UPDATES IN MICHIGAN FAMILY LAW

Neighborhood Watchdog

Lorne Gold, a family lawyer in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan alerted our Michigan Family Law Section's Listserv today to a valuable service available to anyone with Internet access.

The website for Family Watchdog published these statistics on its website:

3% of all sexual assaults against children are committed by someone whom the victim knew.

The typical sexual predator will assault 30 - 60 times before being caught.

The re-arrest rate for convicted child molesters is 52%.

We aim to reduce these percentages by ensuring that all sexual predators are known.

The Family Watchdog website allows you to put in 3 addresses  -- yours and/or those of your family members or friends. The service is free and is designed to  locate registered sex offenders in your area. When you enter an address, you'll see a map. You can click on the squares that appear, and see photos (where available), addresses, and convictions.

Family Watchdog has a simple notification service. You may specify up to three addresses (not zip codes) that you want to watch and the distance around those addresses. The website does the rest. Data is updated daily from multiple public data sources. As soon as a convicted sex offender registers an address in your area, you will be alerted. 

To use Family Watchdog, click here.

Parentage issues have long been of special interest to Jeanne Hannah. To contact Jeanne Hannah with your questions or to view her Family Law website, click here.

The Impact of COBRA Payments on an Alimony Award

On January 19, 2006, the Michigan Court of Appeals decided in an unpublished opinion that a trial court has to consider the needs of the parties and their ability to pay when ordering a party to make the COBRA payments for an ex-spouse.

In Murphy v Murphy, the defendant husband appealed the trial court’s award of three years of COBRA benefits to plaintiff wife. The trial court had awarded alimony to her in the amount of $300 per week. Together with the child support, the husband would thus pay nearly 50% of his after-tax income to her before the cost of the COBRA benefits was even considered.

Who Has the Right to Make End-of-Life Decisions?

On January 16, 2005, Massachusetts' highest court ruled that the state can withdraw life support from Haleigh Poutre, an 11-year-old girl who was kicked and nearly beaten to death. She has been in a coma since September; her adoptive mother and stepfather are accused of abusing her.
Since Haleigh's assault, her aunt Holli Strickland, who had adopted Haleigh, has died in an apparent murder-suicide, and her husband is being held in connection with the injuries Haleigh suffered.

The state Department of Social Services, which was granted custody of Haleigh after her severe injuries, successfully petitioned a juvenile court for permission to remove life support. Mr. Strickland challenged the state in court, asking to be considered Haleigh's de facto parent and to be allowed to argue for keeping her alive.
The court's opinion noted a long history of complaints about abuse and neglect of Haleigh to the Department of Social Services since September 2002. Since 2004, Haleigh had been receiving regular counseling. The DSS had been making monthly visits to her home, yet inexplicably, did not uncover  the extent of Haleigh's abuse.

"Some describe this as a case about death," the opinion said. "It should more correctly be described as a case about a young girl who has suffered tremendously from acts of violence and cruelty and who now will be permitted to pass away with dignity."

The opinion added that Haleigh's "memory will remind us, time and again, that we, as a society, need to do more to aid children who are neglected and abused, and thereby denied the care and nurturing they so desperately want and need."

Read the full report in the New York Times.

To contact Jeanne Hannah with your questions or to view her Family Law website, click here.