Articles Posted in Domestic Violence

On July 1, 2010, a petition was made to the Court of Appeals to review the decision of the Family Court in Otsego, regarding a child, in a case involving domestic violence. The Family Court had ordered that the boy be treated as a permanently neglected child. Also, the rights that a mother has toward her child were taken away from the mother. On May 5, 2011, the Court of Appeals affirmed the Family Court’s decision. Let us examine why.

According to reports, Tyler was taken away from his mother in 2007. He was only a year old then. During the hearing, it was determined that the child had been neglected at home because of the many alcohol-related domestic violence incidents that had happened between his mother and father. The petitioner wanted it established that the child was a permanently neglected child and that he be removed from the care of his mother.

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Couple, in wedding ceremonies, usually vow to love and protect each other till death do they part. The classic wedding vow brings into mind a happy and everlasting love of the couple. The wedding vow does not bring into mind a situation where the marriage would end at the death of the wife, caused by her own husband.

In a classic case of domestic violence that led to the death of the victim, an Ecuadorian woman was found strangled to death, wrapped in a blanket and placed inside a futon in her apartment. Her husband reported the death to the authorities.

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A Department of Human and Health Services in a New York county filed a petition to terminate the parental rights of a mother whom the Department accused of having permanently neglected her minor children. According to sources, at the time of the filing of the Department’s petition, the father was deceased. The mother, the sources said, had found being a single mother extremely difficult and the children had come into the care and custody of the Department after she attempted suicide and was hospitalized.

The court granted the petition. The law defines a “permanently neglected child” as a child who is in the care of an authorized agency and whose parent or custodian has failed for a period of more than one year following the date such child came into the care of an authorized agency substantially and continuously or repeatedly to maintain contact with or plan for the future of the child, although physically and financially able to do so, notwithstanding the agency’s diligent efforts to encourage and strengthen the parental relationship when such efforts will not be detrimental to the best interests of the child.

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A family court terminated the parental rights of a mother because she permanently neglected her four children. The children, the youngest of which are twins, have been in foster care since 1997 after they were neglected based on the court’s findings of domestic violence by both the mother and the twins’ father. Sources said that the mother also sexually abused one of her children.

To strengthen the parental relationship while the children remained in foster care, the mother was required to attend a domestic violence support group, parenting classes, facilitated visitation with the children, counseling and sex offender treatment. Sources said that although the mother participated in all of the programs and services required, she failed to successfully complete the sex offender program because she refused to admit the abuse. The court also found that the mother had failed to adequately plan for her children’s future due to her sporadic continuing relationship with the twins’ father. The mother also failed to demonstrate progress in her parenting skills.

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A 30-year old female tenant was served a notice of termination by her landlord because she engaged in illegal and violent behavior during domestic disputes. The tenant is under a federal-government-assisted Section 8 tenancy. According to sources, the tenant stabbed her partner in one of numerous disturbances she created in and around the building. The tenant did not deny stabbing her partner but she said it was only in defense of herself because her partner engaged in domestic violence against her.

According to the federal Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005, an incident of domestic violence or criminal activity relating to domestic violence will not be construed to violate a public-housing or government-assisted lease and will not be good cause to terminate a public-housing or government-assisted tenancy, like a Section 8 tenancy, if the tenant is the victim or threatened victim of that domestic violence. VAWA’s goal is to prevent a landlord from penalizing a tenant for being a victim of domestic violence.

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In November of 1996, a father of a little girl was arrested and taken in to custody. The facts of this case once known exposed a level of domestic violence that was abhorrent. The man was arrested for assaulting the mother of his child. While they were married at the time of the abuse, the mother has since divorced him. He is serving ten years in Elmira Prison for the assaults on his family.

While they were married, the man repeatedly beat his wife causing her to at one time or another have her nose broken twice, her ankle broken, and two of her ribs broken. Her head had visible bald areas where he would pull her hair out. Additionally, he would keep her handcuffed in the floor of the bathroom all day. She was only released to take their child to the school bus, or to eat with her captor. She was once released to attend his father’s wake. When she arrived with two black eyes, missing hair and bruises on her face, her mother-in-law told her to put on a hat and sunglasses so that no one would ask any questions. She stated that on the day of the arrest, she was in the car with her husband and his mother, he had become angry with her and punched her in the face causing her blood to “splatter” the inside of the car. He was agitated and threatened to kill her and her father. When he stopped to get gas, she jumped from the car and ran screaming for help. The police arrived and he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to prison. His mother now claims a right to see the grandchild.

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On May 5, 2011, The Department of Social Services, Otsego Counter, in Cooperstown, New York completed the decision that found a boy to be permanently neglected. The decision was not made lightly. The child was removed from his mother’s care in 2007 when his situation was brought to the attention of the Department of Family and Children Services. The child’s mother battled with several alcohol-related problems.

The Department of child protective services offered numerous services to this mother. They offered guidance and assistance to address chemical dependency, mental health referrals, parental education, and many other services offered in an attempt to provide and encourage an improved parent-child relationship. The caseworkers attempted to get the mother to make regular contact with the child. They advised her of the problem areas that she needed to work on so that she could get her child out of foster care and back into her own care.

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In February of 2007, a man returned to New York State to re-unite with his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his little girl. They had parted the summer of 2006 following a domestic violence situation. The court had issued an order of protection to keep this man away from his family. They agreed to have joint custody of their little girl.

When he moved back to New York, he moved in back in with his ex-girlfriend, the mother of his little girl. But it did not take long before the police were back out at their apartment. Three months after that, the little girl was back in emergency foster care following a horrific episode of domestic violence that occurred in the child’s presence. The neighbor in the apartment next door to theirs heard a fight, and a child screaming for help. In fact, the mother testified later at trial that the man had strangled her during an argument. She stated that her daughter had been behind the man crying and screaming for him to stop hurting her mommy. The man was arrested again, the woman was also arrested. There had been some houseguests in their home when the argument occurred and they started to fight. When the police came, they located a shoebox containing marijuana and other drug paraphernalia. The drugs were located in an area that would have been easily accessible for the small child. Both parents were charged based on the element of neglect involved in having harmful substances within her reach.

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The courts have ruled repeatedly that an act of domestic violence in the presence of within view of a child constitutes neglect. However, an isolated incident of domestic violence does not constitute a case of neglect. An incident is not isolated, though, when it is part of a pattern of conduct. A domestic violence incident is not isolated if it is done more than once.

In the situation at question, the mother’s testimony at a fact-finding hearing demonstrated that there was a clear pattern of conduct. So the father could not claim that it was an isolated incident. There was a pattern of conduct. The father appealed the finding from the fact-finding order of the Family Court of Queens County from August 3, 2009. In that hearing he was found to have neglected his children.

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One of the ugliest truths about domestic violence, separation and divorce is the effect these things have with the children involved. They are often times ignored, their feelings and sense of identity compromised because of the violence happening inside their homes. In a child’s perception, home is supposed to be the safest place for him. That is why if this is compromised by any reason, the child’s sense of security is altered and he becomes sceptical of his surroundings all the time which is not healthy for his emotional and intellectual growth.

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