See, now this is the evidence in response to those who hesitate to lay any blame upon the family court system for what happened. The guiding star is "best interest of the child." Any person who would do this to their own flesh and blood does not care about them, their safety or their lives. So the new judge, Heller, with no family law experience suddenly decides to let this guy have unsupervised visitation?
At some point the supposed sacrosanct right to be a "parent" has to end. When those in authority, legal professionals who have the law in their hands, lawyers, judges, who can clearly see that such a "parent" is obviously not acting in the best interest of the children, and yet who hold the future of innocent children in their hands, particularly when one spouse is normal and one is clearly insane, that right simply has to end. Parents have had their parental rights terminated for less. Nothing is normal anymore, my friends.
I've explained ad nauseum, how the system works.
First of all, someone was going to search for evidence that he had been granted unsupervised visitation.
@afitzy ? But this far, all I have are news reports which state his visits were to be supervised. Which makes sense. It's why his mother in law was able to hide the kids under armed guard. If he had unsupervised access he would have immediately been granted his motion for return of the kids to him but as his motion states, the judge has "limited" him.
Second, allowing kids to drive a car is enough to cause supervised visitation, but realize this appears to have happened during the marriage (because she states she was present).
She didn't call the police then. There is no record of her calling the police about that which the news would jump on.
Court's aren't going to say, "oh, you claim something occurred during the marriage and you took no legal action then, but now that you're getting a divorce and want to use it against him, we are going to believe you and bar him from any unsupervised contact."
Instead they're going to say, "when did this happen? Did you call the police? Did you call CPS? No? But NOW you want ME to do something about it?"
"Do you know how many people lie or exaggerate to get an advantage in a custody case? Who am I supposed to believe?"
My understanding is he had unfettered access to the kids at first because like most cases it was a he said she said situation with no hard proof either way.
It's obvious to us now that he likely did all that because we are know he probably killed his wife. That makes everything in retrospect
That she said, clearly true.
But the judge didn't have the benefit of the knowledge we have now. She's not psychic. All she had was two people making allegations (he said his wife was nuts, on anti-psychotics, which is serious, and anti-anxiety medications, she said he was abusive and controlling. These are both very common allegations that are sometimes true, sometimes lies and sometimes only partially accurate).
From what I've seen, once the judge caught him lying and trying to manipulate the kids, his access was seriously restricted to professionally supervised and limited. Since then it has gradually increased time wise, which is normal. Eventually if he continued to behave, and got good reports from the professional supervisor, contact would become unsupervised.
I haven't seen that happen yet.
But let's say it did. Let's say the judge granted unsupervised for memorial at weekend. And let's say for sake of argument that she went totally rogue and for no reason did so in complete opposition to what the experts she appointed (therapists and GAL):
Did he kill the kids? Did he kidnap them?
I mean what am I missing? How would family law child visitation orders that possibly evolved into unsupervised visits which did not take place yet (the murder happened before he was scheduled to have the kids), how does that possibly relate to the murder of his wife?
A supervised visitation order would not relate in any way or prevent in any way, what this maniac did.
Frankly, neither would a restraining order which was not before he court at the time of the murders.
Because restraining orders help keep the peace. They help angry people who might go make a scene or continue to harass an ex, accountable and can prevent them from continuing the behavior for fear of jail, loss of license and los of custody.
But they never stop premeditated murder.
But that's not the issue. Please someone tell me how an order for an unsupervised visit that was not set to occur prior to the date of the disappearance, is responsible or contributed to the murder.
If it is true that his access was made less restrictive, that should make him less angry. Not more.
I'm not understanding.
Finally, judges are appointed to the bench due to their work ethic, reputation and intelligence. They are expected to be able to handle cases in any department- probate, juvenile dependency, criminal, civil litigation, family law.
Few of the family law judges I appear before have prior experience as family law attorneys. More often they have experience as a prosecutor, appellate experience or simply experience at a major law firm doing incredible work, typically civil litigation.
Judge Heller was appointed in 2012 to the Superior Court. Her past experience in family law is irrelevant to her ability to understand the law and rule. These judges, if they're placed in a department they haven't had much experience litigating in, will learn quickly. They study, observe and get mentoring by colleagues.
But their ability to read people, understand the law and asses facts quickly is not dependent on the kind of law they won't practiced or what department they've been a judge in.
So can someone explain to me why the judges and family law attorneys in this family's case are to blame for Jennifer's murder due to the custody orders?
I'm not getting the connection.