UPDATES IN MICHIGAN FAMILY LAW

Divorce Wars | Internet public airing of private facts

The Internet gives people a new forum for publicly airing their dirty linen. Tricia Walsh Smith, not your usual British housewife, is publishing personal and embarrassing facts about her marriage and divorce. She's angry that her husband won't offer her more than was agreed upon in a prenuptial agreement. She's not writing a Blog. Instead, she's gone to YouTube.

Domestic violence & Address confidentiality programs

Domestic violence is a pattern of behaviors involving physical, sexual, economic and emotional abuse of an intimate partner for the purpose of establishing and maintaining power and control over the other partner. When batterers fear that they are losing control of their victims, the violence often escalates.  Research shows that victims of domestic violence are most at risk when they are attempting to leave the batterer. Access to a victim's address, telephone number, etc. can endanger a victim of domestic violence.

Connection between domestic violence and ill health

Violence against women by intimate partners results in similar health effects worldwide — regardless of culture, class, or race — Lancet reports.
World Health Organization researchers interviewed some 20,000 women from South America, Asia, and Africa, first about their current health status and then about their lifetime experience of physical or sexual abuse at the hands of a male partner.
The researchers found that women with any experience of abuse were more likely to report:

• being in poor health
• within the past 4 weeks, having difficulties with walking or activities of daily living, pain, memory loss, dizziness, or vaginal discharge
• having thought about or attempted suicide
  

The authors call the consistent association between violence and ill health across the regions of the world "striking." Writing in Journal Watch Psychiatry, M. Katherine Shear reminds clinicians "that leaving an offending partner increases risk for homicide."

Internet safety | Some comments

Some good comments have come from fellow family law practitioners to my post on safe Internet use. One -- and and the emphasis is mine -- from P. Rowland Graff of St. George, Utah says:

I am sure that we will see more of this in the future because computers are so prevalent in today's society. According to the ABA journal online, A West Virginia Attorney will be suspended for two years for hacking his wife's email account at her law office. Does Lawyer’s E-Mail Snooping Merit 2-Year Suspension? http://www.abajournal.com/weekly/does_lawyers_e_mail_snooping_merit_2_year_suspension. According to the article, the husband was able to guess his wife's password.

Many people use passwords that are comprised of easy-to-remember components, such as part of an address or phone number, a child's name, a pet's name. Let's face it: With a little effort, people who know you well can usually guess your password.

Do take seriously the issue of Internet safety. As a general rule, if you have any concerns about the safety of your Internet communications, do not use a home computer.

For fellow lawyers, here's a tip I received from attorney Jeffrey Zoeller of East Lansing, Michigan, who took a proactive approach to the potential for Internet surveillance:

Safe Internet use | For those divorcing

Whether you are researching the Internet while doing pre-divorce planning, in a relationship with an abuser, or discussing divorce strategy with your lawyer or a friend, you need to take precautions ro avoid exposing your plans and strategies to your spouse or abuser. Otherwise, you risk danger of injury by an abuser or interference with the settlement of custody, parenting time, or property issues.

One of the first things I ask a new client is: "Does your spouse know your email account password?"

The communications you have with your divorce lawyer are intended to be confidential. This is particularly important when you and your lawyer are doing strategic planning. And nowadays, client-lawyer communications often occur via email, as they do with my practice when my clients live far from my office.

The following are some tips for using email and the Internet safely and securely, while preventing your spouse from reading your email or seeing what informational websites you access online:

Military families and domestic violence

On February 15, 2008 the New York Times published an article entitled "When Strains on Military Families Turn Deadly" by Lizette Alvarex and Deborah Sontag. The article details the failure of the Department of Defense's Family Advocacy Program to protect the families of military personnel from domestic violence. The stress of war has exacerbated the pressure on our military personnel and has led to terrible, often fatal, acts of domestic violence.

The question is: How can these violent acts be prevented? I urge all lawyers who have any contact with and/or are representing family members of military personnel to read this article to the end. It's not easy. The cases described in the article are horrific.

Domestic violence | Guiding victims | Supporting survivors

I have just discovered one of the most valuable resources for domestic violence victims and survivors I’ve seen to date: “Beyond Escaping: A domestic violence booklet with additional information for survivors.” Resources and information needed by your clients dealing with domestic violence, as well as detailed instructions about how to protect themselves and their children, are contained in this 12-page, easy-to-read pamphlet.

This valuable resource was compiled by the Michigan Women’s Commission in August 2005. Important subjects such as:

• Personal Safety Plan
• Information on child custody
• Internet safety with comprehensive instructions on how to safeguard your online accounts and information
• Stalking
• How to obtain a personal protection order
• How to obtain a lawyer

You can view, print, or download a copy of this 12-page document here. Distribute it to clients with domestic violence issues to assist them in assessing and managing their legal and personal safety issues.

Domestic abuse | Protecting yourself

According to a report in the Boston Globe on January 14, 2008, domestic violence shelters throughout Massachusetts are becoming overwhelmed with people seeking refuge from domestic violence. Domestic violence advocates and directors of shelters report that they just cannot handle the huge numbers of applicants. They say that they are forced, increasingly, to turn victims away. The net result is that some of those seeking help are forced to return to  abusive partners or to live on the streets.
In Massachusetts, it’s reported that the number of persons refused shelter has quadrupled between 2003, when 1,374 were turned away to 5,520 in 2005. These numbers come from Jane Doe, Inc., which is a Massachusetts statewide coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence that also tracks trends.

To read the article "Shelters can’t help all fleeing abuse", click here. A one-time registration may be required.

Learning how to protect yourself against an abuser is essential, particularly since research shows that the most dangerous time for a woman who is in an abusive relationship is when she is trying to leave her abuser.

Divorce Wars | Blogs, free speech & getting even

Perhaps you remember the strange case of Dr. Bartha. He's the guy who blew up an historic building in New York City after a divorce court ordered him to sell the building and split the net sale proceeds with his former wife. He had claimed the building as his separate property. His point, I suppose, was "If I can't have it, then neither can you."  I wrote about it here in "Bizarre end to separate property dispute."

Another bizarre case is pending in Vermont where William Krasnansky publishes a Blog found at http://lookatmypugs.livejournal.com/. Mr. Krasnansky's wife "Runnoft" (according to him), leaving him, the two pugs, and the cat. Unfortunately, she also left behind -- Uh Oh -- about seven years' worth of journals, portions of which he has been selectively publishing online. [NOTE: Ignore the barking dogs.]

Despite an ex parte court order issued Dec. 7, 2007 that orders him to take down "any and all Internet postings" about his wife or their marriage, Mr. Krasnansky has refused to take down his blog. He states that leaving the Blog up is “a deliberate act of civil disobedience.”

AFCC E-Newsletter Online

We received the following notice:
"The October 2007 AFCC eNEWS is now available online.  The AFCC eNEWS is a bi-monthly e-newsletter published by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC). AFCC eNEWS provides professionals with time sensitive and up-to-date topics including case law updates, research innovations and international news.  The October 2007 issue features an update on the AFCC and National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) Domestic Violence and Family Courts Project; free online audio samples of the AFCC and NCJFCJ Regional Training Conference, Applications for High Conflict Families, Domestic Violence and Alienation, September 27-29, 2007 in Columbus, Ohio; research updates; international news; and more." By AFCC  Please click the link below to view the October 2007 AFCC eNEWS. Link to AFCC eNEWS

Family Abductions: Hague Convention cases

Sometimes a non-custodial parent abducts a child and takes the child to another country, refusing return to the custodial parent. Many countries are signatories to The Hague Convention, an international compact that helps custodial parents recover children who are abducted and held in foreign countries. A valuable resource, a practitioner's guide   to litigating Hague Convention cases,  has been created and is made available to the public and to practicing attorneys by the International Missing Children’s Division of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The manual, “Litigating International Child Abduction Cases Under the Hague Convention,” was prepared by the law firm of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP and is a valuable resource for all attorneys litigating Hague Convention cases in U.S. federal or state courts.

The manual provides guidelines and relevant case law relating to litigating a Hague Convention case for the return of or access to a child. Other valuable Hague Convention resources are available online at  www.missingkids.com.

Thanks to Diana Skaggs of Divorce Law Journal for bringing this to our attention.

Technorati tags:

parental kidnapping, parental abduction,

Woman fined $500 for dropping domestic violence charge

The Macomb Daily reported on June 17, 2007 that a Macomb County judge fined 32-year-old Theresa Owen $500 when she appeared and asked the court to dismiss the domestic violence charges that she had filed against her husband.

At first glance, this decision seems to unjustly discourage victims of domestic violence from coming forward to charge their boyfriends, spouses, significant others of committing acts of domestic violence. A criminal law professor whom I greatly admired would have condemned this decision as one that unfairly closed the courthouse doors to victims of criminal conduct.

Reading farther, however, one learns that this isn't the first time that Mrs. Owen had made the county commit hundreds of dollars in resources -- ranging from law enforcement personnel to prosecutors, to judicial resources  -- investigating allegations of domestic abuse by her husband.  As the newspaper reports, Mr. Owen was also arrested in 2003 and 2006 when Mrs. Owen alleged domestic violence.  Both of those cases were dismissed when she failed to appear in court.

Certainly it is true that some perpetrators of domestic violence are coerced into dropping the charges. It would be my preference that the decision of the Macomb County judge not cause other judges to adopt fines as punishment when alleged victims of DV refuse to prosecute. Rather, each case should be judged on its individual facts. Where the facts support a history of false allegations, then perhaps a fine is appropriate. It's something about the “boy who cried Wolf . . . " We need to be able to make resources available to legitimate victims of DV.

You can read the Macomb News report here.

Maryland Court Says Withdrawal of Consent After Penetration Negates Rape Crime

You can imagine the outrage following the reversal of a rape conviction by the court of appeals in Maryland on October 30, 2006 when the court ruled that the judge erred in not instructing the jury that it's not rape if a woman consents to sex but then withdraws her consent after the moment of penetration.

In this case involving an alleged perpetrator aged 16, the Court of Special Appeals said Monday that “no rape occurred if the jury found that” the 18-year-old woman in the case “withdrew her prior consent after penetration.” However, a refusal to stop might constitute assault, the court said. The appellate court quoted a 1945 decision in State v. Allen (1945) to support its conclusion:

“But, to be sure, it was the act of penetration that was the essence of the crime of rape; after this initial infringement upon the responsible male's interest in a woman's sexual and reproductive functions, any further injury was considered to be less consequential. The damage was done. It was this view that the moment of penetration was the point in time, after which a woman could never be "re-flowered," that gave rise to the principle that, if a woman consents prior to penetration and withdraws consent following penetration, there is no rape.

You can read the decision in Maouloud Baby v. State of Maryland here.

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

Lack of Personal Jurisdiction Renders PPO Invalid

A Florida court has ruled that a personal protection order issued in that state was invalid for lack of personal jurisdiction where the only contacts Husband had with Wife in that Florida were voice and text messages left on her cellular telephone while she was present there. Husband's phone records clearly showed that he was in Maryland and there was no evidence that he knew that Wife was present in Florida at the time he left the messages on her cellular phone. The court noted that Wife was not without protection, because she could obtain a protective order against Husband in his state of residence. If she had such an order, Florida would be required to give the order full faith and credit under the Violence Against Women Act (18 U.S.C. § 2265) and Florida statutes. Moreover Florida would be required to enforce the order whether or not it was registered in Florida.

Read the case at this link: Becker v. Johnson, 2006 Fla. App. LEXIS 13194 (August 8, 2006) (last visited August 10, 2006 jmh)

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

Pets Included in PPOs?

An article posted today in the ABA Family Law Journal by Arin Greenwood begins:

"Leave me and I’ll kill the dog. It’s a classic intimidation tool in domestic violence cases, says Portland, Maine, lawyer Anne H. Jordan. And it can prevent a battered spouse from leaving home to seek help."

Greenwood writes about a new state law in Maine that permits pets to be included in personal protection orders and to be taken into custody and placed in safety in a foster home temporarily, if necessary. To read the article, see Saving Fido.

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

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.

Assistance for Military Persons When Domestic Violence Occurs

A meeting last evening with an army wife led me to add to my growing list of links I maintain on my website to help my clients find valuable resources and assistance. The issue of domestic violence looms too large in today's society. The DoD has taken a zero tolerance stance on the issue. Every branch of the service has a Family Advocacy Program available to provide important help and resources to abused spouses.

I've posted links to the FAP programs for every branch of the service on my Law Links page.  Look in Section IX regarding military families. You might want to bookmark this resource for future reference.

There are many agencies available to help women and their families to escape and/or to prevent family violence. See, for example:

Understanding Domestic Violence and Cultural Issues:

A report in the Detroit Free Press on Sunday, April 24, 2005, cited cultural issues among women in the Asian community in southeastern Michigan – one of the fastest growing immigrant populations – as a reason why domestic violence is so rarely reported. Cultural expectations – that a woman is lucky to be married and must keep quiet about anything her husband does to her – often prevent Asian and Asian-American women from speaking openly about domestic abuse and from seeking help through mainstream channels.

Although a nationwide study of domestic violence published in 2000 by the National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that domestic violence occurred with much less frequency in Asian and Asian-American families, experts now say that the statistics really represent underreporting.

The Free Press article related the story of a Korean woman – a professional – who endured 11 years of violence before she was able to escape.

There are many agencies available to help women in Asian and Asian-American families to escape and/or to prevent family violence. See, for example:

Preparing / Defending / Opposing a Personal Protection Order

Successfully preparing, defending, or opposing a Personal Protection Order involves a thorough understanding of the laws, procedures, and the standards applied by referees and judges in hearings that may be requested to set aside a PPO. A valuable reference tool will help you understand all of these things. Available on the website of the Michigan Judicial Institute, The Domestic Violence Benchbook contains about 678 pages, was revised and copyrighted in 2004. The PDF file is available here:

www.courts.michigan.gov/mji/resources/dvbook/dvbook.htm

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

Technorati tags: domestic violence, personal protection order