Children).
For example, reporters of any type of child abuse, not just sexual child abuse, are protected by anonymity. The legislative intent was to encourage witnesses and those with well-founded suspicions to come forward to protect children by protecting the reporters’ anonymity.
Are there some false reports of child abuse? Undoubtedly.
Should we throw the preexisting dependency statutes out because of that? No.
Can the new statute benefit from some refinement? Absolutely.
Read more in this Mens News Daily article and the Keeping Children Safe Act.
A 3 year old child, previously taken into protective custody by the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), was released to his mother - only to die two months later.
There was a court hearing on whether to release the little boy, but neither the boy’s non-lawyer advocate nor his caseworker attended. They weren’t aware of the hearing.
And DCF failed to inform the Court (either in person or through a report or other court papers) that the mother’s boyfriend hit the child and his background check was not completed correctly until after the boy went home.
DCF only made a couple of visits after the child was sent home.
The boy’s mother and boyfriend have respectively been charged with manslaughter and murder in the child’s death.
The question remains: did DCF do enough to protect the boy?
Read more in this [Southwest Florida] News Press article: DCF admits to errors in death of Zahid Jones.
Woman adopts eleven children in New York City. Woman later moves to Florida.
Woman raises children - with no education beyond fourth grade, no medical care, without adequate food, without normal social contact, without freedom.
Why?
She adopted the children to collect payments from New York City. Over a million dollars in fact.
All of the children, now aged 15 to 27, suffer from physical and mental disabilities.
The woman, now 62, faces criminal charges of abuse and neglect in Florida.
And the Florida court can now request that the New York courts unseal the normally confidential adoption records.
The records are needed to nail down the identities of the victims, nine of whom are now disabled adults in the care of the state of Florida.
The whereabouts of two others is unknown.
The state just took the woman’s grandchildren from her biological son into protective custody as well.
Read more in this ABC ActionNews.com article: Florida prosecutors can ask judge to unseal records in abuse case and this Newsday article: NY adoption records relevant in Florida abuse case, judge says.
Widowed Mother sentenced to jail.
Mother gives temporary custody of her children to late minister-husband’s parents.
Mother’s sentence is almost discharged.
Husband’s parents move to terminate Mother’s parental rights and to adopt the children.
The reason Mother was incarcerated was her conviction for killing her minister-husband.
Now Mother appeals to stop her in-laws’ applications.
Appeals court refuses to hear the Mother’s appeal - at least at this early stage of the proceedings.
Accordingly, termination of parental rights of Mother may proceed, clearing the way for the husband’s parents to adopt the children.
Of course, the Mother may have a basis to bring an appeal later.
Read more in this WMC-TV Memphis Action News 5 article: Appeals court declines to intervene in Winkler custody case.
Domestic violence remains a stubborn problem that refuses to go away despite society’s efforts.
Unfortunately, some perceived solutions haven’t panned out.
For example, about twenty years ago, many states devised a procedure they thought couldn’t miss.
Mandatory arrest on all domestic violence calls which summoned the police.
But apparently this strategy backfired.
Today, states with mandatory arrest laws reportedly have half again as many murders by intimate partners as back then. At the same time as other states have had sharp declines in intimate partner deaths.
How come?
Fewer victims contact the police in states with mandatory arrest laws.
Because, for one reason or another, victims don’t always want their abusers arrested.
And no amount of anti-violence education is likely to change that.
Read more in this New York Times guest editorial: The Protection Battered Spouses Don’t Need.
A teenaged Brooklyn mother was caring for her own eleven month old baby as well as her boyfriend’s two year old sister.
She was alone, bathing the babies and trying to make dinner at the same time.
The dinner was burning.
So she allegedly left the babies, unsupervised, in the tub for a few minutes to tend to dinner.
And her eleven month old went down in the water, not breathing, for a time.
The baby has been on a ventilator, in a coma, for a month now.
Her prognosis is uncertain.
And the young mother has been in confinement ever since, facing charges of endangerment of a child and reckless endangerment - or worse.
The father of the baby hopes to win custody when - and if - the baby is discharged from the hospital.
The mother and her supporters insist that she should be released from jail, that she is not a criminal, that what happened was an accident, that she was learning how to be a mother without any role models.
The article illustrates one legal process for handling such circumstances: criminal charges against the mother who allegedly neglected her child.
The other legal process, juvenile dependency, is a civil process by which children are taken into protective custody and the court supervises reunification of the child with the parents, when and where appropriate. The goal is for the parents to improve their parenting skills and then be with their kids.
The two processes are not mutually exclusive.
But when should the criminal process be resorted to? That is the question here.
And, not surprisingly, that is decided on a case by case basis.
Read more in this New York Times article: A Baby Girl’s Bath Becomes a Young Couple’s Nightmare.
Dad is murdered. Mother is convicted of the crime and sentenced to jail.
Mother’s sister and brother in law are appointed guardians of seven year old child.
Legal custody is shared by guardians and Dad’s parents, who live in another state.
Court orders guardians not to take child to visit Mother in jail.
Guardians later move for permission to do so.
Grandparents move to block visitation with mother.
Guardians move to change child’s last name to their own name, which is not Mother’s name or Father’s name.
Grandparents move to block name change as well.
This case takes shared parental responsibility to a whole new level, making consulting with the child’s other parent seem like a piece of cake by comparison.
Read more about this exotic co-parenting scheme in this [Raleigh, North Carolina] WRAL-TV 5 article: Kontz’s Family Seeks to Reinstate Visitation Rights.
A woman fled with her son from state to state and, ultimately, to Canada to escape domestic violence by the father, according to her.
For that, she has been convicted of kidnapping, and faces a sentence of up to three more years in prison.
She has already served eighteen months for refusing to disclose where the boy is safely hidden.
The boy’s father has denied any abuse. He claimed he had been denied access to his son and that the mother was merely trying to alienate the boy from him.
But the child’s school teacher, a presumably neutral third party, testified that the boy would sometimes start crying at school and ask her to call his mother to make sure she was OK.
Yet it is the mother who is incarcerated.
Read more in this [Montreal] Westmount Examiner article: Woman convicted of kidnapping in cross-border custody dispute.
A Michigan appeals judge is crying out that the state’s budget cuts are causing the state’s child welfare and protection sytem to fail Michigan’s children.
On average, ten Michigan children per year die in foster care.
Adoptions get bogged down, because the prerequisite termination of parental rights can’t be timely finished, because an appeal is still pending.
In recent years, appeals have been moving substantially faster, because of the services of outside contract attorneys.
But no longer. Due to budget cuts.
Before long, the judge fears, appeals will remain open longer.
And more children will die. Due to budget cuts.
Read more in this Lansing State Journal editorial: William Whitbeck: Vulnerable children victimized by crisis in Mich.’s finances.
Twenty six years after fleeing with her child from an ex-husband who, it is suggested, may have been abusive, a 62 year old Utah woman is under arrest and facing forced return to California.
Under Utah law, custodial interference is a felony carrying a sentence of up to five years - although such a harsh sentence is reportedly rarely actually imposed. The statute of limitations must be quite lengthy - or nonexistent.
The now-grown son with whom the woman fled is said to be completely supportive of her actions.
Tenacious police work for such an old case.
Is the mother a villain? Or a hero who protected her son?
Only time - and evidence - will tell.
Read more in this Salt Lake Tribune article: Mother who fled with son 26 years ago to appear in court Friday.
The young wife of a man who allegedly burned their two month old baby in a microwave oven wants custody of her baby - and to keep her husband.
After the father’s arrest for felony injury to a child, the baby was placed into foster care.
The mother was reportedly not present when the father allegedly microwaved the baby.
The mother is now allowed supervised visitation with the baby, provided she complete parenting classes and undergo testing for drug and alcohol use.
The father aspires to become a minister …
Read more in this KHOU-TV 11 News article: Microwaved baby’s mom wants her back.
How do you punish a young child who misbehaves or is aggressive with family members?
This is a question that many families face at one time or another.
And there are many possible answers, lying across the spectrum from appropriate, to inappropriate - and worse.
For one Iowa mother, the ultimate solution to a child who was biting her was: to bite him back.
Local authorities didn’t second her sentiments though.
While examining her boy for an unrelated injury, hospital workers discovered and reported to police an apparently human bite mark on the child’s arm.
Although no charges have been filed at this time, the boy was taken into protective custody by the local child welfare agency.
Read more in this Daily Nonpareil [Council Bluffs, IA] article: Child in protective custody after parent bites.
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