Understanding the Impact of a Criminal Record on Child Custody
Are you curious about whether or not having a criminal record will negatively affect your chances in a child custody situation? My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m an attorney with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing family and criminal law for about seven years. I want to help you make law easy by just going into a little bit about how the criminal side affects the family side and where those Venn diagrams intersect.
I get this a lot with my cases where one side, the other side, or maybe even both sides will have just something in their record. I mean, everyone has a past, and I sincerely hope that you don’t and that your record’s clean. But if not, it’s not the end of the world. The first thing I look at when I look into whether or not a criminal record is going to affect child custody is what were the charges. I don’t care about jaywalking, but I do care about sexual impropriety and things like that.
Factors to Consider When Evaluating the Impact of a Criminal Record on Child Custody
Is there a lot of drug charges in your past? Are there domestic abuse charges in your past? Is it larceny? Is it burglary? Is it anything having to do with a firearm? Just because you have a record doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re an unfit or improper person to watch the children. Also, just because you have a record doesn’t mean that you haven’t changed and bettered yourself from the time that you got it until when you’re looking at custody.
So the second thing I look at is how long ago was it. Is this yesterday? Was it last year? Was it a decade ago? Just because you have that record doesn’t define you, and it doesn’t automatically prohibit you from being able to assert parental rights or even have custody in these situations. I’ve had cases where my clients had a record. They had some protective orders in their past. They had maybe a couple or two AMBs in their past, but they took classes. They went to DVIS and went through their program.
Take the First Step Towards Resolving Your Concerns
If you have questions or you have concerns about your criminal record or someone else’s, and you’re worried that it might affect your ability to be a parent, I implore you to please call our office at 918-879-1681. Myself and the other attorneys here, deal with this all the time. We want to help you out. My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help you to make law easy. Thank you.
