Child Custody Flashcards
Painter v. Bannister*
Supreme Court of Iowa, 1966. Established the “Best Interests of the Child” doctrine in determining child custody. Plaintiff’s (the father) wife dies and he sends 7 yr old son to live with grandparents. A year later, he remarries and wants his son back. The grandparents, the defendants, refuse. Plaintiff wins at trial court, but grandparents win permanent custody on appeal at Supreme Court of Iowa.
Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act (UMDA)
- Cites five criteria considered relevant in determining the best interests of the child.
Least Detrimental Alternative
Unpopular model of custody determination based a book by Goldstein, Freud, and Solnit called “Beyond the Best Interests of the Child.” (1973) They argued the goal should be to maintain continuity of care with the “psychological” parent by (1) having sole custody awarded to one parent, (2) having the sole custodian determine all visitation, and (3) denying the noncustodial parent all legal rights to visit the child.
Parental Preference Model
Judicial decisions should try to approximate predivorce patterns of responsibility and award custody based on those patterns. Parents try to manipulate this process by temporarily increasing their involvement with the child.
Name the various types of custody
Physical, Legal, Joint, Informal, Divided, Court or “protective,” Guardianship, and Adoption
Standard of Proof required in custody situations
Preponderance of the evidence
Troxel v. Granville
USSC 2000. Grandparents’ rights case. Deemed a Washington statute that allowed “any person to petition the court for visitation rights at any time” whenever it was “in the best interests of the child” was unconstitutional and a violation of the due process rights of the parents and a violation of parental care, custody, and control of their children.
Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCA)
- Law adopted in all states and Washington DC designed to prevent parents from battling in different states for custody of the children. Prior to law, separate jurisdictions would simultaneously award custody to each competing parent.
Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA)
- Allows for federal involvement (FBI, federal warrants, Federal Parent Locator Service) in parental kidnapping and abduction cases.
Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction
- From Wikipedia. A multilateral treaty that provides an expeditious method to return a child taken from one member nation to another… The Convention was drafted to “insure the prompt return of children who have been abducted from their country of habitual residence or wrongfully retained in a contracting state not their country of habitual residence.” The primary intention of the Convention is to preserve whatever status quo child custody arrangement existed immediately before an alleged wrongful removal or retention thereby deterring a parent from crossing international boundaries in search of a more sympathetic court. The Convention applies only to children under the age of 16.
International Child Abduction Remedies Act
- Allows for implementation of the Hague Convention in the United States.
Wallerstein Study
- Studied 131 children ages 3-18 from 60 well-educated white middle class families for five years after marital separation. Found 60% had a good outcome and 40% were clinically disturbed. Found boys had more problems there 1st ten years after divorce and that girls began having problems in early adulthood (“sleeper effect”). The sleeper effect was not validated by a future study.
Hetherington Study
- Study tracked approx. 1400 families and more than 2500 for 30 yrs. Found that after two years, the vast majority of children “are beginning to function reasonably well.” Found 25% of children from divorced families have serious social, emotional, or psychological problems (vs. 10% of kids from intact families).
National Survey of Children Study
- Examined long-term effects of divorce on thousands of kids compared to normal controls. Trends of divorced kids indicated a “subjective distresss” and problems with school and behavior. Also, gender demonstrated no differences in outcome, but younger ages were associated with a higher level of disturbance.
Parental Alienation Syndrome
Non-diagnostic syndrome that is not generally accepted or acknowledged. Essentially, one parent poisons a child against the other parent until the child internalizes the parent’s hatred of the targeted parent.
