Child Custody And Divorce: Free Legal Advice
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The term "street justice" doesn't mean anything, really, it's just a term I used to try and make a point. The reference to "street justice" is to that stereotype of police movies, like Dirty Harry, where Our Hero Harry takes mostly non-legal "shortcuts" to expedite things, like the promotion of the interests of justice, The American Way (I guess that was Superman, wasn't it?), and Getting The Job Done.
Sometimes judges have to do the same thing. Well, all right, not THE SAME thing, but MAYBE SOMEWHAT SIMILAR things, like procedural shortcuts, in order to Get The Job Done. These things can have an impact on your case, and thus on your life. How much impact do these things APPEAR to have? Very large. How much impact do these things REALLY have? Very small.
In our last chapter, you saw the motion to reinstate insurance (filed by Mrs. Jones) and the response (filed by Mr. Jones) and you heard what the judge had to say about it. That was an example of "street justice", or a procedural shortcut, that was done to expedite things. You should take the following lessons from that example:
1. Doing something like cancelling the other party's health insurance is serious enough that the judge will find some time to deal with it right now, before the trial, in a summary manner, like at a motion hearing.
2. The judge has some informal rules to help him get these cases managed, and one of them seems to be "don't mess with the other party, just for the sake of messing with him", and further, Mr. Jones seems to have violated that rule, and the violation got corrected, by the judge, pretty quickly.
You should NOT take the following from that example, because these are NOT TRUE:
A. Mr. Jones has to keep on paying those bills. (No indeed, the judge didn't rule that at all.)
B. Mr. Jones is out a bunch of money, because when we finally get to trial, he will have paid those bills for a year or so, and they might not exist anymore. They might be all paid off. (No. The judge will listen, at trial, to this testimony, and the judge will make the appropriate adjustment to each party's property. But the judge isn't going to do that right now. It has to wait until trial, or at least wait until the attorney for Mr. Jones brings the issue back before the judge for a motion hearing. If she does, you'll note that the judge gave her a big hint: don't just claim that your client is unhappy, show me that the lady has an ability to pay. There's a difference, isn't there?)
C. The judge isn't willing to listen, he's got his mind all made up, and that judge is prejudiced in favor of [the other side: you can insert "men", or "women", or what-have-you]. (No. The judge is willing to listen to tales of woe about bills, but not today. Today, for those that don't get the point yet, is the day that we fairly quickly establish whether or not Husband cut off Wife's insurance in order to save eleven bucks a month, and, if he did, what are we going to do about it? The answer isn't that tough to figure out.)
The point is that the judge, in a divorce case, is generally overworked, and, in the interests of justice, really, in the interest of trying to maintain a system of justice that will actually work, that judge has to shoot from the hip a lot. And he does. Usually with pretty good results, if by pretty good results you mean "fair". Fair to everybody, equally.
THERE IS A LEGAL STANDARD THAT DICTATES WHAT THE JUDGE CAN AND CANNOT DO.
The judge is obligated to follow the law in a divorce case. That state law, or state statute says (here in Michigan): "...The judge, in a divorce case, will divide the property of the parties equitably..." and that's all it says. That's the extent of the requirements of the law, as far as the statute goes. (I'll try to post here the exact wording of the statute, so watch for it.) Now we know that "equitably" means "fairly", and that's the full description of the judge's obligation. He has to divide the property of the parties FAIRLY, and that's what he's attempting to do. In the child custody statute, for instance, the legal standard is much different, but in the divorce area, a judge has one job. Be fair to each party. He has a lot of discretion that he can exercise in trying to get that job done.
You can even appeal a judge's ruling, and take the case to the Court of Appeals, or to the Supreme Court. Those judges will review the transcripts (they don't hear testimony, and they don't consider things that the trial judge wasn't told. Just the transcripts. More on this later.) of the case and ask themselves "Did this judge abuse his discretion? Was he being fair to each party?"
In this case, I hope that the point is made, the judge is trying to be fair, whether or not Mr. Jones would agree with me. Some things have to wait for later determination by the court. Some things don't. Cancelling your spouse's health insurance, so you can save eleven bucks a month, is something the judge can deal with today.
Good luck with it.
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