January 8, 2003

Men aim for equal custodial rights
By Mary Shaffrey
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

     RICHMOND — Family-advocacy lobbyists said yesterday that after years of trying to improve child-custody rights for Virginia fathers, they have a proposal that lawmakers will accept because it helps reduce the $1.2 billion budget deficit.

     The Fathers for Virginia group wants lawmakers to pass legislation that would automatically give equal custody time to fathers and mothers, unless it can be proven a parent is using drugs or alcohol or otherwise behaving dangerously or illicitly.
     A standardized ruling, group leaders say, would save millions in court costs and legal fees.
     "If we can change the system and how it is stacked against fathers, we can balance the budget," said Murray Steinberg, a lobbyist with the Family Resolution Council, which advocates largely for children's rights and increasing parental involvement in children's lives.
     While lawmakers have vowed to tackle social issues, the lobbyists know the focus during this General Assembly session will be on Gov. Mark R. Warner's plan to reduce the deficit by streamlining state agencies and cutting programs.
      "Everyone is talking about the budget," said Ronald M. Grignol, a Fathers for Virginia member. "This issue is just not in the forefront. It is so important, though. I would like it to be a national issue that is debated."
     He also said the laws are stuck 35 or 40 years in the past, when husbands were thought to cause most divorces.
     "Today, the courts and society automatically assume that the father is wrong, and that is not the case," said Mr. Grignol, who added he feels lucky if he gets about 45 percent of the time with his 8- and 10-year-old daughters.
      Virginia law allows for 50 percent custody, joint custody or sole custody by parents, grandparents or other guardians. The law also states custody decisions are made in the best interest of the child.
     More specifically, Section 20 of the Virginia Code states the primary considerations are a parent's "involvement with the child's life [and his or her] ability to accurately assess and meet the emotional, intellectual and physical needs of the child."
     The Virginia Bar Association has lobbied against similar proposals to change the law, arguing "equal shared custody arrangements" presume both parents have an equal relationship to the child, which is not always the case.
     "We would rather you go into court with both sides having a blank slate, with the judge not struggling against any presumptions," said Donald K. Butler, a member of the Virginia Bar who has testified before the Virginia General Assembly on family-law issues.
     "These regulations say that Solomon has to split the baby in half, down the middle, or satisfy with evidence as to why he shouldn't." Mr. Butler continued.
     Virginia lawmakers are also skeptical about the change significantly reducing the deficit.
     "This would not solve the state's budget process," said Delegate David Albo, Fairfax Republican, one of several lawmakers with whom lobbyists have met.
     Mr. Albo sympathizes with the fathers, but as a lawyer thinks the courts are fair. He believes the system could be improved, though.
     "We are looking at allowing juries or panels to decide custodial agreements," he said. "That way, no one can say a particular judge is against you or against certain groups of people."
 

 

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Joint custody is a good deal - except for lawyers

     Thank you for printing an article that touches on some of the issues regarding the need for joint custody of children ("Men aim for equal custodial rights," Metropolitan, yesterday).


      Yet, Delegate David Albo, Fairfax Republican, "thinks" the present system is "fair." Does somebody have some hard evidence in favor of this opinion who doesn't belong to the Virginia Bar Association? What lawyers really fear is losing the lucrative divorce industry.
     

Mr. Albo's suggestion that we use juries to decide custody may simply increase public expenditures and legal fees. It definitely guarantees that lawyers continue to feed at this trough. This approach continues to violate the right of good parents and their children to associate freely as a family.


     In fact, children living without significant contact with both parents are more likely to suffer in relationships, physical and mental health, and delinquency. As for the price of this outcome, I requested Gov. Mark Warner's office to provide information on the costs of divorce to the budget of the state government, and I have yet to receive an answer. Clearly, divorce and human misery can be curtailed and budgetary savings achieved by presuming parents' rights to joint custody.


     Virginia's juvenile courts function as fiefdoms in which judges make custody decisions behind closed doors. Loving parents, extricated from deciding their children's fate, are afraid of retaliation should they complain against judges.
     Our children deserve a system that promotes marriage and reconciliation. Our children deserve both parents.
     
     CHUCK DEHART
     Fulks Run, Va.

 

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 I was awed by the naked truth exposed in the coverage of men demanding their citizenship rights not be abridged in the article "Men aim for equal custodial rights" (Metro, Wednesday). How ironic it is that lawyers and lawyer-legislators oppose such a notion when confronted with the idea of shared parenting. Yet, they callously condemn these same men for "not being supportive of their children" when addressing financial child-support proposals.
     Children love, want and need two parents. The research is in, and the data is incontestable. In the short run, shared parenting may infringe on the profits that the state and some lawyers earn from refusing to budge from a winner-parent-loser-parent mentality. In the long run, however, the state will win because there won't be any sole-custody children to cycle through the criminal justice system, the welfare office or the divorce courts. Children from two-parent families rarely end up in their clutches.
     Did I forget to mention the benefit to the lawyers? There isn't any, unless one considers self-evaluation a benefit.
     
     STUART A. MILLER
     Senior legislative analyst
     American Fathers Coalition
     Washington

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Dr. Richard Weiss initial response to this is:

1. As long as fathers and family rights advocates attempt top lobby lawyer-legislator, judge-controlled state legislatures to change present dysfunctional custody laws, their attempts are doomed.

2. The "BIC" reject button is in EVERY [otherwise well meaning] equal custody statute. This button is permanently in the on position as long as judges have "discretion." The 90% or more maternal custody "presumption" (probably close to 100% as far as presumptions go) will persist until there is an air-tight constraint to disallow it and substitute the constitutionally firm "equal" presumption. The only way I see this happening, apart from a mass rebellion of fathers, is a successful lawsuit against the state as upheld and supported by the U.S. Supreme court, based on compelling and valid constitutional law.

3. The lawyers assertion (see below) that "We would rather you go into court with both sides having a blank slate, with the judge not struggling against any presumptions" is ludicrous because there is already a presumption (the mother is preferred as the custodial parent, all things being "equal") and in fact the judge doesn't even need to struggle against it. I may be irrational, but isn't a legislated presumption of "equal custody" [of two fit, noncriminal or proved abusive] parents a "blank slate" which requires no "struggle?." Just more insane lawyer gibberish.

4. Finally, the Virginia Bar's inane statement as quoted: "The Virginia Bar Association has lobbied against similar proposals to change the law, arguing "equal shared custody arrangements" presume both parents have an equal relationship to the child, which is not always the case."

Excuse me.!!!##$$@@@ It is ALWAYS the case in contested custody cases where both parents are fit. BOTH parents FUNDAMENTALLY have an EQUAL relationship with their child. They are BOTH the parents. The previous division of time and labor---agreed upon and practiced by the parents in the privacy of their family---has absolutely NOTHING to do with fundamental and constitutionally supported legal RIGHTS of the parents.

Lawyers arguing this trash, legislators accepting it, and judges practicing it should all be removed from their offices and in the case of attorneys, sued and disbarred.

Dr. Richard Weiss

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If mom is difficult, she wins sole custody
 
Virginia Circuit Court
Domestic Relations - Joint Legal Custody - Mom's Move To New Jersey
Although the parties agreed to employ a psychologist for a neutral custody evaluation, and the psychologist recommended joint legal custody with primary physical custody to the mother, who moved to New Jersey when she separated from the father in 2001, the circuit court rejects that recommendation due to the parties' difficulty in communicating in a way that is helpful to the child.
O'Keefe v. Myers (Richmond Cir. Ct.) (VLW 002-8-322) (8 pp.)
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