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Full-Text Articles in Law
Advocating For The Constitutional Rights Of Nonresident Fathers, Vivek Sankaran
Advocating For The Constitutional Rights Of Nonresident Fathers, Vivek Sankaran
Articles
Months after a child welaare case is petitioned, a nonresident father appears in court and requests custody of his children who are living in foster care. Little is known about the father, and immediately, the system-judge, caseworkers, and attorneys view him with suspicion and caution, inquiring about his whereabouts and his prior involvement in the children's lives. Those doubts, in turn, raise complicated questions about his legal rights to his children. As a practioner working in the child welfare system, you're likely to face this scenario. The largest percentage of child victims of abuse and neglect come from households headed …
Addressing Putative Fathers In Child Protection Proceedings: Is 'John Doe' Still Alive?, Frank E. Vandervort, W. Lansat
Addressing Putative Fathers In Child Protection Proceedings: Is 'John Doe' Still Alive?, Frank E. Vandervort, W. Lansat
Articles
In practice, it seems, KH is not widely understood. Child protection petitions for temporary custody continue to name multiple men as the "father" of a child when there is a legal father. Some courts insist on terminating the parental rights of "John Doe" when no man has established paternity. After KH, are such actions necessary? Are they permissible?
Fathers, The Welfare System, And The Virtues And Perils Of Child-Support Enforcement, David L. Chambers
Fathers, The Welfare System, And The Virtues And Perils Of Child-Support Enforcement, David L. Chambers
Articles
For half a century, Aid to Families with Dependent Children ("AFDC")' -the program of federally supported cash assistance to low-income families with children-has been oddly conceived. Congress has chosen to make assistance available almost solely to low-income single-parent families, not all low-income parents with children. At first many of the eligible single parents were women whose husbands had died. Over time, a growing majority were women who had been married to their children's father but who had separated or divorced. Today, to an ever increasing extent, they are women who were never married to the fathers of their children.2
Commentary: Meeting The Financial Needs Of Children, David L. Chambers
Commentary: Meeting The Financial Needs Of Children, David L. Chambers
Articles
Those who drafted the equitable distribution statutes adopted in New York and elsewhere wanted to help assure women and children an acceptable level of financial well-being after divorce. Marsha Garrison has shown that divorcing couples rarely possess enough resources to attain financial well-being even when they live together as a couple, let alone when they live in two separate households. She has also shown that, even in the cases of couples with substantial assets, the broad and general language of the equitable distribution statute did not lead (and could not have been expected to lead) to consistent distributions that assured …
The Abuses Of Social Science: A Response To Fineman And Opie., David L. Chambers
The Abuses Of Social Science: A Response To Fineman And Opie., David L. Chambers
Articles
Martha Fineman and Anne Opie have written an article on the misuses of social science research by those who are recommending policies for the placement of children after divorce.' The subject is important. When Professor Fineman told me that she and Opie were using an article I wrote about child custody2 as an example of some of the problems they discussed, I anticipated a useful exchange on the subject. Having read their article, I have decided against an exchange on the merits of the larger issues they raise. I have so decided because their article, which refers extensively to my …
Rethinking The Substantive Rules For Custody Disputes In Divorce, David L. Chambers
Rethinking The Substantive Rules For Custody Disputes In Divorce, David L. Chambers
Articles
A few states, mostly in the West and South, still retain a preference in custody disputes for placing young children with their mothers. In most other states, legislatures or courts have replaced the maternal presumption with a rule directing courts to be guided solely by the child's "welfare" or "best interests." A few legislatures have created a new preference for joint custody, directing courts to consider favorably requests by a parent for such arrangements, even over the objection of the other parent. This Article argues that the trend away from the maternal presumption is sensible, but that the current best-interests …
The Coming Curtailment Of Compulsory Child Support, David L. Chambers
The Coming Curtailment Of Compulsory Child Support, David L. Chambers
Articles
Absent parents ought to contribute to the support of their minor children and states can appropriately invoke the force of law to compel them to do so. Stated so generally, even absent parents behind in their payments would probably agree. Since so many others agree as well, and since the numbers of single-parent children have mushroomed, systems of governmentally compelled support in this country have grown enormously. By the early part of the next century, if current laws remain in force and current population trends continue, most of America's children on any given day will be entitled to support from …
Men Who Know They Are Watched: Some Benefits And Costs Of Jailing For Nonpayment Of Support, David L. Chambers
Men Who Know They Are Watched: Some Benefits And Costs Of Jailing For Nonpayment Of Support, David L. Chambers
Articles
Suppose that by some mysterious process the police in your town received each Monday a list of all the robberies and burglaries committed during the preceding week and the names of the persons who committed them. Suppose further that the list itself was admissible in evidence at trial and generally led to conviction. And suppose finally that persons considering committing offenses knew that the police had such a list and used it, relentlessly tracking down the miscreants named on it. Under such circumstances, one would probably expect that many potential offenders in the town with the magical list would resist …