“The discretion of the a judge in the family court is so broad that if they write an order stating that you must have your child play in the middle of the freeway during rush hour, you are stuck with that.” A statement that I made during testimony before Committee in support of HB232 over 12 years ago.

“If you come in here complaining that you are being denied seeing your children again, I am going to make sure that you never see them again and throw you in jail.”

Told to one of the fathers in what became known as the “Kenmore Kids Case” in Summit County. Father was repeated denied access to his boys by the mother. The boys were found wandering down a busy Akron street barefoot in the middle of the night.

The mother in question was charged with child abuse and ordered no contact after it was discovered that she and her lesbian lover had locked these two boys and another boy in a room, feed them cat feces while treating a sibling sister royally as they trained her to become a lesbian. Mother and her lover were sentenced to prison and ordered to have no contact with the children.

The father of the girl had also been threatened in the same manner when he brought complaints of abuse to the court in this case.

 “I am not accepting that Guardian Ad Litem report, no father is that good.”

Father had raised his two boys for 5 years after the mother walked out and had no contact for the same period of time.  Mother lived in North Carolina, filed for a change of custody and the court granted it. On the father’s for trip to “visit” with his boys he had to stop and get a hotel room and bath the boys as they smelled so bad he could not stand to be in the car with them and they were covered in fleas.

“Oh kitty, what are we to do with these people?” magistrate as he stroked his dead stuffed cat that sits on his trial bench.

In this case the same magistrate has ordered that neither party leave the jurisdiction of the court and issued a restraining order to that affect. Mother moved from central Ohio to Detroit area and was not held in contempt for doing such.

The child remained on a week on week off schedule and was attending two different schools in two different states per court order.

Decision comes in on the divorce and all debt was given to the father and custody was given to the mother. When the father filed for a stay of that decision pending appeal, the court denied the stay and then on its own reduced the father’s visitation even further.

“The child is to make sure that her father does not drink while he has the child during his visitation.”

The child was 8 years old at the time and the father was an illegal immigrant that was an admitted alcoholic. He had no driver’s license. Had the local prosecutor and police chief refused to help when I raised the issue with them directly, this child could well have been killed.

Attorney to female client:

“If you want to win this case, wear a low cut blouse and bend over a lot”

She was before a female judge.

Magistrate issues an order restraining both parties from moving from the state or the country during the pendency of the case.  Mother moves against that order and despite having a motion for contempt filed against her, she is not found in contempt nor is her failure to follow court orders considered in the following final decision.  Failure or ability to follow orders of the court is one of the factors for determining custody.

One more:

Children are removed from the mother’s custody under claims that she is in foreclosure on a home that she had paid for in full. Children are placed with the father and no background checks are made. Guardian ad Litem who had not visited with the children finally goes to bring them back to their home county. On the return trip the boy has medical problems and is taken to a local hospital where it is found out that he was been sexually abused and has Herpes. His sister is also examined and is found to have been abused and also have herpes.

Father is awaiting sentencing on sexual abuse of both minors. 

These are but a small sample of the many poor uses of discretion that I have been told throughout the years. Yet many in this legislature are concerned with the judicial claims of loss of discretion under SB144. These claims are fasle as this legislation will give the proper direction on how to use their discretion.

It should be clear to see how poorly they use their discretion now. The current broad discretion that these courts have has damaged children because the law lacks clear direction. We cannot risk further damage to future generations by listening to less than a thousand people wearing robes out of a population of 11 Million. One child damaged is too many.

It is time to make the corrections that better define the judgment and the way that judges view the cases before them.