Can appearances influence a judge?

YES always wear conservative business attire into a courtroom. Just so you know, most courts will not award custody away from the mother unless she was a substantial threat of harm to the child, ( drugs and alcohol, arrests, neglect). They will not change custody from the mother because she is on welfare or ignorant.

To answer your question, most definitely.
I can’t believe that anybody would enter a courtroom looking anything less than respectable.
Judges pay attention to everything. Appearance says a lot about you.

That being said, GOOD LUCK @Dutchess_III!!
I hope the judge rules in your sons favor! It sounds like his child would be better off with him.

Keep us posted?

You obviously don’t follow chickweed lane.

Yes. It adds to the total picture. I don’t think smart clothing and hair can fool a judge, but it can add to him believing the person has respect for themselves and others, consideration for their circumstance, and competence.

Custody cases are different than say, drug or parole cases. What you wear and how you look is very important if you are being charged with something. But again, unless there is proof that there is probable harm to the child, they won’t change custody from the primary caregiver.

Well, right now they have shared custody, 50/50. The visitation schedule actually allows more time for my son than the mother.

Other things that were touched on was the fact that Chelsy has had two boyfriends move in, then out since Chris left.

At one point she had another family of 4 living with her. During THAT time her youngest son strangled 4 newborn kittens that were in the house.

At one point, when that same son was 3, he wandered out of the house. The cops picked him up at a park about 4 blocks away and walked him home. Chelsy was sleeping.

There was testimony, and witnesses, to the fact that her idea of discipline is to slap the living shit out of her boys, ages 4 and 6. Don’t know if she’s ever hit Onnah, but if she ever did, hellfire would rain down on her in the form of Chris and she knows it. He would be unstoppable. We can only hope that would keep her safe.

Jesus. She sounds like mother of the year material.

I hope the best for you, your son, and your grand-daughter. Unless there are specific police reports for the wandering, and child protective services reports regarding the boyfriends and the slappings, he will not win I am sorry to say. The other option is, that money talks, and if he or you can afford $30–50k for a lawyer, investigative services- this means a private investigator who charges about $500 per day for their services. Witnesses to a bad act, such as the family and the kittens, all the other stuff, count for nothing unless protective services, police reports, certified private investigators reports can prove it. Plan on spending about fifty thousand dollars. How do I know this? Been there.

She’s horrible. And very stupid. Another thing the court and the lawyers hammered on was the right to first refusal, which is written in the papers. At one point Chelsy was giving Chris her work schedule. She works 2nd shift, so when Chris got off of his 1st shift job he’d go get Onnah from the babysitters and put her to bed. Then he’d take her to Chelsy when she got off.
Last April she quit giving him her schedule so he doesn’t know what days she works so he doesn’t get to do that any more.

The exchange going from Chelsy to Chris happens at 8:00 on Wednesdays at the police station (for what it’s worth. Chelsy can turn into a raving lunatic, and the police will just walk away.) Chelsy has always had Wednesday off.

This past Wednesday, 1st day of court, after the judge spent all day hammering on the kids about communication and that it’s best for the baby to be with a parent rather than a baby sitter if possible, Chelsy pulled an unbeliveablee stunt. Court got out at 5:00. At 8:00 Chris went to get Onnah. He sat at the police station until 8:30. Chelsy never showed up (can you imagine how terrified he was starting to feel?) So he called the baby sitter, and sure as hell, Onnah was there. Chelsy worked Wednesday night and didn’t even bother to tell Chris she wouldn’t be at the police station! If he had known, he could have picked Onnah up at 5:00, after court! Chels just thumbs her nose at the courts! She’s incredibly stupid.

What I can’t figure out is why our lawyer didn’t bring it up. In fact, I put a call in today to ask her why. Don’t know that it will do much good…the judge is deliberating now so I don’t know if getting that info will do any good. Plus the fact that she hasn’t heard Chelsy’s side to it.

@trailsillustrated Well, if she just left everything the same that’s not so bad. Chris has her Wednesday night to Sunday morning…that’s 4 over-nights a week. Like I said, he has her 58% of the time.
If all the judge would do is enforce the right to first refusal, Chris would have even MORE time physically, even though legally it would count as Chelsy’s time. They’d almost need NO daycare.

I’m sorry that you and he have to go through this. What’s going to happen is that one or both of them ( probably her) is going to be ordered to undertake parenting classes, and they will have to do or re-do a formal parenting plan. That’s it. I hope you won’t mind paying your lawyer for all this. It’s terrible but the fact is, unless you can afford what I described previously, nothing will really change. Scream.

Chris is paying the lawyer, not me.
What pisses me off is that Chris has taken Chels to court at least 4 times on contempt charges, but the judge does nothing about it! She doesn’t punish her at all!

What I said. I’m glad he can afford all this. : ) I wonder what 50k could do for the actual kid.

He’s spent about $10,000 so far. What I don’t understand is how SHE can afford it.

She’s probably getting legal aid. He can look at about 40k more.

What a racket for the lawyers. It’s just awful.

No, he’s a local attorney. Legal aid attorneys come from Wichita. We’ve utilized one in the past. What a joke.

@JLeslie No shit. “Justice” is only a reality for those who can pay for it.

@JLeslie thaaaass riiight….

Judges definitely like to see people dress appropriately. From my many years of working in a Child Protective role for local government, and going to Family Court umpteen thousand times during that time, I have found that there is never a way to predict or assume that logic will prevail when it comes to Family Court and Family Court judges. We would, many times, present a case (both in favor of a parent and against parents) and find that the Judges would make a decision that would leave our mouths hanging open. Judges in FC seem very big on covering their asses, after someone was murdered because a Judge screwed up with an Order of Protection.

The other thing I have found, and this is besides the point because it’s not what the OP was asking, is that anything involving FC never gets determined in one or two visits. Court drags on and on for months. Once a month, approximately, and then it would be postponed. Waiting for this report, waiting for someone to get evaluated, waiting to see how someone progresses with therapy or substance abuse treatment, someone does not show up, the shit just dragged on and on. I used to warn parents not to let things progress to where we had to take them to court, because it would be something we’d all be wrapped up in for months, and each court date would take hours, potentially, because you could never predict how quickly your case would be called. Who makes money from this whole system? The attorneys.

Yes, took my friend to the courthouse so my friend could get his driver’s license back and watched the court proceedings while waiting for a recess.

There were a bunch of kids in that had been busted at a kegger, most of them wore T shirts that supported drug and or alcohol use. They were surprised they got jail time and maximum fines and they were not suspended. The 2–3 kids that dressed nicely got the same sentences but most of the fine and all of the jail time was suspended.

Thanks. I think family court may be a little different though.

Oh, another thing that our attorney brought up was that Chelsy is very inflexable and Chris is not. Chris would be far more likely to work with her than she is with him, and that’s true.

ALSO, she admitted that her son killed the kittens. I think it’s in one of the SRS reports. She SAID he just hugged them too hard. Bull shit.

Yes. Jeffrey Dahmer “hugged” animals when he was a child too.

I’m sure it does. I’m a little surprised her lawyer didn’t make sure she looked more presentable.

It sounds like everything went well but judges are a crap shoot. I’ll say a little prayer for you. :-)
Is the current arrangement joint custody?

Thank you @Judi. And now we’re going into the weekend without a ruling. This is hell on my son.

Yes, the current arrangement is joint, but my son has a little over 50%.

Yes! :) Yeah, that’s all I got.

@Katniss I caught that too. Classical sign of a serial killer in training. God what a mess.

That works @DWW25921!
@Adirondackwannabe and @Katniss….yeah We all caught that….

So why the heck are these clueless morons ignoring all the signs that she’s nuts and she raises the kids in the nuthouse?

@Adirondackwannabe Because they are clueless morons!

@Katniss. Yes, I get that and it drives me insane. The inmates can’t run the asylum. The kids will pay the price in the long run. I want to scream so loud.

@Adirondackwannabe I hear ya!
This should be a no-brain-er for the judge.

Thanks for letting me vent. I have a soft spot for kids of all kinds.

Unfortunately being a stupid and ignorant, selfish parent is not illegal or a crime. Unless there is solid proof that she and or her friends are an emergent danger to the child, they will not remove her as the primary custodial parent. Sad. Grandparents have no say in the matter.

The judge is still out @Adirondackwannabe. Hopefully she won’t ignore it.

Any news?

No. Not a freaking word. I don’t know about my son, but I’ve relaxed a little. Can’t survive in a state of….. unknown terror indefinitely. Thanks for asking @Seaofclouds.

I told you don’t hold your breath.

Far more important are glucose levels of the judge’s brain and the strain on his or her self-control resources as shown by scientists Daniel Kahneman and Roy Baumeister.

Any news yet??

Oh, yeah! I forgot about this thread! Thanks for asking @Katniss.

Well, as far as it goes my son lost nothing, but did gain a tiny little bit, which means Chelsea, the baby’s mother, lost a tiny little bit.

Judge told her to back off of Chris and quit trying to micro control him. Up on the stand Chelsea was complaing that there was no consistency between the households and tried to say how bad this was. For example (and keep in mind the kid will be 2 in November):

* Onnah is still on a bottle at Chelsea’s house, and Chris has a sippy cup. She should still be on a bottle at Chris’ house, too Chelsea insisted. Chelsea once told Chris she couldn’t get Onnah off the bottle, asked how he did it. “I took the baby bottle and threw it in the trash,” he said..

*Onnah is still in a crib at Chelsea’s house, but Chris has her in a baby bed. She should still be in a crib at Chris’ house to (Chris responded that Onnah was starting to climb out of the crib so he wanted her in a bed she can get in and out of easily, without getting hurt. Chels tried to prove that was an example of Chris’ neglect. She could be out of bed wandering around the house unsupervised at all hours of the night.)

*Chris started Onnah on baby food at 4 months. Chelsea called SRS on him for that.

Shite like that. Judge said, “Back off!”

Chelsea was also on the war path about not allowing Chris’ sister, Corrie, to ever ‘be alone’ with the baby, which was absolute bullshit. Judge said Onnah can be alone with whomever each parent sees fit….BUT if the baby gets hurt that parent will be solely responsible for it.

Parenting times did not change.

So we didn’t lose, but that was a hell of a lot of money to spend for gaining so little. Lifting that silly restriction on Corrie was probably the best part… before then they had to do a whole lot of stepping and fetching if he ever needed Corrie to watch Onnah.

Chelsea is a fuckin’ nut case. At one point she had an entire other loser family living with her, man woman, a couple of kids, to help with the rent. During that time her 3 year old son strangled a litter of new born kittens. But I guess until Adrionna gets hurt there is nothing we can do about it.