Stephen W. Baker

The judge was not prepared. The judge did not read any of the information ahead of the actual hearing and seemed completely bewildered and unschooled on any of the timely prepared pleadings that had been submitted well in advance to the court. The judge was hostile, angry and often rude to both wit...nesses causing both the father and mother to break down sobbing during the custody hearing, not from the emotional weight of the testimony, but strictly due to the aggressive and rather hateful questioning of the judge himself. This is quite odd considering in custody hearing judges are rather silent with the defending counsels waging the questions, not the judge. It was such odd and erratic behavior that even my attorney seemed taken aback but knew best to not say anything. It was a horrifying experience and one that any parent should be forced to go and neither parent had issues with illegal substances, alcohol, aggressive abuse towards the child other than neglect (which was an issue on one side, not both), no arrests or other such criminal activity on either side. The ruling was a non-ruling with this judge, having not prepared, taking no responsibility to make a ruling other than to give the custodial parent the option of keeping their child but only if they quit their job, left their current spouse and moved geographically back to where the ex was living. The child is currently with the parent that is forced to either become homeless and move into a shelter or allow the current non-custodial parent to enroll them. The original decree had that same spouse living in another state, so this judge changed the original decree in temporary orders to force one parent to shatter their life for the sake of their child, or allow the other spouse to manipulate the system and keep the clearly neglected child with them for another school year, which was against the original agreement. It was an unconscionable decision and will be contested and hopefully overturned.