After half an hour of searching, finally I have the opportunity to observe a court in person for the first time. At the 302nd Family Court in downtown Dallas on the 3rd of Dec, 2013, the case I was observing was a child custody case between Anna Smith and David Smith. The case number as show on the board outside the court is DS-12-08126. Furthermore, the Judge of 302nd Family Court is Tena Callahan.
It was quite an experience when I step inside the Court building and don’t really know where to go. I stopped and asked a security and a court clerk. I was informed that I could walk right in the court as silent and if anyone start asking question just tell them the reason. That is totally new for me as an international student. The case I walked into is a Child custody case between Anna Smith and David Smith. Anna Smith, for what I observe, is a dark skin woman who looks roughly around thirty five to forty. On the other hand, David Smith is gentlemen who looks about forty two to forty five. When I walked in, they are discussing about the truck payment that Anna Smith is in charge of paying when they divorced, and she demand a share from her husband around 60%-40% monthly. The truck was bought in 2010 and it worth $15.000 to $16.000. Next, I observed the attorney on David’s side, Lafleur Eric, was asking question to “lawyer” Anna Smith who was the defendant. When I said lawyer her, I mean he means to ask Anna bunch of question to bring out the guilt, truth, frustration, confuse, and regret in Anna. He cover all of her answer by asking the first question. “Will you be fully understand and truthfully answer my questions under any circumstances? She said yes. When he started asking quite fast and she started confusing. I thought it was t...
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...Anna have a head start from witnesses, and the judge; however, she also have to worry about Eric because he will has some tricks inside his sleeves that he will pull it out. For example, the medication situations, Eric called Dr. Mason and the doctor have informed him that Anna was confusing the medications of Logan lately and she testified it. As long as I know, the chance to raise Logan larger is belong to Anna Smith.
This experience is really interesting for me. To observe the procedure of the court, to see how American system works, to see how government money spent, to see one of the most common case in the United State, and to witnessed something I have never seen with my own eyes before is really interesting. Even though I cannot know what is the answer of the judge about child custody in this case but I have got something out of this helpful assignment.
Procedural History The Supreme Court, Appellate, second division modified the the judgment and ordered that the custody of the youngest child remain with the mother. Husband appealed. The Court of Appeals, Jasen,J; held that after the custody of the two older children had been awarded to the husband, it was appropriate for special term to award of the youngest child to the husband in the light of the younger child’s ambivalence as to which of her parents she would prefer to live with and her strong preference to live with two older
For the purpose of the paper, I will summarize the facts and leading events of the case of Elenita L and Romer N. Fajota. As reading through this trial I discovered that judges don’t always make the right decision for families or individuals. Likely in this case it is presentably true. Elenita and Romer got married in June 2005 and have three minor children together. As their marriage progressed, in the beginning of the year 2006, Romero became physically violent against Elenita. Romer committed various acts of violence against her and stated in court that it continued “even while pregnant with their second child”. But however, from 2006 to 2008 the violence continued against Elenita and her children. As the domestic violence continued, Elenita filed a
The article is predominantly a court dialogue of the Bradley’s and any witnesses about the alleged abuse from Mr. Bradley against Mrs. Bradley. Providing pictures of strangulation marks, blackened eyes, and witnessed whom Mr. Bradley threatened and or harassed, Mr. Bradley found a rebuttal for each of the claims. The answers that Mrs. Bradley provided Judge for his questions showed how hard it was for her to leave her husband, how scared she and her family were. This article also provides information about voicemails Mr. Bradley left her parents threatening to kill their daughter if they didn’t send her back to his home. The article discusses in detail their treacherous relationship and Mrs. Bradley’s death. The article is from a periodical and was not peer reviewed, however the article is a dialogue from court with no personal opinion from the author. I believe this to be my strongest
Totenberg, N. (2013, April 16). Adoption Case Brings Rare Family Law Dispute To High Court.
for attorneys, this case was a significant change in the United States judicial system, and
INTRODUCTION/ASSIGNMENT:Denise Morgan has requested that our office represent her in a family court matter addressing the modification of a child support order. The supervising attorney asked that I review the facts of the case and the legal authority provided to determine strengths and weaknesses of Ms. Morgan’s case and if the Motion to Vacate requested by Mr. Morgan will be granted by the court, applying only the law provided, not to include any outside research.
Three aspects of child custody cases are discussed: a "rule of thumb complex," the belief that courts find fact finding and adjudication of such cases a painful process; and the feeling that
In the United States today more than one-half of all marriages end in divorce. The purpose of this paper is to examine the reason why women have typically received custody of the children far more often than the fathers. In order to better understand child custody one must first examine how fathers have often times been left out of the picture, and conversely why mothers have had such hard times raising children on their own. This paper will first examine the perspective of a father who has lost custody of his children.
To summarize, the three main ethical issues that arise in this problem are those of duty of confidentiality towards my client, conflict of interests and duties owed to the court. Even though at a first glance they might seem to be raising some difficulties, each of these matters can be resolved through tact, good communication and a diligent behaviour.
As a consequence, the father who owned two successful companies decided to appeal. He claimed that the order awarding shared custody was improper because the trial court abused its discretion. Furthermore, none of the parents asked for shared physical custody and the Dissolution of Marriage Act includes solely the right to visit the child for a non-custodial parent, and the findings were supported by evidence. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision after considering the factors stated by IN Code § 31-17-2-8, and finding out that the share physical custody was not forbidden by statute. After reviewing the findings made by the trial court, the appellate court found that the mother had been the primary caretaker of the child ,as well as both of partners made a superb job parting the child. Furthermore, the evaluator appointed by the court suggested that the sole custody of child should be awarded to the father ,and many visitations should be granted to the mother, however, the evaluator confessed the mother would be able to visit the child many times owing to the fact that she would look for a full-time job. In addition to that the court noticed that the father was going to hire caretaker over the mother. Moreover, the detective was hired by the father to watch the mother testified that the mother had not done any inappropriate action with her child as well as another testimony made by a former mother supporting the mother . Finally, the court is not required to follow what the evaluator’s opinions related to the child
For the court observation assignment, I visited the Tolland County Courthouse. I went to court on Tuesday April 4th, 2017 from 11am to 12:30pm. The matters I observed in the courtroom regarded a restraining order from an ex-girlfriend to her ex-boyfriend. The details involved in the case included the welfare of their three-month-old baby and the custody battle.
The Supreme Court had to look into the reason the South Carolina executed the case and then come to a decision if the right choices was made. If the Supreme Court did not see the verdict as being the correct one, they have the power to override it. The first case was given is that Dusten Brown decided that Christy Maldonado should have full custody of Veronica, who was not yet born (Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl). Then Dusten said “he relinquished his parental rights only to Christy” (Totenberg). South Carolina court system was also notified that Dusten was a member of the Cherokee Nation, Christy tried to verify Dusten’s involvement but made mistakes in the information about him. Therefore the paperwork could not be found by the Cherokee Nation. Veronica was not listed either to be of Native American descendants, but instead be of Hispanic descendants. Christy had trouble supporting Veronica and her other children so she turned to adoption and found the Capobiancos. When the ICWA found the paperwork the case was brought to the court. Then the court decided Dusten was part of the ICWA therefore he was correct and had the Capobiancos hand over Veronica (Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl). Then the Capobiancos with the help of Christy appealed to the Supreme Court and got the justified verdict. The Supreme Court had to review the case work. The first item the Supreme Court had to decide was if
Joan B. Kelly, P. (2014). The Determination of Child Custody in the USA . Retrieved from http://www.familylawwebguide.com.au/library/spca/docs/The%20Determination%20of%20Child%20Custody%20in%20the%20USA.pdf
The sympathy of the government for mothers such as Khaila, trying to recover their parental rights has worn thin. Child abandonment is a serious offense and the children that suffer from such neglect face many psychological problems; if they are ever able to survive their circumstances. The abandonment and neglect of a child can result in serious criminal charges. One striking example is the case of seven month old Daniel Scott (Should We Take Away Their Kids?). Baby Daniel had been left for hours unattended and died of in a pool of his own blood. His mother, a crack addict left him in the care of his father to go on a six day crack binge. His father in turn, left him in his crib leaving the door of their Bronx tenement unlocked for any danger to afflict his unprotected son (Should We Take Away Their Kids?). The parents were later charged with manslaughter by negligence.
The hallways of the courts are filled with people in every single scene, and the officials have a constant stream of complaints. It is clear that the Iranian court system is overwhelmed and cannot handle the sheer number of complaints. The movie starts with flashes of ID cards of people going into court. This suggests the court system views each case as numbers rather than actual people. In addition, the informal manner in which complaints are presented only makes it harder. Neither family had a lawyer to represent them - instead, they represented themselves, and because they lack legal training, the whole case became messy and