Might As Well Jump?

By Attorney David Engler

The decent looking guy is telling the YPD officer not to come closer or he will jump. It is not known exactly if the officer knew that John Sylvester had 16 years earlier held his girlfriend in a headlock and shot her point blank in the face. He did 10 to 28 years for attempted murder but on this Sunday he was sitting on the edge of the Market Street Bridge spanning the Mahoning River.  Of course no one in the Valley wants to go swimming in the Mahoning since its waters have long ago been polluted by the mills that once lined the river from Lowellville through Struthers, Youngstown, Girard and Warren.  And John wasn’t interested in swimming. He told the police that he had forgotten what happened earlier that day. (The insanity defense didn’t work 16 years ago but maybe this time he could pull it off)

Earlier that day John had erupted into a rage against his new wife.  His control over her was slipping. She dared to tell him she would not tolerate his rages and odd sense of jealousy.  The fight had been simmering for months.  They were living apart. He returned that Sunday to her parents’ house in a middle income neighborhood filled with the sound of children playing at the first days of summer break. He thought there was a chance he could work things out with his beautiful, smart and well-liked wife.  But his head was instantly filled with fury when he found out that she was moving on and had just recently been out talking with another man. The butcher knife was on the counter.  Thinking wasn’t necessary. She would learn quickly that it could only be him.

When they first met he was sweet and accommodating. At first there was a large blank spot in his history that she had no idea about. Then her friends reported to her the rumors of what happened to his first girlfriend.  If only she had used Court View she could have seen the sentence and crime was more serious than he said. Why was she so naive to believe his story that he was wrestling the gun from his girlfriend when it went off.  He said he was very young and it was a terrible case of teenage hormones, booze and an angry girlfriend. The justice system sucked he told her.  By the time doubts started to creep in…the baby was on the way.

But this was not the time for self-doubt. She could feel the slicing of the knife into her skin and her only thought was to flee and at all costs protect her son.  It was the stuff where Post Traumatic Stress Disorders come from. Fight or flee. She did both.

This bright day John was sitting on the bridge wondering whether to jump and not face what would certainly be a sentence that puts him behind bars for at least twenty years if not a life sentence if the prosecutor rings him up on attempted murder and kidnapping. But either way he did not want to go back to prison.  He might have been decent looking and a fast talker but he was never a match for the real street gangsters that run the joint.

What did this mild mannered time hardened cop tell him.  Sargent Lomax works family crimes and has seen a daily dose of beat up women, abused children, drug addled kids and their parents enough to last five careers if it wasn’t for his luck to be a cop in one of the toughest city’s in America. He did his job. He makes no value judgments other than his job is to save lives. He would not make a judgment even over the life of someone so vile and despicable that would shoot a girlfriend in the face, then slash his baby’s mother and infant son’s foot sixteen years later. 

The negotiator had learned some basic skills in classes but almost all of it came from years of dealing with the abused and their abusers.  More than anything Lomax had learned long ago that judgments were better left for a judge, jury or ultimately God.  He had a job to do.  In between his words of encouraging John off the ledge words flashed through his mind. They were never spoken. Words like “John it is not that much of a drop or there is nothing left for you here or save everybody the effort and take the first step…it’s easy”.  No he said the boy should have a father and he needed help to calm the demons and people still cared about him.  The Sargent spoke in calm words that this was no way to end this story.

He came off the edge of the bridge.

Author’s note: The stories are true but license is taken to tell these tales of love, loss and the heartbreaks that happen in families. I do not divulge confidences of my client’s unless they ask me to. I practice family law, criminal law and fight for people whose backs are against the walls.  Every day I come across ordinary people like Sargent Lomax who do extraordinary work. It is my privilege to share these thoughts with you. The picture is from the Tribune Chronicle

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Also published on Family Fault Lines Blog http://familyfaultlines.com/ and on eGuardianship.com http://eguardianship.wordpress.com//

Addiction Stronger Than Motherhood

By Attorney David Engler

Custody disputes take place in Juvenile Court, if the families are not married or Domestic Court, if the family is in the process of a divorce or have divorced previously.

Custody disputes take place in Juvenile Court, if the families are not married or Domestic Court, if the family is in the process of a divorce or have divorced previously.

Clearly having an agreement about how a couple will jointly parent the child or children is the best result.  But if there is no agreement, often accusations will fly.

And I warn all clients to be aware that the court might order a drug screen at any given time.  The courts will almost always take the child or children from the parent on illegal drugs and give custody to the parent who is not hooked.  Sometimes it is hard to find anyone not taking pain pills without a prescription. In one case both parents and a grandparent were dirty. In Ohio for the first time overdoses of drugs has overtaken auto accidents as the leading cause of accidental death.

In one case the mother was asked by the Magistrate to give a urine screen and she said she couldn’t because she had a yeast infection.  Everyone found that to be disgusting and a weak excuse.  Recently a nice looking young mother was asked to take a screen and at first she agreed.  Then after 15 minutes she comes back and said she had just pee’d before court.  The Court told her to drink some water. 30 minutes later still no urine.  I really didn’t need to see a drug test. She had all the signs.  Empty pill bottles without prescriptions.  Selling things from her house.  Unable to keep a schedule.  A doctor at an ER saying no narcotics for you after she came with a complaint of a tooth ache.  (I was thinking good for the doctor who checked the database from his Akron offices and saw she had filled 21 prescriptions for pain meds in the last two years.)

So she only sees her child if supervised.  That is the overwhelming power of the pain pill epidemic. This scourge does not see race, sex or income.  It is even more powerful than a mother’s natural instinct to care for her child. 

People can recover and get their children back.  But the road is very difficult and those who are nearest to the addict must not be fooled.  We the parents, or friend or guardian must dispense very tough love. Get help; call 211. You will find a counselor, clinic or N.A. Group.  It is a persistent enemy.  For some it is stronger than motherhood.

 

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Also published on Family Fault Lines Blog http://familyfaultlines.com/ and on eGuardianship.com http://eguardianship.wordpress.com//

Racist Mom in the House…What Do You Do?

By Attorney David Engler

She was tall with dark skin and high cheekbones. Her friends told her she could be a model. She married a salesman who was as light as she was dark. The romance lasted. Two children that should be on Benetton ads made the family four.

One of the famous images from Benetton’s advertising campaign.

His temper was short from working 12 hours days selling cars. Hers was even shorter. And as the realities of bills and a belief that one didn’t understand the other grew; it slowly churned into the stuff of disrespect.

The divorce came along after seven years and the marriage ended. She went to live with the two kids in a public housing development where the rent was $50 per month. Everyone in the streets knows how to work the college training grants and the for-profit “colleges” encourage the scam. Sometimes if you play it right you can withdraw and still get your money. Food stamps bring in another $600 per month and the Earned Income Tax credit brings a family of three $5000 per year. Add those numbers to a required job, a part-time position at a nursing home and you have a pretty comfortable lifestyle.

The father was still trying to hold onto the marital home bought in the early days of the real estate boom. Money was easier in 2003. He made decent money but after paying taxes, utilities, mortgages, insurance and child support there was less than $200 a pay.

She might have had it easy but she never lost her anger over the split. She was sure it was because she was black and he was white. Trevor’s white dad didn’t understand that giving a child a beating with a switch was a cultural difference. With the black mother talking ‘stuff’ all day long in front of the children the father became sick worrying that his son would grow up believing that whites were the devil. His daughter was already a teen and did as the mother directed. It happens plenty going the other way as well. Sometimes a new step-parent moves in with the children and he is a raging racist. A large, poisonous, portion of the racist’s time is spent thinking about race.

The father believed that racism was as bad as a mother on drugs or a parent that would allow domestic violence to be witnessed weekly. He filed a motion with the Court stating that there had been a change of circumstances and the “best interests” test would demand that the child be relocated to his home. Months of court went by but he was right and “won”. The boy is now being raised out in the country going to a great school and whether he is black or white never comes up. He’s a boy playing with cars in the mud and seeing his mother every other weekend.

Racism is not an opinion that deserves equal weight or the need to turn the other cheek. If someone moves into your house and is a racist, then don’t let him or her in if he or she wants to share their ugliness with your children. If it is your child in that home then you can file a motion seeking a change of custody. It is no less dangerous than someone blowing smoke around an infant. It has no place around children, lest we never want to see racism end.

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Divorce and Dementia

Having practiced law in the area of Domestic Relations I can attest that the divorce rate among the elderly is increasing. Divorce lawyers are seeing couples divorce after 30 years of marriage. In the past year I have seen divorce after 48 years and one after 39. In each instance the attorney and the family and possibly the guardian need to be aware of the effects of early dementia or early onset Alzheimer’s as causes for the break-up. It is popular for comedians to blame Viagra and it has come into play but most often it is the change in personalities that comes with the aging process that leads life partners to become unstable.

I actually filed a guardianship action that was thwarted by the wife when she hired an attorney who complained for divorce. The divorce action trumped the guardianship sought by the husband and the very adult children each took sides. The reality was a bitter fight disposing of a lifetime of assets.  Throughout the process the mental illness of the wife was present but divorce courts are reluctant to pursue a request for a competency exam. The facts must be extreme to derail a divorce by raising mental illness because of a stroke or dementia.

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Our Wards and Divorce

Another aspect of divorce for the guardian is that now guardians will see more and more of their wards come from a divorced background. Divorced rates plateaued in the 1980’s and now linger just below 50 % but the entire social network is disrupted by a divorce that might have occurred 20 or 30 years earlier. Studies have shown that the relationship between children and their parents are affected by divorce. It is particularly true for fathers and their children. So once where co-residence or in-kind services from a child to an elderly, in need parent, might be the norm; in families of divorce the relationships that were frayed decades ago have a real-time impact for the guardian today. It is one of the reasons guardians will note that the care of the elderly often falls into the care of strangers because the relationships that were relied upon in the past may have been fractured by divorce.
It is important to understand the effect upon the family from a divorce, that may have happened years earlier, in understanding why the person needs help now. And when confonted by a potential divorce in the present it is important that the professional understand that the dynamics leading to the dispute may have more to do with health.