Come January, if you want a divorce, Louisiana may not be the best place to get it.

The state currently has a wait period of six months before any divorce there can be finalized.

Starting next year, the waiting period will increase to a full year – but only for couples who have minor children together.

There are, however, exceptions for cases where adultery, or sexual or other physical abuse is alleged.

This is a somewhat perplexing move for the recovering state. Perhaps the intention behind it is to promote reconciliation of parents of young children.

But, the good-intentions-road may take some unpleasant and undesirable detours to:

• nastier, more expensive divorces, fueled by false allegations designed to fall within the exceptions to the increased waiting period and
• the more disgruntled of the two spouses picking up and leaving the rest of the family, to establish residency in another state, where they can get their divorce sooner – such as Florida

Read more in this KLFY TV 10 news article: Some couples will have to wait longer for divorce.

In 2000, a woman arranged to put her unborn baby up for adoption.

The birth mother moved in with the adoptive family after the birth. And didn’t like what she saw in the adoptive home.

The family’s other children were reportedly home-schooled and lagging socially. Two special needs children allegedly appeared neglected.

The birth mother tried to back out of her termination of parental rights and the adoption.

Since then, the case has been litigated up and down the Utah courts.

And 5 years later, there is still no decision as to who will ultimately be the boy’s parent(s).

In the meantime though, the boy is placed with the would-be adoptive parents, and has not seen his birth mother for several years.

Read more in this Salt Lake Tribune article: Adoption custody battle for 5-year-old continues.

Sometimes, complex cases have to be oversimplified, to put the focus on the core that is of legal significance.

Other times, simple cases have to get made complicated, by a party looking to obscure and hide that core, behind a lot of irrelevant “stuff”. Unfortunately, sometimes that works.

Such a case was recently reported in the New Jersey Lawyer.

The parents were divorced in the Dominican Republic, where they had lived for several years. Both were represented by counsel there.

The mother and children remained in the Dominican Republic after the divorce, but the father returned to New Jersey.

When the children were with the father for summer visitation, the father filed for a modification of custody, seeking sole custody of the children.

Generally speaking, under the law of most (if not all) of the states in the US, once a state (or country) has exercised valid jurisdiction over a child, that state keeps jurisdiction. Period.

Of course, there can be changes of circumstances that will justify a change of jurisdiction. But none was alleged or applied in this particular case.

So the father reportedly made unsupported allegations of abuse and neglect by the mother, in an apparent attempt at obfuscation.

In response, the mother introduced a good deal of evidence to contradict those allegations. Further, a court appointed psychologist reportedly could not find any support for the allegations.

Good try, but case closed? Well, no.

The father also alleged that the mother was going to move the children to another country, Norway.

And, if and when that happened, then there would be no place that would have jurisdiction. So, his argument went, New Jersey should exercise jurisdiction based on those speculations.

But where things get really interesting is here. The New Jersey court ruled – quite correctly – that New Jersey did not have jurisdiction.

Yet, having so ruled, the NJ court, in effect, inexplicably proceeded to exercise jurisdiction, enjoin the removal of the children from New Jersey and order that the children’s passports be held by the father.

If you’re confused, you’re not alone. This case illustrates yet again that obfuscation really does work sometimes.

Fortunately, it was all straightened out on appeal, with the father’s case in New Jersey being dismissed.

If you’re up for some obfuscation, read more in this New Jersey Lawyer article: Custody plans issued abroad.

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:

• the home of the campaign, Save the Internet
• Common Cause
• Chicago Media Action

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:

• this Fort Bend Herald and Texas Coaster article: 13 suspects arrested for child support fraud
• Houston Local 2 13 Women Accused Of Child Support Fraud
• Fort Bend Now: 13 Area Women Accused Of Writing Hot Checks To AG In Exchange For Child Support

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.