Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
Custody is often among the most contentious aspects of a divorce proceeding and understandably so. Though property division can be acrimonious, nothing is as emotionally draining as the thought of dividing up time with your children. Typically, both parties are eager to spend as much time as possible with the kids, something that invariably leads to conflict.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
The Tsimhoni family is back in the news again this month as the parents’ custody war wages onwards. Their case made international headlines last year when a Michigan judge found the parents’ three children, ages 9, 11 and 14, in contempt for not following her court order to have lunch with their estranged father. The judge then sent the three children to a juvenile detention facility and ordered them to attend an intensive “parental alienation program.”
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
It’s a common refrain among those in unhappy marriages: staying together for the sake of the kids is the right thing to do. Though it’s noble that parents are willing to sacrifice for the sake of their children, it has become clear that the sacrifice is not only not necessary, but apparently not useful. A recent study by Swedish researchers indicates that children who are the products of divorced parents turn out just as well as those with married parents. In this case, the conventional wisdom that smiling through a bad marriage is good for the kids appears not to be true.
Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What are my custody rights if the other parent moves?”
The country today is a very different place than it was several decades ago. People are far more mobile, thanks to improved transportation and technology. As a result, jobs move frequently and relocations, which might have only been across town, can now involve moving thousands of miles across the country. If that happens and a custody dispute occurs between parents spread across two different states, how do you decide which state hears the case? To find out more about resolving jurisdictional disputes, keep reading.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
Lawmakers in Massachusetts are currently holding hearings on a very important and very emotional issue for any parent: child custody. Specifically, legislators in the state are in the process of debating what if any changes to the existing system should be made. With a nationwide push to increase equality in child custody decisions, Massachusetts now finds itself wrestling with the same issues other states have before. How to weigh the potential benefit to children and parents that can come with legally mandated custody arrangements versus the wisdom of judicial discretion.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
Joe Naugler says his “free range” children have been free to roam his twenty-six acre Breckenridge, Kentucky property—called “Blessed Little Homestead”—since their infancy.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I get the judge to order my spouse to pay my attorney’s fees in a property division case?”
A Texas man who accused a judge of conspiring with the Baylor University medical system and the doctor who testified in his divorce and child custody case is claiming his free-speech rights protect statements he made online and in telephone calls to the judge.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
Custody battles between parents in a litigated divorce case can turn into ugly proxy wars in which, sadly, children serve unwillingly on the front lines. The battles, which often have little to do with the children themselves, are instead often “about control and winning and lashing out” when one parent feels hurt by the words or actions of another.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
Custody battles of the future may involve battles between litigants that are—in all our legal history—utterly foreign. That is because, for the first time in recorded history, scientists are on the verge of creating three-parent babies.
Once that formerly inconceivable reality comes to term, if one (plus one, plus one) wills it, the normal progress and processes of life will follow, and those will inevitably include family units splitting up and launching battles for custody of a child or children.
Except then it will be three (or more) parents fighting for custody, instead of two. That means—potentially—three lawyers or more… ugh.
So far, scientific experimentation with three-parent babies has been limited to animals. Last week, however, the British House of Commons voted to allow the licensing of facilities in the United Kingdom that may allow genetic modification of human embryos.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
In North Carolina, the ultimate arbiter of custody is the District Court judge. The District Court judge is vested, by statute, with the authority to determine who should have custody of a child and the terms under which custody shall be exercised.
Of course, the decisions of a District Court judge are subject to appeal, but when parties do appeal a District Court decision and one of the state courts of appeal decides to entertain the appeal, those courts frequently uphold the decisions of District Courts, and if they do not, many times they simply clarify the manner in which a judge should have considered the case and send it right back to the District Court to consider the case anew.
A party’s presentation regarding custody is made in District Court, and the person a party needs to convince is the District Court judge. Many parties believe a good way of convincing a District Court judge that they should have custody of a child is to have the child testify before the court. After all, who better knows what is in one’s best interest than oneself?
The problem with that ideas is that minor children are considered “infants” or “incompetents” under North Carolina law. Minor children do not have the capacity, for instance, to enter into contracts. A court will not take a proposal to allow a minor child to testify lightly. A judge will likely conduct a hearing to consider whether testimony would be appropriate in a particular case, and if so, what measures or protections may be afforded to the child while testifying.
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