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Actress Tawny Kitaen, in danger of losing custody of her
children after being arrested for domestic violence, has just
played what family law attorneys often call "the woman's trump
card." In her recent custody petition she accused her husband,
baseball player Chuck Finley, of domestic violence.
Kitaen's accusation concerns the evening of April 1, when she
was arrested for attacking Finley as he was driving the couple
home. Police officers reported seeing abrasions and scrapes on
Finley's body after Kitaen had allegedly kicked Finley
repeatedly with her high-heeled shoes, grabbed his ear and
twisted it, and put her foot on top of his, forcing the
accelerator to the floor. Kitaen's petition contends that Finley
had started that argument by grabbing and twisting her leg while
he was driving.
After Kitaen's arrest, Finley was granted temporary custody of
their two daughters, ages nine and three.
Pam
Sheek, a 51 year-old nanny who has cared for the Finley children
for six years, made a sworn declaration shortly afterward
stating that Kitaen has a severe prescription drug addiction and
that her erratic and abusive behavior has often put the children
at risk. She described an incident in March when Kitaen turned
on the gas in the gas fireplace log without lighting it and then
called the two children to come into bed with her to go to
sleep. Sheek, suspicious, entered the room and, smelling the
gas, turned off the fireplace, probably saving the lives of both
Kitaen and her children.
Dianna Thompson, Executive Director of the American Coalition
for Fathers and Children, says that false and unfounded
accusations of domestic violence are common in custody disputes,
and that Kitaen's is "highly suspect."
She
notes that Finley has no prior history of violence but that
Kitaen does--the April 1 attack on Finley, and a conflict with a
motorist in a parking lot in December for which she was charged
with malicious damage. Also, Kitaen has a recent history of
drug abuse, and research indicates that drug abuse and domestic
violence are highly correlated. Thompson adds that Kitaen is
making the accusation at the exact moment when false accusations
are the most common--when a parent is about to lose custody of
the children in a divorce proceeding.
Forensic consultant Dean Tong, author of Elusive Innocence,
believes that in the context of a custody battle, between 60%
and 80% of domestic violence accusations are false. According
to a study conducted in New York, 75% of child sexual abuse
accusations made during custody battles were shown to be
unfounded or unsubstantiated.
Thompson and Tong note that the "woman's trump card" is often
devastatingly effective.
"Family court judges are often in an impossible situation with
DV accusations," Thompson says. "Most of them realize that the
accusation is probably false, but the political costs of
believing the man are far higher than that of believing the
woman. If the judge believes the man and there is violence
later, it could haunt his or her career. But the judge risks
little by giving custody to the mother making the false
accusation, even if she later turns out to be abusive."
One
of the biggest reasons for false accusations is our adversarial
family court system wherein parents fear that they will be
expelled from their children's lives if they lose custody.
Destructive custody battles and false accusations are largely
driven by this fear. Even in states where there is a
presumption of joint legal custody, the parent who is not
granted primary physical custody often faces losing the ability
to have a meaningful relationship with his or her children or
losing contact with them altogether.
The
solution to the problem lies in Shared Parenting bills now being
considered by the legislatures of several states, including New
York, New Jersey, and Michigan. The Michigan bill, for example,
creates equality between divorcing couples by replacing the
option of Sole Physical Custody, which occurs in the vast
majority of custody cases, with the presumption of Joint Legal
and Joint Physical Custody, giving equal standing to both
parents in a divorce.
If
divorcing parents are unable to agree on a shared parenting
plan, the courts would instruct the parents to negotiate a plan
which would afford both parents equal physical time and
decision-making power. The bills allow judges to deviate from
this equal arrangement only if there is strong evidence that one
of the parents has committed acts which render that parent
unfit, such as child abuse or domestic violence.
Replacing the win/lose child custody system with Shared
Parenting won't eliminate false accusations, because there will
always be some spouses who are vengeful or psychologically
disturbed. But it certainly would reduce the high number of
false accusations, and help eliminate them as a weapon against
decent fathers.
This column first appeared in the
Santa Clarita Signal (5/26/02)
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