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The Most Powerful Person in a Child Custody Case Isn't the Judge
by MCMoewe
Courts in the U.S. have sentenced thousands of children to live with a parent who abused them. The family court judges who reach this decision — and restrict or end the relationship of the parent who reported concerns of abuse — usually do so based on the opinion of a court-appointed expert.
A quick look at how the family courts' multimillion-dollar expert industry operates reveals a system that is built to invite corruption.
The experts are paid thousands of dollars by one or both parents, facts on how their opinions were formed are forbidden to be reviewed by the public and state laws help shield these decision makers from potential lawsuits.
Judges appoint court experts, such as custody evaluators or guardians ad litem, to investigate and make recommendations about what is in the best interest of the child.
"The court follows the recommendations in the evaluation in over 90 percent of custody cases," according to Lawfirms.com.
As an investigative reporter, I have been collecting cases for years where an expert has determined that the alleged abuse of a child is not happening and, instead, the child or parent who fears abuse is the danger. The child is placed in the sole custody of the accused abuser, the protective parent is put on supervised visitation — or forbidden from seeing the child at all — and restrictions are placed barring other child welfare professionals from even talking to the child.
Custody cases are rarely written about in the media, but the Naples News wrote a story in 2011 about a family court judge who followed the advice of two court experts, giving a father who was then facing child abuse charges sole custody and restricting the mother, who feared for the child's safety, to supervised visitation.
In all the cases I have reviewed, I have yet to read about a single judge who has rejected the advice of their court-appointed expert.
The custody evaluation, a report that explains how these powerful expert opinions were decided, are sealed to protect the privacy of the family. Although the parents have likely paid thousands of dollars for an evaluation, often even they are not allowed to obtain a copy. If they want to see it, they must do so in their attorney's office.
"Therapeutic jurisprudence in the family courts ... substitutes the opinions of mental health practitioners for traditional evidence and decision-making procedures," according to the Liz Library, a website that has amassed years of research on the issue and advocates for courts to go back to attorneys presenting the facts and testimony to the judges, who make rulings based on those public facts.
While the process of court experts' decisions is murky, the financial toll on families is clear. Connecticut is developing a legislative reform that will prevent these experts from charging the common fee of $300 to $400 per hour. One father in the state said he paid $30,000 to a child guardian and was never clear what the expert was actually doing.
The Seattle forensic psychologist Stuart A. Greenberg helped build the multimillion-dollar court expert industry of today.
In 2007, Greenberg committed suicide after being arrested for secretly filming people in his office bathroom. If his staff had not become suspicious of an air purifier, Greenberg would probably still be commanding $450 an hour to determine what's best for children in custody cases. He was a well-respected past president of the American Board of Forensic Psychology, helped develop a national certification exam for his field and taught training classes to other experts.
His impact is still felt today by families nationwide. When I read documents from a custody case, it is common to find that Greenberg's 30-page Parenting History Survey was used to help evaluate the family.
When the arrest brought Greenberg's character and judgment into question, there was no way the Seattle Times or any other media organization could go back and review the evaluations he made that decided custody for hundreds of children. Unlike a judge's ruling, they are not public records. The Times observed, "The court doesn't keep count of cases assigned to a particular parenting evaluator, so it's impossible to tell how many families could be affected. But it's a given that all of Greenberg's pending cases will have to be reassigned to other evaluators -- a process that was already under way since his arrest and suspension of his license to practice psychology."
States also pass laws that shield these court-appointed experts from lawsuits. Often parents first have to petition the court for a second evaluator, a pricy prospect if granted, and only then do they have the right to sue. In Florida, the law once required a psychologist to follow the American Psychological Association's guidelines for custody evaluations. In 2008, lawmakers took out that requirement and the law now simply states that a psychologist must use standards of a reasonable psychologist. It offers no guidance about what is considered reasonable.
Another troubling trend I've noticed in these cases is that the family court experts often get the judges to restrict who can speak to the child. This isolates the child from anyone who might not agree with the expert. In a case this year, the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) had received a hotline complaint about potential abuse. When DCF went to the home, the custodial parent simply showed the investigators a family court order stipulating that only the two court psychological experts had the right to talk to the child.
The DCF investigator left without speaking to the girl.
This is the second in a series of articles about the treatment of abused children in the U.S. family court system. M.C. Moewe is a former criminal justice and investigative reporter for several newspapers with a B.A. in journalism from the University of North Texas. Email m AT moewe.com or use this link.
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