Sacks, Allred Debate New CA. Supreme Court Move-Away Decision

In relation to the post below, Glenn Sacks debated attorney Gloria Allred last Friday about this case and move away cases in general. What follows are verbatim excerpts from an email. You can visit GlennSacks.com or His Side with Glenn Sacks for more information or to sign up for email updates.

Excerpts:

California Supreme Court Rules Against Dad in New Move-Away Decision

From 1996 to 2004 move-away determinations were based on the Burgess decision, in which a custodial mother was allowed to move her two children 40 miles away from their father. Burgess was disastrous for children because it was interpreted by California courts to permit moves of hundreds or thousands of miles. In some cases, courts have even allowed children to be moved out of the country, as far away as Australia, New Zealand, and Zaire.

In 2004 the California Supreme Court decided the LaMusga case in favor of the father, Gary LaMusga, who sought to prevent his ex-wife from moving his two young boys from California to Ohio. LaMusga, who is unable to follow his children because he operates a small business and is tied down by weighty child support obligations, had fought the move for eight years. In siding with the father the court explained that "the likely impact of the proposed move on the noncustodial parent's relationship with the children is a relevant factor in determining whether the move would cause detriment to the children."

Soon afterwards a handful of extreme feminists prevailed upon former California Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) to introduce SB 730, which would have abrogated LaMusga and given custodial parents almost unlimited move-away privileges. We organized to fight the bill, and generated thousands of calls and letters in opposition, as well as a lot of media attention. To everybody's surprise, Burton withdrew SB 730, and LaMusga was preserved.

Fortunately the new decision in Brown vs. Yana will not have the impact of Burgess or LaMusga--it is more technical and limited in scope, and the father's underwhelming legal effort and behavior hurt him. To learn more about the new ruling, see Court Rules Parents With Custody Can Move (Los Angeles Times, 2/2/06).

To learn more about California move-aways and the LaMusga case, see my co-authored column Is a Pool More Important than a Dad? (San Francisco Chronicle, 5/4/04) and read my LaMusga radio commentary here. To read a feminist view of the move-away issue, see Allred's column "Moving Matters in Custody" (Los Angeles Daily Journal, 10/3/02).

I discussed how this issue would be viewed if we switched the genders in my column California NOW Takes Stand Against Working Mothers (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 2/23/04), and argued in favor of a current Wisconsin move-away bill in my co-authored piece AB 400 Will Help Wisconsin's Children of Divorce (Wisconsin State Journal, 12/3/05). I clashed with feminist law professor Carol Bruch, who authored the mother's brief in LaMusga, on PBS's Los Angeles affiliate KCET last year--to watch, click here.

Sacks, Allred Debate New California Supreme Court Move-Away Decision

For example, Gloria often says that restrictions on move-aways unfairly restrict custodial moms from moving, while not restricting noncustodial fathers. I answer that in these cases both parents are free to move wherever they want--it is the children who may not be moved if a court determines that it is against their best interests.

Gloria often says that restrictions on move-aways keep custodial parents "held hostage" in their neighborhoods, and that they should be able to "move on with their lives." I respond that both parents retain responsibilities to their children after divorce which are sometimes inconvenient or limiting, and ask "Would we argue that noncustodial parents' responsibility to pay child support holds them 'hostage?' Do we condone the behavior of divorced parents who decide to drop out of their children's lives or stop paying child support because they've decided to 'move on with their lives?'"

Another Bizarre Father Screwing

According to the article Not guilty, but not off the hook (2/6/06):

"A man who spent 13 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murder faces a debt of more than $38,000 in child-support payments that started accumulating while he was locked up...

"A federal judge released Souter last April 1.

"In 1987, before his conviction, [Larry] Souter was ordered to pay $100 a week in his divorce with Christine Souter. He stopped paying when he went to prison in 1992 but didn't ask to have payments suspended until 1995.

"Court documents show that in 1997, he owed $23,000 in back support. As of last month, interest and penalties had pushed it to $38,082.25.

"Federal law prohibits judges from retroactively wiping out such debts...

"David Sarnacki, an attorney for Souter's ex-wife, wrote in a court filing that his client 'has endured the substantial burden of raising her two children without defendant's contribution of child support.'"

I love the quote from his ex-wife's attorney. Yes, he didn't pay child support because he was in prison framed on a murder charge. I guess we should be grateful the lawyer didn't refer to Souter as a "deadbeat dad." That'll probably be next. One would also think that after seeing her ex-husband rot in jail for 13 years for a crime he didn't commit, she would feel so damn sorry for the poor guy that she would back off. I guess not.

In the article Wrongly convicted man tries to move on after prison (Flint Journal, 1/7/06), Souter had discussed putting his life back together and his plans. Now he may be headed back on the road to jail.

I wrote about California legislation designed to deal with the problem of ex-offenders and child support in my co-authored column Schwarzenegger Should Sign Bill to Reduce Prisoner Recidivism (Riverside Press-Enterprise, 9/21/05). The Bradley Amendment, under which child support arrearages cannot be retroactively forgiven, is the cause of countless bizarre injustices, and often hurts deployed military personnel. In my co-authored column Laws must protect the rights of military dads (Army Times, Marine Corps Times, 3/28/05) family law attorney Jeff Leving and I wrote:

"[Child] support orders are based on civilian pay, which is generally higher than active duty pay. When reservists are called up to active duty they sometimes pay an impossibly high percentage of their income in child support.

"For example, a California naval reservist who has three children and who takes home $4,000 a month in his civilian job would have a child support obligation of about $1,600 a month. If this father is a petty officer second class (E5) who has been in the reserves for six or seven years--a middle-ranked reservist--his active-duty pay would only be $2,205 before taxes, in addition to a housing allowance. Under current California child support guidelines, the reservist's child support obligation should be $550 a month, not $1,600."

A reasonable reader unfamiliar with the wonders of the child support system would probably think 'OK, but the courts would just straighten it out when the reservist gets back--certainly they wouldn't punish him for something that happened because he was serving.' However, the federal Bradley Amendment prohibits judges from retroactively modifying child support beyond the date which an obligor has applied for a modification. Reservists can be mobilized with as little as one day's notice. If a reservist didn't have time or didn't know he had to file for a downward modification, the arrearages stay, along with the interest and penalties charged on them.

"When the arrearage reaches $5,000--a common occurrence during long deployments--the father can become a felon who can be incarcerated or subject to a barrage of harsh civil penalties, including seizure of driver's licenses, business licenses and passports."

This is a particularly long newsletter so I am going to cut the excerpts here. However, Glenn also discusses child abduction, the campaign against PBS "documentary" Breaking the Silence, Newsweek coverage of The Trouble With Boys, domestic violence laws, Italian custody laws, and female inmates - amongst other topics. Visit his site to read the newsletter here.

Virtual visits are eyed for child-custody cases - Wisconsin

Wisconsin State Journal

I have previously discussed my disgust with virtual visitation here.

Excerpts:

Gough prompted state Sen. Cathy Stepp, R-Sturtevant, and state Rep. Robin Vos, R-Racine, to introduce bills in each house of the Wisconsin Legislature. The bills state that if a court grants periods of physical placement to both parents, the court may grant a parent a "reasonable amount of electronic communication at reasonable hours during the other parent's period of placement with the child . . ."

Some fathers' rights groups have objected to Gough's efforts because their members don't want judges using technology as an excuse to replace physical visitation or placement time.

But Wisconsin's proposal has gained support because it includes language that would prevent a judge from replacing physical visitation time with virtual visitation, said Tom Pfeiffer of Verona, who serves on the board of Wisconsin Fathers for Children and Families.

More importantly, the Wisconsin bill is written so a judge can't use technology to justify a "move-away" with the child by the custodial parent, Pfeiffer said.

Custodial parents might object to virtual visitation because it could be viewed as too expensive or detracting from time spent with the custodial parent, Gunn said. But those are issues the court can address as it considers many other factors, Gunn said.

Assembly Bill 531 and Senate Bill 244 could be scheduled for public hearings in August or September.

Fathers Rally for Equal Parenting Rights- Wisconsin

NBC15 Fathers Rally for Equal Parenting Rights

Excerpts:

Madison: David Lewis enjoys every minute he gets to spend with his 3 year old daughter Juliana. Of course, he doesn't get all that many minutes each week.

He went to court after he was originally awarded only 7 hours of visitation each week. "The court ended up giving me 34 hours a week to see my daughter. But yet I'm a licensed foster father and I can care for other people's children, 2-4 year old girls on a full time basis."

"If we're going to expect fathers to be good role models and to be a positive influence on their children they have to have access to their children. To be there every other weekend just isn't sufficient," says WFCF Chair Brian King.

"All we're asking for is equal time with our kids," agrees David.

While changing the court's age old view of women as better parents may take time, some changes are moving faster.

Juliana's mom used to live 10 miles away from David. "Then she moved with her boyfriend approximately 80 miles so now I drive about 300 miles a week on average to see my daughter."

State law allows a parent with primary custody to move up to 150 miles away without even informing the other parent.

Assembly bill 400 would change that. "The assumption has been made that whatever's good for the primary parent is good for the child. What we're with this bill is questioning that," says bill author Rep. Steve Kestell (R-Elkhart Lake).

Representative Kestell's bill would change the boundary limit to just 20 miles or inside a school district. If a parent wants to move farther, they either need the permission of the other parent, or the approval of a judge.

Wisconsin Paternity Suit

This is an extremely interesting and unbelievably convoluted case out of Wisconsin. I will attempt to provide a synopsis:

A married woman had an affair and shortly thereafter became pregnant. While she made the man she was having the affair with aware that the child might be his, she never told her husband of the affair. A few years later the woman and her husband are divorcing and the husband is seeking custody, visitation, etc... The woman then tells her husband that the child is likely not his. After a paternity test this is found to be true and the biological father attempts to assert his rights to the child. The court rules in favor of the non-biological father and is reaffirmed (kind-of at least, they rule in favor of the non-biological father but for different reasons) by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The biological father is ordered to have no-contact with the child. The kicker here is that the mother has since married the biological father and shares custody with the non-biological father, but her husband (the biological father) is currently not allowed to see the child. Apparently the biological father could be awarded some sort of visitation if a "child psychologist decides it is appropriate in the future."

Personally, I think this mother is crazy and obviously doing large amounts of harm to her child. Other than that, I'm not sure how I feel about the ruling. It is not the non-biological fathers fault this occurred and he has acted as father since the child was born (I believe the child is roughly 6 now). However, giving the biological father no access does not seem correct either. Read the article for yourself at gmtoday.

Wisconsin Joint Custody

They are amending the Wisconsin presumption of joint custody law to allow judges to consider domestic abuse charges. htrnews.com