Category Archives: Child Custody

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By Chris Simmons

“Chance makes a plaything of a mans life”                                                                        Seneca

America , the land of the free or so we think. I  am a father of four children and when I got divorced in 2010, little did I know what awaited me in the years to come . To sum it up over the next seven years I have had a false report of a crime filed by my ex wife on me which was investigated and unfounded (For those who are unfamiliar with legal lingo unfounded is defined in the dictionary as “an allegation that was investigated and determined not to have occurred”). Move forward couple years later and another charge of aggravated stalking not once but twice and both times I was offered a plea and I refused electing to go to trial. I knew that both charges were never going to make it past a jury of reasonable minded people something our courts in bench trials do not have. Both times I chose correctly, the prosecution folded both cases dismissed. So we are talking two felony charges and one felony allegation that I have had overcome and all of it had to do with me just wanting to see my kids. Can you believe that? A father trying to see his kids facing overwhelming odds and obstacles but that’s how the courts do it when there’s false accusations, you get dragged through the system. Anybody want to explain to me how can a man who never been arrested before can go watch his child play baseball and get arrested for aggravated stalking, denied bond the first week, be put in shackles and chained literally from his feet to his waist and dragged into superior court in front of the news media to show how bad of a person he is for his acts of watching his child play the game and two weeks later bond out with a leg monitor on ? Did I mention at the time of the arrest the judge had not even signed the protection order or entered it with the clerk. Even though I knew the order was based on false accusations, the judge who used to work for my ex wife’s attorney ( her attorney and her new husband were also good friends) played the bias card and ordered me to stay away 100 yards. I was at a baseball field trying to watch my child play after marking off the 100 yards watching on another field away when my ex wife saw me. She called the police and when the police realized there was no active order in place yet, they called the judge asking what to do? That’s when I hear the judge reply arrest him anyway. Feel the bias now? How does all this relate to the best interest of the kids? Well when you’re a father and all your wanting to do is be in your child’s life but you have a biased judge in your case the best interest of the child standard you might as well throw it out the window but here’s even more of a concern, no judge and I mean not one single judge in America knows what is best for your kids more than you do. They may know what’s best for their own kids but unless they were at every birthday party of your child, unless they put Band-Aids on your child’s knee when they got their knee cut , unless they taught your child how to ride a bike, unless they did all the things that you did with your kids they could not possibly know what’s in your child’s best interest. Judges have way too much discretion in child custody cases there’s no way they should have that much discretion and let me give you an example let’s say your ex files a modification of custody case. You have it transcribed and you end up losing your case, your ex gets full custody and you want to appeal it and when you go to ask for the transcripts you notice that there’s a lot of words missing on the transcript that the judge said to you during trial that was insulting to you and would make the judge look bad if the appeals courts saw it. So your thinking well how do I get this corrected to make sure that the judges words get put back on there? You appeal and in your appeal you mentioned that words were missing on the transcript that shows the judge is being biased as well as unprofessional. The appellate courts are going to tell you to take it back to the trial judge and have it corrected because they’re not in a position to do so on appeal. They want me to take it back to the same judge who you know in your heart got the court reporter to take those words off just so it wouldn’t make the judge look bad during an appeal. That’s right they want you to take it back to the wolf who’s guarding the Sheep. Anybody in their right mind knows that this transcript will never get corrected by that same trial judge but that’s your only option, so the system has to be overhauled to correct these things like this. What I see is the American people just sitting back allowing it to happen. No one thinks it will happen to them but that’s ok neither did I. We must see that change happens in the way government does things with child custody hearings. Do you actually think that a court cares about your kids the way that you do? Do you? Because if you think a total stranger cares more about your kids, might as well give that next homeless person a shot at it right? No you would never allow that to happen so do not be so naive. Just because the courts are acting under color of law means absolutely nothing. I can show you a list of judges who have been disbarred while acting under color of law. Sure they act like they care but after the trial if your child got in a car accident and was in the hospital who thinks you will see the Judge there caring? They could care less and we have to change laws allowing judges so much discretion over our kids. I could feel how the government was technically using my kids as Leverage and realize this is not about the best interest of my kids, it’s about the best interest of the state. And you know what people are going to read this article and say yes something should be done about that but no one will take action and what’s going to happen down the road is it’s going to happen to one of you , what’s that you say ? How do I know ? That’s an easy question to answer hundreds of people get divorced every day and hundreds of people have to go into custody hearings and you’re just a sitting duck waiting for it to happen to you . When it does happen to you that’s when you’re going to wake up but it’s too late then and it’s unfortunate but until the American people mandate change in the laws and put a stop to the way the government allows judicial discretion in child custody cases you’re doomed to have it repeated. Tick tock tick tock.