Family Law Commons^™

Standing In Babylon, Looking Toward Zion, Katherine R. Kruse

Scholarly Works

This article defends the triumph of vision at the 2006 UNLV Conference on Representing Children in Families by examining the interrelationship between idealism and realism in the definition of lawyers' roles and the importance of idealized visions to the process of reforming dysfunctional systems. This article suggests that the vision of lawyering for children sketched in the UNLV Recommendations--though based in idealism--is both deeply realistic and ultimately practical. This article thus affirms the choice of the group of idealists who stood together for a few days in modern-day Babylon to keep their eyes trained on the vision of Zion as …

Attorneys' Perceptions Of Child Witnesses With Mental Retardation, Rebecca Nathanson

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Children with mental retardation are more likely to be abused than the general population, yet are often denied access to the justice system. Research on children without mental retardation has revealed skepticism as to their reliability as witnesses in the court of law. Even more so, children with mental retardation face the issue of credibility because of their age and disability. This study assesses attorneys' perceptions of child witnesses with mental retardation. Thirty-nine criminal attorneys completed a 33-item questionnaire designed to assess their opinions of the abilities of adults and of children with and without mental retardation to recall and …

Making Work Pay: Promoting Employment And Better Child Support Outcomes For Low-Income And Incarcerated Parents, Ann Cammett

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The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice prepared this report in response to concerns about child support debt—in particular as it creates a barrier to employment for low-income parents and works at cross-purposes with the goals of the child support program. Drawing on examples from other states, this report identifies a range of policies that inform child support practice in New Jersey and offers administrative, legislative, and programmatic solutions to address child support arrears owed by low-income and incarcerated parents.

Between Dependency And Liberty: The Conundrum Of Children’S Rights In The Gilded Age, David S. Tanenhaus

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Although legal scholars often assume that the history of children's rights in the United States did not begin until the mid twentieth century, this essay argues that a sophisticated conception of children's rights existed a century earlier, and analyzes how lawmakers articulated it through their attempts to define the rights of dependent children. How to handle their cases raised fundamental questions about whether children were autonomous beings or the property of either their parents and/or the state. And, if the latter, what were the limits of parental authority and/or the power of the state acting as a parent? By investigating …

Justice Miriam Shearing: Nevada's Trailblazing Minimalist, Mary E. Berkheiser

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Nevada Supreme Court Justice Miriam Shearing retired at the end of her second term on January 4, 2005. Over the nearly thirty years of her very public life on the bench, many have written of her accomplishments as the firs woman to enter the brotherhood of the Nevada judiciary. With Justice Sharing’s retirement, the time is ripe for an examination of her judicial decisions during the twelve years she served on the Nevada Supreme Court. The analysis here provides one perspective on her body of work. It begins, as it must, with a glimpse into the person behind the work.

Uneasy Tensions Between Children's Rights And Civil Rights, Annette Ruth Appell

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of The Courtroom Context On Children's Memory And Anxiety, Rebecca Nathanson

Scholarly Works

Modifications of the courtroom environment have been proposed to enhance the ability of child witnesses to offer complete and accurate testimony and reduce system-induced stress. However, these interventions have often been conceived without the benefit of empirical data demonstrating intervention efficacy. The present study examines the effects of the courtroom context on children's memory and anxiety. Eighty-one eight- to ten-year-olds participated in a staged event involving bodily touch, and two weeks later their memory for the event was tested. Half of the children were questioned in a mock courtroom in a university law school, and half were questioned in a …

The Effects Of The Courtroom Context On Children’S Memory And Anxiety, Rebecca Nathanson

Scholarly Works

Modifications of the courtroom environment have been proposed to enhance the ability of child witnesses to offer complete and accurate testimony and reduce system-induced stress. However, these interventions have often been conceived without the benefit of empirical data demonstrating intervention efficacy. The present study examines the effects of the courtroom context on children's memory and anxiety. Eighty-one eight- to ten-year-olds participated in a staged event involving bodily touch, and two weeks later their memory for the event was tested. Half of the children were questioned in a mock courtroom in a university law school, and half were questioned in a …

Introduction To Symposium, The Rights Of Parents With Children In Foster Care: Removals Arising From Economic Hardship And The Predicative Power Of Race, Ann Cammett

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Professor Cammett introduces a symposium at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York exploring the predicament posed by the surge of child removals through neglect petitions, and the subsequent placement of those children in foster care. The panel’s published comments offer some poignant reflections on the crisis of the child welfare system.

Of Child Welfare And Welfare Reform: The Implications For Children When Contradictory Policies Collide, Kay P. Kindred

Scholarly Works

On August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (hereinafter, “PRWORA” or the “welfare reform law”), which replaced the Aid to Families and Dependent Children Program (“AFDC”), the nation’s primary cash-assistance program, with the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Program (“TANF”), funded by block grants to states. PRWORA represented a dramatic change in social welfare policy in the United States. Among the many changes effected by the law in the nation’s social welfare programs were: (1) the increased authority of the states over cash-assistance programs for needy families, giving …

Rodriguez V. Rodriguez: Fault As A Determinative Factor In Alimony Awards In Nevada And Other Community Property Jurisdictions , Catherine Mazzeo

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Defining Marriage: What Ballot Question 2 Doesn’T Do, Mary Lafrance

Scholarly Works

This article examines he oddly-worded initiative, which constituted Question 2 on Nevada’s 2002 ballot and explains how it was a bit of a puzzle, even two years after it was first sprung upon the electorate. Touted during its previous appearance in the 2000 election as a “definition of marriage,” this article shows how it is all too clear that the initiative was anything but that. Neither the initiative, nor any existing provision of Nevada law, made the slightest attempt to define marriage.

Child Care For Families Leaving Temporary Assistance For Needy Families, Rebecca L. Scharf, Sujatha Jagadeesh Branch, Cynthia Godsoe, Sherry Leiwant, Roslyn Powell, Cary Lacheen

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Since Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program in 1996, the welfare rolls have decreased by more than 40 percent. While unemployment and poverty rates have declined, families who leave welfare generally earn low wages and remain below the poverty level. Because families leaving welfare are mostly single mothers with young children, child care is critical to their ability to work outside the home. Low-income parents trying to make ends meet, as well as employers of low-wage workers, emphasize the importance of appropriate, affordable child care in enabling women who leave welfare …

Lies Between Mommy And Daddy: The Case For Recognizing Spousal Emotional Distress Claims Based On Domestic Deceit That Interferes With Parent–Child Relationships, Linda L. Berger

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This Article discusses whether courts should recognize spousal IIED causes of action based on intentional lies that interfere with the establishment or the continuation of parent-child relationships. The Article begins with an overview of the currents in family law and tort law that converge in domestic tort actions. Next, it reviews the current status of a particular domestic tort: spousal emotional distress. It then examines the evolution of emotional distress claims based on interference with parent-child relationships, moving from California's early and continuing rejection of these claims to the very recent recognition of these claims by other states. Finally, it …

Child Care In The Postwelfare Reform Era: Analysis And Strategies For Advocates, Rebecca L. Scharf, Jo Ann C. Gong, Alice Bussiere, Jennifer Light, Marc Cohan, Sherry Leiwant

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Adequate child care is essential to enable poor women to support their families with work outside the home. In 1994 the U.S. General Accounting Office found that offering a child care subsidy to poor mothers increased the likelihood by 15 percent that the mothers would work. An Illinois study found that 20 percent of parents who left public assistance for work returned to assistance because of child care problems. In Minnesota a study found that lack of child care caused 14 percent of parents awaiting child care subsidies to leave their jobs and rely on public assistance. These studies confirm …

Cloning And The Preservation Of Family Integrity, David Orentlicher

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

When Equal Opportunity Meets Freedom Of Expression: Student-On-Student Sexual Harassment And The First Amendment In School, Kay P. Kindred

Scholarly Works

Sexual harassment can take a variety of forms. It can be verbal, nonverbal or physical. Often it takes the form of hateful and harassing speech. In the AAUW Survey, 76% of the girls and 56 % of the boys surveyed had been the target of sexual comments, jokes, gestures or looks. Even when the harassment includes physical contact of some nature, it is typically accompanied or preceded by verbal harassment. While school officials and parents look for solutions to these problems, courts are struggling with the questions as well. In recent years, the problem of student-on-student sexual harassment has found …

Spanking And Other Corporal Punishment Of Children By Parents: Undervaluing Children, Overvaluing Pain, David Orentlicher

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Comparativist Ruminations From The Bayou On Child Custody Jurisdiction: The Uccja, The Pkpa, And The Hague Convention On Child Abduction, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

Interstate and international jurisdictional problems are often vexing. They are worse in matters of child custody. In the past, jurisdiction to obtain custody or to modify a custody decree required only presence or domicile. The United States population is transient and custody decisions are subject to modification. The volatility of child custody disputes and the tendency of parents to move to different and separate jurisdictions traditionally caused and continue to cause difficult problems for children, parents, and the legal system. Before the promulgation of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA) and the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA), it was …

Scientific Testing & Proof Of Paternity: Some Controversy And Key Issues For Family Law Counsel, Christopher L. Blakesley

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Blood and tissue testing, especially DNA matching, have become important elements of both criminal and paternity or maternity litigation. Such scientific testing has become so important that it has taken on aspects that may cause it to benefit or to do harm to the judicial process or to any given case. This article focuses on the value and the dangers surrounding this interesting subject.

The 1995 Louisiana Supreme Court decision in Pace v. State reemphasized the importance of DNA testing generally and the significance of blood and tissue genetic testing used to exclude paternity. The advances in and importance of …

God Bless The Child: Poor Children, Parens Patriae, And A State Obligation To Provide Assistance, Kay P. Kindred

Scholarly Works

In this Article, I argue that poor parents who are willing, but economically unable, to provide proper care for their children are entitled to some minimum level of state assistance grounded in the constitutional right to family integrity. The right to family integrity, when coupled with the state's power as parens patride, creates an affirmative obligation on the state to provide income assistance to impoverished families when necessary to protect the welfare of the children and maintain the family intact.

Louisiana Family Law, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Law's Patriarchy, Lynne Henderson

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Alimony, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Child Custody - Jurisdiction And Procedure, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

Custody determinations traditionally have comprised a subcategory of litigation under the Pennoyer v. Neff exception for proceedings relating to status. Of course, states have the power to decide the status of their domiciliaries. It was natural, therefore, for the courts and scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to consider domicile the sole basis of jurisdiction in custody matters. Gradually, judges and scholars began to challenge the notion that domicile was the sole basis and courts began to apply other bases, such as the child's presence in the state or personal jurisdiction over both parents. One commentator suggests that …

The Putative Marriage Doctrine, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

The classic putative marriage doctrine is substantive, ameliorative or corrective; it is designed to allow all the civil effects -- rights, privileges, and benefits -- which obtain in a legal marriage to flow to parties to a null marriage who had a good faith belief that their "marriage" was legal and valid. Most jurisdictions in the United States have developed equitable analogues to the putative spouse doctrine that provide all or part of the relief afforded by the classic doctrine.

If a marriage is declared to be null or void, that declaration is retroactive to the day that the null …

Medical Dependency In Arizona, Mary E. Berkheiser

Scholarly Works

Analysis of In re Cochise County Juvenile Action No. 5666-J, 650 P.2d 459 (Ariz. 1982).

Child Custody And Parental Authority In France, Louisiana And Other States Of The United States: A Comparative Analysis, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.