Life-Altering False Allegations

A long-time client was recently accused of inappropriately touching his daughter while she bathed.   I handled the original custody matter when the child was only six (6) months old.  My client, we will call him “Mike,” and the mother of their child, we will call her “Sarah,” were never married. They had an on-again, off-again relationship and lived together for a brief time in Scottsdale before breaking up.  Sarah found out she was pregnant a few weeks after Mike asked her to move out of his home.

Their relationship was not overly tumultuous (at least from the perspective of an attorney who routinely handles high-conflict Family Court cases in Maricopa County).   There were no reported domestic violence incidents, but Mike did have a possession of marijuana charge prior to the relationship. Again, nothing too dramatic. They were pre-gaming before a Rodger Clyne and the Peacemakers concert in Phoenix, where he was arrested for possession of a small amount of weed.   Other than that, and a few inconsequential traffic infractions, my client did not have a noteworthy legal history.

Sarah was bitter that the court gave Mike parenting time equivalent to 3 days a week.  Her anger subsided when Sarah and Mike briefly rekindled their relationship during a few parenting time exchanges.  In retrospect, it was a bad idea, as Sarah thought that the sexual relationship meant more than Mike did.  Around the same time, Mike, who was a medical resident at the time the matter started but was now a credentialed pediatrician, moved into a home in Paradise Valley.

A few months after their last fling, Mike began to date someone and the relationship became serious and exclusive in the following months. His girlfriend, also in healthcare (a dentist), moved into the PV home and they were engaged     shortly thereafter.

The now-fiancée spent some time with the child, and they had a healthy and blossoming step-parent relationship.  She would occasionally watch the child in the evenings if Mike had an on-call issue and had to go to the hospital.  It was a good situation and continued to improve as the couple planned their Mexico wedding.

Then, about 6 weeks before the beach wedding, things started to escalate with Sarah.  Mike needed the child’s passport to bring her to the wedding.  Sarah balked, claiming that Cancun was unsafe because it is “in Mexico.” My office was re-engaged to deal with the passport issue and to get the Parenting Coordinator and Family Court to address the issue on an expedited basis.   Although we quickly cleared up the passport issue, what should have been the next happy chapter in Mike’s life was about to turn into a nightmare.

About 2 weeks before the wedding, a police officer knocked on Mike’s front door and asked to ‘talk’.  According to the report, Sarah claimed that their daughter had been ‘touched’ by him because the child, barely 3 years old, had some sort of vaginal irritation.   My client snapped at the officer, livid that he was being accused of inappropriately touching his daughter.   He calmed quickly and excused himself from the conversation to call me.  (It was late in the evening and he managed to track down one of the attorneys in our office by cell phone.)

Mike was advised not to discuss the matter and demand to speak to his counsel.  The officer respected the request and may have realized that there was something odd about the allegation.

CPS, however, advised Sarah that she should not let Mike have parenting time “while the investigation was opened.” So, she filed an emergency petition seeking to suspend his parenting time because he “had molested my daughter.”

The court granted the request ex parte (without giving notice or a chance to be heard to Mike).

We scrambled.  I have handled false allegations (and not-false allegations) many times and knew that we needed to get the medical records and find out about any disclosures made by the child.   The irritation, according to not only her primary care pediatrician but also an expert forensic examiner, was nothing more than irritation from toilet paper from a child learning to clean herself.

Then, we reviewed the forensic interview of the child.  She seemed beyond coached,
inconsistent, and incoherent.   Ultimately, the police found “no cause” to charge Mike and CPS unsubstantiated the allegation, but the wedding was postponed and Mike was traumatized by how close he was to facing substantial prison time on a felony conviction based on nothing more than Mother’s naked allegation.

Everything was on the line for my client – his relationship with his daughter, his medical license, his reputation – all for Mother’s revenge.

I share this story because this situation far too common. Police, DCS agents, and sometimes even Superior Court Judges often react first and reason later in child abuse allegation cases because no one wants to guess wrong and wind up on the front page of the Arizona Republic if a child is harmed. Understanding the process and helping educate the Courts (and sometimes the “experts”) is critical to ensuring that false allegations are disproven and the collateral damage is minimal.

See also “Whose Team are they on?  CPS Removal and TDM Meetings”

Parenting Disaster

The tables were sadly turned on a well-meaning former Pennsylvania prosecutor and his wife when they were charged with child abuse. The couple, Douglas and Kristen Barbour, thought they were doing the right thing in adopting two children from Ethiopia, but soon learned they were not equipped to parent these children with special needs.

The Barbours adopted a 6-year-old boy and an 18-month-old girl in March of 2012. They believed if they raised the children as they had raised their two biological children, they would enjoy the same great results. Unfortunately, the children did not adjust as well as the parents had hoped and the Barbours soon recognized they needed help. They sought the advice of an expert in foreign adoptions but refused to follow his recommendations to be more flexible with their parenting style. They wanted to parent the way they saw fit.

The Barbours made sure to bring the children to the doctors when the children were ill and tried their best to handle the children’s behavioral issues. However, it was soon clear the parents could not meet the children’s needs and the children suffered as a result. Although the boy was six, he went to the bathroom in his pants. The parents attempted to discipline him by forcing him to eat in the bathroom or stand alone in the dark. The girl had multiple head fractures – although the parents allege it was because she was clumsy, the doctors who examined her were doubtful of that conclusion. As a result, the boy was malnourished and ended up losing 10 pounds in the Barbours’ custody and the girl was healing from multiple fractures.

Similar situations have happened in Phoenix, Arizona and Birmingham, Alabama in recent years, where excessive punishment led to criminal charges that made national news.  Arguably, many of these parents did not intend to hurt their children. In fact, several sought help from experts, but in the end were patently unsuccessful, usually because they failed to follow the experts’ advice. Notwithstanding various safeguards that exists to protect children, the harm that parents can inflict is often the worst of all.

Click here for more on this story.

Do Grandparents Have Rights?

We have all had family fights — disagreed with our parents or rebelled when we were teens and thought we knew everything — but what happens when that fight leaves the family in pieces?

When adults have disagreements, they are often caught up in the heat of the moment. They say things they don’t mean and they do things they would not otherwise have done. Sometimes this means parents deny grandparents’ access to their grandchildren. Unfortunately, parents are not often thinking of the effects that this denial may have on their children. Grandparents are often very involved in the upbringing of their grandchildren. This begs the question: do grandparents have the right to fight for time with their grandchildren?

In Arizona, there are circumstances in which grandparents have standing to fight for legal decision-making rights and placement of, or visitation with, their grandchildren. However, it is difficult to meet the standards of the court.  According to the U.S. Supreme Court, parents have a fundamental right to raise their children as they see fit. What this translates to is that there are a number of legal hurdles that grandparents must overcome before they are granted any rights with respect to their grandchildren.

According to A.R.S. § 25-409(A), to gain legal decision-making rights and placement for a grandchild over the objection of the parents, the grandparents would have to meet a number of prerequisites. First, the grandparents have to prove that they have been treated as a parent by the child and have formed a meaningful relationship with the child for a substantial period of time.

Then, the grandparents must show that it would be significantly detrimental to have the child remain in the parent’s home. Those requirements are just a part of the bigger picture a grandparent must paint in order to gain legal decision-making rights and placement of their grandchildren. Arizona has adopted these same standards to protect parental rights.

States must balance the delicate interests of parents and grandparents at stake and try not to infringe on the parent-child relationship if it is not necessary. This is because courts are under the general assumption that a parent is fit, and a fit parent is able to make all necessary decisions for their children without intervention. Disproving fitness is often as onerous as proving that unicorns do not exist. Having an attorney experienced in these matters can be crucial for a grandparent fighting for legal decision-making rights and placement of grandchildren.

Alternatively, grandparents can file for visitation under A.R.S. § 25-409(C) (rather than trying to remove the child from the parent’s care). The hurdles grandparents must overcome for visitation are slightly lower compared to that of legal decision-making/placement rights; however, there is still a substantial amount of proof needed to prove it is in the child’s best interest to have visitation with the grandparents.

Let’s look at an example. If a Tempe grandmother wanted to petition for visitation rights with her grandson, she would have to file a petition with the Maricopa County Superior Court.  She would first have to establish that either one of the parents was deceased, or that the child was born out-of-wedlock and the parents are not married, or that the parents are divorced.  After meeting this initial requirement, she then has to prove her relationship with the child and why it is in the child’s best interest to have her continued presence in his life. She would have to offer evidence of her historical relationship with him and establish his reliance on her presence, explain her motivation for the request for visitation, and how the requested visitation may impact the child’s customary activities, among other ‘best interests’ factors.

If she can show that she has been a substantial part of the child’s life and the child would suffer if she were no longer able to see him, the court may decide that it would be in the child’s best interest to have continued visitation. Though this may not seem like a substantial burden in every scenario, proving the best interest of the child can be a tricky topic to maneuver around.  Courts are highly reluctant to interfere with parenthood, even if the result is to the detriment of grandparents and children who may enjoy their company. Again, having an attorney experienced in these matters can be crucial for a grandparent fighting for visitation with their grandchildren.

Although Arizona does provide some options for grandparents seeking time with their grandchildren who have been cut off from them, it does not and cannot afford the rights some grandparents wish to have. Sometimes the best option is to seek mediation or family counseling and try to reconcile the situation.  Sadly, however, mediation may not resolve the problem, leaving grandparents to decide whether a contentious legal battle is worth the further harm it may cause to their relationship with their children.

Can Refusing Your Kid McDonald’s Make You Unfit to Parent?

Attorney David Schorr was accused of being an unfit parent by a psychologist in New York because he refused his 4-year-old child McDonald’s. The New York father currently has visitation time with his son every Tuesday. Mr. Schorr asked his son what he wanted for dinner and the son replied with the typical child response… McDonald’s!

Mr. Schorr was not enthused about the thought of having fast food for dinner and offered several other options. The son refused all other options and proceeded to throw a fit to get his way. The exasperated father finally “put his foot down” and said if his son did not choose something other than McDonald’s, they would have nothing. To his dismay, the son chose nothing. Mr. Schorr returned his son to his mother without getting him their Tuesday night dinner.

This all happened in the midst of a bitter custody battle. Sometimes in Arizona, when custody battles become a convoluted mess of “he said-she said,” courts appoint a forensic psychologist to speak with the family and make recommendations about the best interest of the children involved.  If a Scottsdale father is alleged to be unfit for refusing to take his spoiled kid to Sapporo, there are numerous psychologists and family interventionists in Maricopa County who may be asked to step in. That was likely the case in this custody battle. Though the courts are not required to follow the recommendations of the psychologist, they often put a lot of weight on the recommendations. Mr. Schorr was outraged by the accusations and recommendations in the psychologists report and brought a defamation suit against the psychologist.

To read more about the “unfit” McDonald’s denier, click here.

ASU’s New Beginnings Program Offers Help to Divorced Parents

Separation or divorce is a trying experience for any family, but the greatest impact is often felt in families with children.  Young children are especially vulnerable during times of change – a divorce can leave a child feeling frightened, neglected, and even worthy of blame for their parents’ dispute.  Children who witness a divorce may vent their emotions in unexpected – even dangerous – ways if they are unable to cope with the situation.  In some (thankfully uncommon) cases, the trauma of divorcing parents can cause lifelong problems for children, making them more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors and less able to handle emotional challenges.

For parents, knowing how to talk to their children about their divorce – or whether to talk to their children about it at all – is no small concern.  There is no simple instruction book for parenting your children through tough times, and it may feel as though there is no way to help them.  If your child starts acting out or doing poorly in school, you may not realize that there are ways for you to help them.

Over the past few years, an Arizona State University applied research project has attempted to change the way parents think about divorce.  The program, dubbed “New Beginnings,” is an educational course for parents who are separating or divorcing.  The program focuses on giving parents the information and tools they need to talk to their children through the process of the divorce.

So far, the results have been tremendous, garnering national attention for the substantial long-term improvements to children’s overall well-being as a result of more effective parenting.  Research (and common sense) demonstrates that more parental involvement helps children adjust after a separation or divorce, and parents who employ more effective parenting strategies see even better results.  New Beginnings is designed to educate parents about these strategies and to prepare them for their children’s reactions to the separation as it moves forward.

New Beginnings is offered to mothers and fathers in Coconino, Maricopa, Pima, and Yuma Counties.  The program’s administrators encourage attorneys and other professionals to inform separating or divorcing parents about New Beginnings.  As interest grows, it seems likely that the program will expand, as well, meaning that parents in cities around Arizona, from the Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale Metropolitan Area to Tucson, Flagstaff, Show Low, Lake Havasu City, and beyond.

The New Beginnings program is offered free of charge to qualified applicants, as it is funded in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health.  Parents are paid for participating in three phone interviews during the process, which allows researchers to gather information about the effectiveness of the strategies they teach so they can continue to improve the curriculum.  Free child care is even offered at the small-group workshops, making the program accessible to parents who may not be able to afford similar assistance elsewhere.

If you are thinking about separation or divorce, there is a plethora of issues to consider.  In the circuses of asset division, spousal maintenance, child support, parenting time, and custody, it is easy to get lost in the numbers and legal disputes and forget about the human impact that a dissolution action can have on your family.  Hire an attorney who can ease the burden of handling the legal issues, then take some time to guide your children through the process.  Your involvement is the best medicine for anything which might negatively impact your kids.