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:

1. a written agreement setting out their rights and obligations and
2. titling the assets after careful thoughtand
3. a will

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:

1. eliminating the requirement that a marriage have lasted ten years for a military pension to be subject to an income deduction order
2. passing cost of living increases on to more former spouses
3. reducing notification requirements to the military spouse

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.

Before leaving the month of May behind, this Salt Lake Tribune article notes the intersection of Foster Care Month and Older Americans Month in May.

And aptly acknowledges that for many children, the only route out of foster care, short of “aging out”, is permanent placement with a legal guardian – typically a grandparent.

Yet guardians currently receive far less financial support than foster parents or adoptive parents.

The article advocates better allocating financial support resources among the three channels to permanency, by supporting seniors and elders serving as legal guardians to keep their young relatives together in a familiar, loving home.