Understanding the Impact of Criminal Charges in Custody Disputes
Are you facing criminal charges while you’re already in the middle of a custody dispute? My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m an attorney with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I want to help you make law easy by telling you just how this can intersect, and how these two Venn diagrams will meet when you’re dealing with a child custody situation and you’re facing pending criminal charges.
How Criminal Charges Can Affect Custody Situations
Criminal charges can make a custody situation get hairy very fast. Depending on the nature of the charge, sometimes it might not be a big deal. I mean, if it’s a bogus check or something like that, you’re not going to have to worry about it too much going into the family court realm. But let’s say, for example, it’s substance abuse.
You get a DUI. You get a public intoxication. You get an alcohol-related domestic or an alcohol-related assault and battery, something like that. Something showing that you’ve got an issue with anger or you’ve got an issue with substances. That could very well come into play. It might not hurt you quite as much if it doesn’t happen around the kid though.
I mean, everyone’s allowed to have their own lives. Everyone’s allowed to do their own thing to an extent as long as it doesn’t impact the child. So I mean, I’ve seen cases where the non-custodial parent, when they didn’t have the kid, they go rip, roaring, and wild. Pick up a DUI, maybe get into a bar fight, but they never do anything around the child themselves.
The Importance of Behavior Around Your Child
Whenever they’re in parent mode, they’re in parent mode full-time, and they’re just sober as a church mouse, not an anger issue at all. Those situations get a little weird because the court’s not going to be just super anxious to give you 50-50 parenting time. But at the same time, you’re not necessarily going to run the risk of losing your time with your child, possibly.
It doesn’t look great, and it’s something that I tell everyone. You’ve got to be super, super careful and super, super cautious in these situations. But let’s say it happens with the kid. I mean, I’ve seen cases where a parent picks up a DUI when the kids are in the car, or a parent picks up a domestic violence charge that happened in front of the kids.
Or, and this is heartbreaking if a parent picks up a domestic because they assaulted the kid. Yeah, that’s going to affect your family case, and it’s going to affect it in a bad way. You’re going to be yanked down to supervised visits. You’re going to lose custody if you’re the custodial parent. You might not even get supervised.
Consequences of Criminal Charges in Family Court
You might have to have professional supervision, or therapeutic, or in extreme cases, you could lose your visitation rights entirely. It can be relatively benign, and it can also be bad. It just depends on the nature of the charge. I tell every one of my clients in these situations, I know that these are tough.
These are emotionally charged. These are the times when you’re not always thinking clearly. You’ve got to try to, though, for the sake of your kids. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has bad days, but in these situations, a bad day could cost you more than just a little inconvenience. It could cost you your kids, and in some extreme cases, it could cost you your freedom.
As an example, I had one divorce case where the opposing counsel and I, both had clients who weren’t making the best decisions for themselves and certainly weren’t helping themselves in the course of their divorce. It was just iffy which way it was going to go. Custody, visitation, everything in between in this divorce, because each side kept making bad decisions until, and I was very fortunate on this one that it wasn’t my client.
Learn from Experience and Seek Guidance
The other side just made such a bad decision that they landed themselves in jail, and they weren’t getting out anytime soon. In that instance, my client won. Custody, child support, all of that just because the other side made such a bad decision that not only did they lose the right to see their kids, they lost the right to be free.
Please be careful. Please be wise, and if you have questions, please call your attorney. My name is Carl Burkhead. I’m with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help you make law easy. Thank you.
