URGENT: JUST 7 DAYS REMAIN TO HELP SAVE INDEPENDENT MEDIA & ANR, SO LET'S CUT THE BS & GET TO THE POINT - WE WILL BE FORCED LAY OFF STAFF & REDUCE OPERATIONS UNLESS WE ARE FULLY FUNDED WITHIN THE NEXT 2 WEEKS - Sadly, less than 0.5% of readers currently donate or subscribe to us But YOU can easily change that. Imagine the impact we'd make if 3 in 10 readers supported us today. To start with we’d remove this annoying banner as we could fight for a full year...

Enter email to get Free News Emails

No mask, no child custody. COVID-19 is a new factor in family law

Loading

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
WhatsApp
Telegram

For just $2 per week

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL REVIEW NEWS SUBSCRIPTION

Join now and receive a free 12-month Subscription to
TruthMed worth $495 USD for free

Opinion pieces don’t necessarily reflect the position of our news site but of our Opinion writers.

[cs_con]

You are not authorized to access this content

Subscribe now for access articles

No mask, no child custody. COVID-19 is a new factor in family law.

By Rafael Olmeda

Melanie Joseph wants to see her son, but a judge won’t let her — for no reason except that she won’t wear a mask.

Joseph’s 14-year-old son has asthma, a condition that could put him at risk of contracting COVID-19 during this pandemic, court filings show.

Broward Circuit Judge Dale Cohen called the mother an “anti-mask person” who had the “audacity” to brag about it on Facebook.

Conservatives take issue with the decision, but it illustrates how judges in family court now must consider the health risks of COVID-19 on top of juggling the interests of feuding ex-spouses, single parents and reluctant child-support payers.

COVID first made family law news in South Florida early in the pandemic, when an emergency room doctor treating coronavirus patients was stripped of custody of her 4-year-old daughter.

An appeals court quickly overturned the decision, and the child’s estranged parents eventually resolved their custody disagreement.

The doctor’s attorney, Steven Nullman, conceded that judges face a challenge when balancing parental rights and health concerns.

“There are so many unknowns with this disease,” he said. “Making the right decision is not easy.”

Other cases followed across the country, most involving at least one parent working on the front lines of the crisis. An Orlando woman didn’t want her ex-husband, a firefighter newly engaged to an emergency room nurse, to share custody of their son. The judge sided with the father. And in a Deerfield Beach case in April, a dermatologist had to fight for visitation with his 6-year-old son.

Broward Chief Administrative Judge Jack Tuter said he expects COVID-19 to come up in family cases for the foreseeable future.

“You might have one parent who’s casual about the risk and the other who’s hyper-careful,” he said. “We’re going to see them coming to judges to resolve their differences.

“I think we’re going to see more cases arise when schools open, depending on what happens next with the virus.”

Judges have been patient in considering both sides of coronavirus cases, said Nicole Alvarez, who practices family law mainly in Broward and Miami-Dade.

“The bar is still pretty high for a judge to change time-sharing schedules,” she said. “From my experience, judges are not going to deviate from agreements for hypothetical reasons.

“You don’t get to say you live in a low-risk area and you don’t want to let the child visit Miami or some other area with more cases. Unless someone comes out positive, judges are sticking with the existing agreements.”

That doesn’t mean they’re not willing to step in when they think the child’s health might be at risk.

Joseph, who moved to North Carolina from Coral Springs at the outset of the pandemic response, drew Judge Cohen’s ire by posting a picture of herself, maskless, in the waiting room of her oral surgeon’s office in June.

“She’s one of those anti-mask people and she’s got the audacity to post that on social media,” the judge said. “She’s going to wear a mask. If she doesn’t, time-sharing is not going to happen.”

Cohen’s pointed criticism came in an online hearing Sept. 8 and prompted Joseph’s attorney, Meaghan Marro, to ask him to remove himself from the case, which has dragged on for 13 years (the child at the heart of it is 14). Cohen declined.

Melanie Joseph, formerly of Coral Springs, posted this selfie with the caption "no mask for this girl" on social media, drawing the ire of the Broward judge handling her custody case. She says she was alone in a doctor's waiting room in North Carolina, where there was no mask requirement at the time.
Melanie Joseph, formerly of Coral Springs, posted this selfie with the caption “no mask for this girl” on social media, drawing the ire of the Broward judge handling her custody case. She says she was alone in a doctor’s waiting room in North Carolina, where there was no mask requirement at the time.

The judge said in-person visits would have to be supervised because he doesn’t trust Joseph, 43, to wear a mask. And he would not consider a long-distance parenting plan — which outlines each parent’s rights when they don’t live in the same state — between Joseph and her son until the COVID crisis has passed.

“When this pandemic is over and there’s no cases and there’s a vaccine … the mother is going to need to get a vaccine as well. When I have proof that everybody’s safe and the child’s not at risk or danger, then we can talk about a long-distance parenting plan.”

The judge’s comments raised eyebrows among some right-wing libertarians who blame coronavirus for what they believe is government abuse of authority.

“You see them using opinion grounded in science to justify government overreach,” said Tho Bishop, editor at the Mises Institute, a splinter of the Cato Institute. “They’ve far overstepped the justified power of their office under the premise that we’re in this emergency.”

Loading

Opinion pieces don’t necessarily reflect the position of our news site but of our Opinion writers.

*Note We Deliberately Miss Spell Some Words or Add Capital Letters To Get Around Big Tech Censoring.

Support the ANR from as little as $8 – it only takes a minute. If you can, please consider supporting us with a regular amount each month. Thank you.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
WhatsApp
Telegram

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL REVIEW NEWS SUBSCRIPTION

Join now and receive a free 12-month Subscription to
TruthMed worth $495 USD for free

Subscribe for free to our ANR news emails and access 2 free ebooks plus Reports to share with family and friends about Covid fraud and the danger of the vaccines.

Help us help defend free speech and save democracy from the World Economic Forum planned Totalitarian Great Reset.

and help us expose the Covid Fraudsters

One Response

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

We will expose the Covid Crimes of our Governments. Will you help us ?

Play Video

McIntyre Report
Political Talk Show

Episode 162

Episode 162

Get our free News Emails on latest articles, alerts and solutions for both legal templates and ways to help fight back against the Globalists vax Mandates , and health resources to boost your immune system and ways to Protect from deadly EMF 5G radiation and more.

FREE E-BOOKS AND REPORTS ALSO

Documentary: Died Suddenly (2022)

How you can advertise on Truthbook.social

Help us help defend free speech and save democracy from the World Economic Forum planned Totalitarian Great Reset.

and help us expose the Covid Fraudsters

Ukraine. Military Summary And Analysis 23.01.2023

Raw Report

Ryan Jackson Saw show

in USD

in AUD

in GBP

in CAD

Jamie McIntyre

ANR on

Currency Exchange Rates in AUD

Live and updated every minute of the day

Nurses Speak Out

ANR Meme Report

with Nadine Roberts

Episode 002

21st Century Political System

Play Video

Editor's Pick

Thank you for visiting the
Australian National Review

To continue accessing more articles for free simply enter your email address

Watch Full Documentary

URGENT: JUST 7 DAYS REMAIN TO HELP SAVE INDEPENDENT MEDIA & ANR, SO LET'S CUT THE BS & GET TO THE POINT - WE WILL BE FORCED LAY OFF STAFF & REDUCE OPERATIONS UNLESS WE ARE FULLY FUNDED WITHIN THE NEXT 2 WEEKS

Sadly, less than 0.5% of readers currently donate or subscribe to us But YOU can easily change that. Imagine the impact we'd make if 3 in 10 readers supported us today. To start with we’d remove this annoying banner as we could fight for a full year...

Get access to TruthMed- how to save your family and friends that have been vaxx with vaccine detox, & how the Unvaxxed can prevent spike protein infection from the jabbed.

Free with ANR Subscription from $8

Download the Full PDF - THE COVID-19 FRAUD & WAR ON HUMANITY