In Pasco-Pinellas, families celebrate reunification
For two decades, drugs and bad decisions wreaked havoc on Michelle Perreault's life. Twice, the state stepped in to remove her daughter, Mara, from Perreault's Zephyrhills home. She went through a succession of abusive men. She couldn't hold a job. She drank and drugged her way through a pregnancy that ended with the 2010 birth of a drug-addicted boy. The state took Mara, and Perreault gave the baby up for adoption. It was the only thing she could do for him, she figured.
Family court system should be reformed
ReplyDelete12:00am on May 21, 2012 2012-05-18T20:10:25Z
Despite the success of family court cases, there is a dark side of family courts the general public rarely sees behind close doors. Routinely, due process and constitutional rights to be a parent are generally ignored if either party is not represented by an attorney. This high conflict-driven system adopts litigation rather than problem-solving as dispute resolution.
This is destructive to families. There needs to be a rule providing for "limited scope representation" that allows an attorney to represent a client for a limited purpose or time period. This rule should greatly enhance access to legal representation in family law cases, particularly for persons of limited means.
Rotation of judges on a regular basis is a bad idea. The 12th Circuit needs committed judges who are in it for the long haul, not as a penalty because they are up for rotation.
Hold attorneys and all of the "experts" accountable for timely reports and any delays should not be tolerated. Set a maximum time limit of 30 days for a parenting plan to be set in place.
The best solution, of course, would be a jury trial for all custody issues; take the decision out of the judge's hand and into six or 12 people who know the importance of both parents being involved in the child's life before, during and after litigation.
Glen Gibellina
Bradenton
Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/05/21/4043854/family-court-system-should-be.html#storylink=cpy