Family Court Exposed

Kamika Dunlap’s article regarding reform of the Family Court is well-taken, but, in my opinion, for the wrong reasons.

The current system allows far too much discretion on the part of the judges, who frequently rely on findings by “custody evaluators,” many of whom have only very superficial awareness of the true situation in divorcing families.

The issue of alleged “child abuse” is frequently used by a vengeful or selfish parent in order to “stack the deck” against the other parent, since, once an accusation of abuse (especially against a male) is made, it is almost impossible to defend against (guilty until proven innocent).

Major reforms should include:

1. A presumption for joint and equal custody unless the parties agree to something else, or it is shown, by standard rules of evidence, that one parent is deficient.

2. A requirement that any recommendations by a “custody evaluator” be subject to challenge j in court, by the other party in the action.

3. Better, education of judges and other officers of-the court in the dynamics of family life and the psychology of divorce.

It must be remembered that when a court “awards” custody to one parent, the court is not “awarding” anything, but rather, it is depriving one parent of the ability to raise his/her child.

Domestic violence doesn’t only affect people who have been married, have a child together or are related. But until last July, only people who fit those categories were eligible for a civil order of protection through a family court in New York state.
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Anyone else had to go through criminal court – a process that takes longer and requires the victim to press charges.

On July 21, 2008, the Family Court Act was amended to include people who are or were in an “intimate relationship,” a category that includes teens, non-heterosexual couples and people who dated, regardless of whether they lived together or whether the relationship was sexual in nature.

A civil order of protection is a court order signed by a judge to protect the petitioner from the alleged abuser.

“It’s an extremely important tool,” said Amy Barasch, executive director of the New York state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence.

Veronica C., who works for the Grace Smith House writing petitions for orders of protection at the Dutchess County Family Court, said her workload became “noticeably heavier” a few months after the law changed.

Veronica declined to give her last name, saying that for safety reasons, employees of Grace Smith House are trained not to.

Previously, her office wrote about 70 to 80 petitions each month. Rarely did that number top 100. In May, they filed 128.

“We’re doing more than a hundred a month now,” she said.

Last fall, Grace Smith House hired a part-time employee to assist Veronica with the petitions, which continue to increase, as does the number of people who have been referred to family court by police, she said.

Veronica said victims she’s worked with have expressed relief when they found out they had access family court. Going through criminal court can be a burden on domestic violence victims.

“They don’t want to have to go to court all the time, or they don’t want that person to have a (criminal) record,” she said.

Because the Family Court Act was amended to include people who are or have been in an intimate relationship, the state’s mandatory arrest law also reflects that change. The mandatory arrest law, enacted in 1994, requires police to make an arrest on a domestic violence call if they have probable cause to believe a felony or misdemeanor has occurred.

“In the penal code, where it describes what crimes trigger a mandatory arrest, it refers to family offenses as defined in a section of the Family Court Act,” Barasch said.

“Now, a boyfriend-girlfriend or any other intimate relationship is treated the same way as husband and wife,” said Lt. John Watterson of the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office.

“If you go to the scene and someone’s injured … it gives police more tools to help with the situation,” he said.

In 1927, in an effort to pick up some extra business, Nevada reduced its residency requirements for divorce from six months to three. The strategy worked beautifully; divorce cases in Nevada rapidly increased by a healthy 250%. It was a brisk business. One reporter noted that Reno’s famous “Judge George A. Bartlett is said to hold the national divorce mill record of 26 decrees signed in one day.”

A great many out-of-staters were attracted by Nevada’s newly offered “divorce package,” whereby spouses could travel from out of state – with children if they had any – and pay for services that would often provide the litigant with life-time alimony and custody of the children – with few questions asked.

When Mrs. Emma A. Warren tried out divorce court in California she failed to prove she had a bad husband or an unfit parent. So Mrs. Warren packed up daughter aged 7 and son aged 4 and fled to Reno, taking up residence in the infamous Hotel Riverside, preparing to give routine – and routinely tolerated – perjured testimony that she had moved there as a permanent resident and had not gone there just to finagle a one-sided court case.

When Van Court Warren, noted geologist, discovered his kids were missing he drove straight to the divorce mill, found his children with their nurse on a sidewalk in crowded downtown Reno, gathered them into his car, and drove off for their California home.

But Mrs. Warren had prepared for that, having hired one Fred Jackson, private detective, who was following the children at a 50 yard distance. As the automobile with its three occupants sped off Mr. Jackson let loose what Reno newspapers described as “a fusillade of bullets” at the fugitives. Luckily, boy, girl and dad, escaped puncture – and drove on to California. The divorce mecca’s police saw no good reason to criminalize the trigger-happy gumshoe for just trying to do his well-paid job.

Father, daughter and son reached home safely despite being briefly detained by California police near the border in response to phoned-in requests by the wife and her hired gun. Mrs. Warren however managed to win her divorce and custody case anyway without the presence of her homebody husband. The ex parte divorce was finalized in Reno on Feb. 28, 1928.

Four months later, California Judge Leon R. Yankwich declared the Warren divorce invalid on the grounds that Mrs. Warren had violated both California law and Nevada residency requirements by filing divorce in a state where none of the parties had ever been legitimately domiciled. It was the first ruling by a court in a home state relating to the new long-distance Reno divorce scheme. Judge Yankwith’s ruling upset quite a lot of people including, sad-to-say, a whole battalion of itchy Hollywood stars.