How Bad is Family Court?

This bad.

There is literally no law in family court. They just make things up. If this was done in criminal court, the jails would be teeming with innocent men and riots, like in a third world country, would erupt en masse.

The comment that ethical standards are low is absurd: there are no ethical standards to speak of, whatsoever. Most defendants can't afford to appeal and the Appellate court reaffirms all but the most heinous judgements from the lower courts anyway.

Detroit Judge Allows Mom to Decide Dad’s Punishment in Child Support Case

December 14th, 2012 by Robert Franklin, Esq. Just in case you thought there was even a shred of integrity left in the family court system, let this story lay that misguided notion to rest for good (The Daily Caller, 12/8/12).
Detroit judge Wade McCree was hearing a child support suit involving a mother, Geniene La’Shay Mott and her ex-husband, Robert King.  The only problem with that was that McCree and Mott entered into a serious and long-term sexual relationship during the legal case.

“It went from being a summer fling and just something to do to falling in love, promises of marriage, me getting pregnant, us buying a house together, name it,” Mott told WJBK-TV.

That all happened despite the fact that McCree was married.  But mere marriage vows wouldn’t stop a man like McCree.  Neither would ethical and legal restrictions on judges having sex with litigants in cases before them.  And neither did common sense or any notion of personal dignity dissuade McCree from doing everything in his power to screw up his career, his marriage, the life of his unborn child and, most certainly that of Robert King.
It seems that McCree and Mott regularly had sex in his judicial chambers.  Apparently just to make sure he got caught, McCree sent Mott literally hundreds of emails and text messages affirming their affair.  Those included sending photographs of himself, apparently nude, to her.  Soon enough Mott was pregnant with McCree’s child, and, before anyone found out, he sought a divorce from his wife.  But his wife got wind of the affair and the pregnancy and decided to make life hard on her husband.  That made McCree nervous, so he tried to turn the tables on Mott, telling law enforcement officials she was stalking him.
I have to say that only a guy like McCree could possibly be that stupid.  Here’s a woman with hundreds of texts and emails from McCree, plus a child who’s verifiably his inside her body, and he thinks he can convince someone that he’s a victim of her stalking?  Into the bargain, she had a check McCree had written on his dead mother’s estate for a house they planned to buy and live in together.  You can’t make this stuff up.
What his stalking claim of course did was to anger Mott who revealed all to the press.  And by “revealed all,” I include the fact that, during their torrid affair, McCree allowed Mott to choose what penalty the court would order against Robert King for falling behind on his child support.

“OK, SO LET’S GO WITH WHAT YOU PROPOSED… GO 2 JAIL (150 DAYS), RELEASE UPON PAYMENT OF $1,500,” the text message read.
“OR, GET A TETHER & BRING BACK W/N 30 DAYS $2500 OR SERVE 9 MONTHS! BONUS: PAY W/N 30 DAYS, REMOVE TETHER. NOW BACK 2 US… WHAT ARE WE DOIN AFTER COURT THURSDAY???”

Having allowed a litigant in his court to decide the case against the other party, McCree retired to his judicial chambers and once again had sex with Mott.
Perhaps the crowning glory to this buffoon’s antics came in yet another text he sent to Mott.

“Naturally if it got out that we were seeing each other before your B.D.’s [baby daddy] case closed, everybody could be in deep (expletive). Why you want to spend time with a man like me remains a mystery, but if you’ll have me… then as Bill Withers said, ‘use me up!’ SMOOCHES.”

Uh, Wade, if you can’t figure out why the mother in a case being heard by you would “want to spend time with a man like” you, then you’re too dumb to be left home alone, much less be a judge.

Ethical Standards in Family Courts Uniquely Low

Speaking of that, of course he won’t be a judge much longer if there’s any sanity left in the family court system.  Admittedly, family court judges have set the judicial behavior bar about as low as it can get, but even at that, carrying on a lengthy sexual affair, in chambers with a female litigant and allowing her to play the role of judge in her own case, may just prove to be unacceptable even by Detroit standards.
Now, I’m mindful of the fact that Detroit courts have some pretty unorthodox ideas about things like due process and judicial ethics.  After all, it was in the case of Marianne Godboldo, a Detroit mother, that we learned that when child protective services wants an order taking a child from a parent, it not only writes the order itself, no evidence is required and the judge’s clerk will sign it for them.  That’s exactly what happened in Godboldo’s case; an order to take her daughter from her was completely processed with no hearing, no evidence and no participation of any kind by any judge.
So, given that ethical landscape, maybe we can begin to see why McCree could actually believe that allowing a litigant with whom you’re having sex, to decide her own case, might be overlooked as simply how things are done.
This man is a disgrace to himself and to the legal profession.  He must be and I suspect will be tossed off the bench and disbarred.  But of course he’s just one judge.  The same system that allowed him to believe that he could get away with all his countless wrongs is still firmly in place.