Is this common in our judicial system?

Question

My sister has been battling custody rights for almost a year now. Everytime she has to hand over her daughter to her dad, it's damaging to the five year old. Her ex is mentally unstable, stalks and harrasses my sister (which restraining orders have done no good), has even gone so far as to plant drugs in my sisters car to get her and her boyfriend arrested (that case was thrown out when the DA investigated and knew what he'd done).

In any case, yesterday, they waited for three hours before the judge even got there, and even though they were the first ones seen, the judge opted to continue the case for the third time to hear someone else's case. Each time this case is rescheduled, it takes months to get put back on the schedule, everyone has to take off work to go, and then the judge just continues it?

Everytime someone in my family has to go to court it takes literally years of continuing a case over and over before the judge will hear it. It's ridiculous to say the least. One case was the assault of a minor girl and the assailant walked the streets restriction free while the case was continued over and over.

Is this normal throughout the US or is it just my area?

Answer 1

prettty normal

Answer 2

years ago i had to go to court to get custody of my daughter, my ex was and still is a crackhead who doesnt work and would drag me to court for any reason or no reason at all....my ex didnt have to pay for an attorney, i was getting no support for my child and had to miss work.  even with all these issues it didnt take years...full and legal sole custody was awarded to me ..the only thing that took years was to get my ex's  visitation taken away..with his drug addiction, jail record and his not taking advantage of visitation helped me out.  it seems very unusual for the judge to keep continuing the case...has she tried another lawyer?  i know u said the lawyer objects to the continuances, but he should be able to do something and get this settled.  good luck

Answer 3

Well what you may be leaving out is the reason a case is being continued. Some judges will look at a case file and say this has been going on for X amount of time, it gets settled today. Other cases, lawyers motion for discovery where they ask for more time to find out the ins and outs of a case. Changing lawyers, unprepared lawyers, or even unprepared parties may cause a case to go longer than predicted.

I just finished a vandalism case that had gone on for over a year and the judgment didn't get the vehicle paid for since the assailant didn't make enough money to cover the damages!

The lawyers continued and motioned and hemmed and hawed. It was ridiculous. During this period, I watched several cases go the same way. Some were necessary continuances, some were just to drag out the process. The other loophole is the continuance of a case is to get one party not to show for that day so the charges will be dropped.

So my advice is keep up the fight! Show up and if you're in the right generally you'll win!

Good luck.

Answer 4

Contact your local newspaper or TV station and tell them your story.  Usually publicity can set a fire under a judge when nothing else can.  When it is postponed your attorney could request an emergency hearing due to the damage this is doing to the child.  I hope the child is not being used by the mother to punish the father.  Sad, but that does happen.