Andre Lieven wrote:

>
> Doug Laidlaw (laidlaws{at}myaccess.com.au) writes:
>> Andre Lieven wrote:
>>
>>> http://www.glennsacks.com/the_betrayal_of.htm
>>>
>>> By Glenn Sacks
>>>       When Gary, a San Diego-based US Navy SEAL, was deployed in
>>>       Afghanistan
>>> in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, he never
>>> dreamed that his service to his country would cost him his little son.
>>> Gary's son was not taken from him by a terrorist or a kidnapper. This
>>> 17-year Navy veteran with an unblemished military and civilian record
>>> was effectively stripped of his right to be a father by a California
>>> court.
>>>
>>>       Gary's story, which was the subject of a two-part Fox News feature
>>> called "SEAL, Sorrow" earlier this year, is not an
unusual one. Under
>>> the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, if a parent
>>> takes a child to a new state, that new state becomes the child's
>>> presumptive residence after six months. Because a normal military
>>> deployment is six months or more, if an unhappily married military
>>> spouse moves to another state while the other spouse is deployed, by the
>>> time the deployed spouse returns the child's residence has already been
>>> switched. Since courts lean heavily in favor of a child's primary
>>> caregiver when determining custody, the spouse who moved the child is
>>> virtually certain to gain custody through the divorce proceedings in
>>> that new state.
>>>
>>>       Because of the strict restrictions on travel by active military
>>> personnel, the cost of legal representation, and the financial hardships
>>> created by child support and spousal support obligations, it is very
>>> difficult for returning service personnel to fight for their parental
>>> rights in another state. Many struggle even to see their children, much
>>> less remain a meaningful part of their lives, and the bond between the
>>> children and their noncustodial parent is often broken for years, if not
>>> permanently.
>>>
>>>       Gary has not been able to see his son, who now lives abroad, in
>>>       nearly
>>> nine months. When he calls he can sometimes hear the three year-old ask
>>> "when daddy come?" and "where's daddy?" in
the background but he is
>>> often prevented from speaking with him.
>>>
>>>       According to nationally-known family law attorney Jeffery Leving,
>>> author of Fathers' Rights , there are three solutions to the problems
>>> facing military fathers. First, the federal Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil
>>> Relief Act of 1940 needs to be amended to specifically prohibit the
>>> spouses of active duty military personnel from permanently moving
>>> children to other states without the permission either of the active
>>> duty military spouse or of a court. (The primary purpose of the Act,
>>> whose origins go back as far as the Civil War, is to protect active
>>> armed forces personnel by mandating that civil actions against them be
>>> delayed until after their return from service).
>>>
>>>       Second, California laws, which currently do little to prevent a
>>> custodial parent from moving children far away from the noncustodial
>>> parent, need to be changed to prohibit any permanent removals done
>>> against a deployed military parent's will. Third, the UCCJEA needs to be
>>> amended to state that the presumption of new residence does not apply if
>>> the children are taken in this wrongful fashion.
>>>
>>>       Gary has lost nearly $100,000 so far fighting for his son and may
>>>       soon
>>> be forced to declare bankruptcy, which in turn will destroy the top
>>> secret security clearance he needs for his job. Worse yet is the
>>> emotional devastation wrought by his separation from his son and the
>>> knowledge that he may never see him again. He says:
>>>
>>>       "My love for my son cannot simply be brushed aside
as the courts
>>>       seem
>>> to believe it can. I can remember holding my little son's hand like it
>>> was yesterday. I can remember his cry. I hear it every time I hear
>>> another child crying."
>>>
>>>       "Sometimes I wonder what I risked my life [in
Afghanistan] for. I
>>>       went
>>> to fight for freedom but what freedom and what rights mean anything if a
>>> man doesn't have the right to be a father to his own child?"
>>>
>>> ---------
>>
>> Hard cases make bad law.  So many wrong decisions have been handed down
>> when one party is unrepresented that in my opinion, such cases should not
>> be
>> authority for anything.  The Judges depend on the advocates to tell them
>> what the law is.  If an advocate knows a point of law that doesn't help
>> him, he has to  make it known, so that the Judge will come to the right
>> decision, but that doesn't apply to evidence.  And it isn't the same as
>> hearing argument from both sides.
>
> In other words, as long as the law is only fucking over *thousands*
> of *men*, who cares ?
>
> Uh huh.
>
> Since it's the same *government* sending the men out, in such time
> as not to let them deal with the Family Courts, its the gov't's
> responsibility, too.
>
> But, who cares... they're only men...
>
>  Misandrist. 
>
> Andre
> --
> " I'm a man... But, I can change... If I have to... I guess. "
>                                     The Man Prayer, Red Green.
That is a U.S. issue, and not for me to comment.  On what the wife did, the
Courts have to strike  a balance between allowing the custodial parent
freedom to move, and not making access for the non-custodial parent
impractical.  Sometimes they refuse to allow the custodial parent to move
away.  The "welfare of the child" is always the touchstone.  Statistics
quoted by our Chief Judge here show that in contested custody cases, the
father wins more often than the mother.  In uncontested cases, or simple
consent arrangements, the mother gets custody every time.  That might
simply mean that the father doesn't try unless he has a pretty good case.

In my first contested custody appeal, (I was for the father) we fell foul of
another rule.  In some cases, such as who was in the right in a car
accident, an appeal court will substitute its own decision.  But in a
custody case, we say that the trial judge has a discretion.  There is no
one "right" answer.  And in these cases, the appeal court will not
substitute its own opinion.  If in their opinion, the trial judge exercised
his discretion "judicially", meaning that he took into account all the
right things and none of the wrong things, the appeal court won't
interfere, even if they would have decided the other way.  So we never got
to argue what was best for the child.  (If the trial judge had given the
child to the father, the mother would have faced the same obstacle.)

Doug L.
--
ICQ Number 178748389. Registered Linux User No. 277548.
This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
        -- Horace Walpole, 1769.



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