Patrick McCabe

January 13, 2018

Massachusettts has a completely new Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), with all but two of the members being appointed by the current governor.  Justice Gants, and Justice Lenk being the only hold overs from the prior administration

However a new court does not mean the old problems have gone away as one might hope, a recent decision has shown that it’s a new court with the same old problems.  In particular there is a profound bias against shared physical custody.  As has been the case in the past the justices can never explain why they feel compelled to behave in this manner.

The recent case involves  a move away case, where one parent wishes to move from Massachusetts and the other parent opposes the move. 

The court’s discussion of this matter revolves around their own fabricated fallacy, that a move must be accompanied with taking custody away from one parent.  When the Fatherhood Coalition hears of a case where a move away is allowed, we always start with the following advice: go with the move, move to were your children are.  Although the court is well aware of this type of advice and well aware of what people do in response to a move away, they have always focused on taking custody away from one parent when a move away occurs, and they have NEVER explained why.

In the recent decision (Miller vs. Miller) the court focuses on taking custody away from one parent rather than explaining why the other parent should be allowed to leave the state when the other parent does not agree.

It appears that the court could have allowed the mother to remove their child from Massachusetts and then see what happens, with the case probably moving to a new jurisdiction; instead the court chose to stick it to another family and took custody away from one parent, without any explanation.

The SJC has not taken on a child custody case from the Family and Probate Court in some time, Adams vs Adams  2011 is the last one that comes to mind so one might wonder why now.

It should be also noted that the SJC took this case sua sponte, they took it of their own accord rather than allow it to go through the regular process.  If they were actually concerned if they were making the correct decision they could have asked for amicus briefs (there is a program for that)

We have been dealing with an openly biased court for 40 years, since divorce laws changed.  It doesn’t look like that is going to change anytime soon.

If you wish to retain custody of your children, contact us BEFORE you take it to court.  We can inform you of the process, and what NOT to do.  We believe in what we do, we are not trying to soak anyone for money.  We are not lawyers, we are better than that