sparky
enthusiast
Reged: 11/16/04
Posts: 289
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Battered Pregnant Woman Denied Divorce
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - When Shawnna Hughes discovered she was pregnant, her husband was in jail for beating her. She sought a divorce before his release, and he did not object - but a judge did.
Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine revoked Hughes' divorce until after she gives birth because her husband was not told she was going to have a child and paternity had not been established.
``It is the policy of the state that you cannot dissolve a marriage when one of the parties is pregnant,'' he said during oral arguments on the case last month.
Hughes, a 27-year-old medical assistant, is 7 months pregnant and says her estranged husband, Carlos Hughes, is not the father. She has appealed the decision.
``I'm devastated,'' she said, calling her husband ``very, very violent.''
Carlos Hughes is in jail in Montana awaiting trial on federal drug charges and Bastine noted that Shawnna Hughes has a restraining order that prevents her husband from contacting her, even if they remain married. But women's advocates worry the ruling sets an unsettling precedent.
``This is a woman in domestic violence asking to get out of the relationship,'' said Hughes' attorney, Terri Sloyer. ``We're telling abusers that if you can get her pregnant you can keep her married to you.''
Lawyers supporting Hughes' appeal said Bastine is misinterpreting a state law intended to standardize paternity and protect the rights of children and the state.
``No provision in state law authorizes a judge to decline to issue a divorce because the woman is pregnant,'' said the American Civil Liberties Union's Doug Honig. ``Women should be able to choose for themselves when they want to end a marriage. That's especially important for women in abusive relationships.''
But Bastine, who retired on Friday, said the issue is more complex. Attorneys for Shawnna Hughes did not immediately disclose that she was pregnant in the midst of the divorce proceedings. Under state law, an ex-husband is presumed to be the father of any child born up to 300 days after a divorce and can be liable for child support, Bastine said.
``You needed to serve him and give him notice that his rights as a father or as a non-father were being determined in that matter. It wasn't done,'' the judge said.
Further muddying the waters is Shawnna Hughes' reliance on public assistance. The state of Washington objected to the divorce because it might leave the state unable to identify a father and pursue him for repayment of welfare money used to support the child.
Bastine agreed to revoke the divorce until paternity is scientifically established after the child's birth, expected in mid-March.
``It's not forcing a woman to live with a batterer,'' he said.
Hughes, a vivacious mother of two young sons by Carlos Hughes, said they married in 1998 and he began to beat her after she became pregnant with their older son.
She says she became romantically involved with a childhood friend, Chauncey Jacques, and that he is the father. Jacques is now in the Spokane County Jail awaiting trial on a federal drug charge.
In court documents, Hughes pleaded with Bastine for the divorce, saying that she wanted to marry the father of her child, and that Carlos Hughes ``has brought significant physical harm to me over the years.''
The Northwest Women's Law Center in Seattle and the ACLU plan to file briefs with the state Court of Appeals on Hughes' behalf. They said similar cases have cropped up in Washington before.
Lisa Stone, executive director of the Northwest Women's Law Center, said Bastine's decision would create a separate class of women who cannot divorce while pregnant, a time when battered women often face even more attacks from their partners.
``So, if you have a pregnant woman who wants to get away from her batterer, do you want to make it harder for her?'' Stone said.
01/09/05 19:26
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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almostheaven
Carpal \'Tunnel
Reged: 07/13/04
Posts: 10468
Loc: West Virginia
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State explains why it revoked pregnant woman's divorce
By Associated Press
Jan 06, 2005 - 07:22:44 am PST
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SPOKANE -- In a case that pits a woman's bid to divorce an abusive husband against a law designed to protect the rights of children and the state, a judge has revoked a pregnant woman's divorce until after she gives birth.
Spokane County Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine ruled that because Shawnna Hughes' ex-husband was not told she was pregnant at the time the divorce was granted, the divorce is illegal and must be revoked. Hughes said her estranged husband is not the father.
State officials had worried that the divorce would leave no father financially responsible for the child.
"It is the policy of the state that you cannot dissolve a marriage when one of the parties is pregnant," Bastine, who is retiring as a judge on Friday, said during oral arguments on the case last month.
Lawyers for Hughes say Bastine is misinterpreting a state law intended to standardize paternity and preserve the rights of children and the state. They have appealed Bastine's Nov. 4 revocation of the divorce to the state Court of Appeals.
"No provision in state law authorizes a judge to decline to issue a divorce because the woman is pregnant," said Doug Honig of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is supporting Hughes in the appeal. "Women should be able to choose for themselves when they want to end a marriage. That's especially important for women in abusive relationships."
"I'm devastated," said Hughes, 27, a medical assistant who is 7 1/4 months pregnant with a daughter. Ex-husband Carlos Hughes "is very, very violent," she said.
But Bastine said the issue is more complex. Attorneys for Shawnna Hughes did not immediately disclose the fact that she became pregnant in the midst of the divorce proceedings. Under state law, an ex-husband is presumed to be the father of any child born up to 300 days after a divorce and can be liable for child support, Bastine said.
"You needed to serve him and give him notice that his rights as a father or as a non-father were being determined in that matter. It wasn't done," the judge said.
Because the divorce paperwork did not disclose the pregnancy, in the eyes of the state the baby does not have a legally responsible father, the judge decided.
Since Shawnna Hughes is on public assistance, the state of Washington objected to the divorce because it might leave the state unable to pursue a father for repayment of welfare money used to support the child. Bastine agreed to revoke the divorce until paternity is scientifically established after the child's birth, expected in mid-March.
Hughes, a vivacious mother of two young sons by Carlos Hughes, said they married in 1998 and he began to beat her after she became pregnant with their older son. Carlos Hughes is presently in jail in Montana on federal drug charges, said Terri Sloyer, attorney for Shawnna Hughes.
Hughes already has a court order that prevents Carlos Hughes from contacting her, Bastine noted.
"It's not forcing a woman to live with a batterer," Bastine said.
The case began last March when Shawnna Hughes sought a divorce from Carlos Hughes, who was about to be released from jail after serving time for beating her.
Carlos Hughes didn't object, and a court commissioner granted the divorce in October.
Meanwhile, Shawnna Hughes was seeing another man, Chauncey Jacques, a childhood friend. Before her divorce from Carlos Hughes was final, Shawnna Hughes became pregnant, according to court records.
Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Mary Valentine learned of the pregnancy and called Sloyer, who disclosed the pregnancy to the court.
In court documents, Shawnna Hughes pleaded with Bastine for the divorce.
"If this court vacates my divorce and requires me to stay married to a man I have no desire to ever have a relationship with and who has brought significant physical harm to me over the years I would be emotionally devastated," she wrote. "If this court vacates my divorce and stays it until the birth of my child, it will prevent me from marrying the father of my child prior to her birth."
Court records say the father is Chauncey Jacques, who pleaded guilty to a gang-related drive-by shooting in Spokane in 1998 that blinded an elderly man. He is currently in the Spokane County Jail and due to be released soon, Sloyer said.
The Northwest Women's Law Center in Seattle and the ACLU plan to file briefs with the state Court of Appeals on Hughes' behalf. They said other similar cases have also cropped up in Pierce and Snohomish counties.
"This is a woman in domestic violence asking to get out of the relationship," Sloyer said. "We're telling abusers that if you can get her pregnant you can keep her married to you."
Lisa Stone, executive director of the Northwest Women's Law Center, said the birth of Hughes' child will make the issue moot in her case, since paternity can then be quickly established. But Hughes' case can be the legal vehicle for deciding the issue for women in the future, Stone said.
Washington allows one-party divorce, but Bastine's decision would create a separate class of women who cannot divorce while pregnant, a time when battered women often face even more attacks from their partners, Stone said.
"So, if you have a pregnant woman who wants to get away from her batterer, do you want to make it harder for her?" Stone said.
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Judge Stalls Woman's Divorce From Abusive Spouse
He voids an order, citing her pregnancy. Rights groups and legal experts question the ruling.
By Sam Howe Verhovek
Times Staff Writer
January 9, 2005
SEATTLE — The day she was granted a divorce from her abusive husband, Shawnna J. Hughes said, was "the happiest day of my life." But barely a week later, the 27-year-old medical assistant was back before a judge, who rescinded the order after learning Hughes was pregnant by another man.
"Not only is it the policy of this court, it is the policy of the state that you cannot dissolve a marriage when one of the parties is pregnant," Superior Court Judge Paul A. Bastine told Hughes on Nov. 4.
The ruling has provoked outrage among women's rights groups and provided ample fodder for local talk-radio hosts and newspaper columnists.
Experts said there was no blanket prohibition in the laws of this or any other state against pregnant women getting divorced; several Seattle-area family law practitioners said that they had obtained divorces for pregnant clients.
The law states that any Washington resident who files for a no-fault divorce may get one. Hughes' husband did not respond to her petition, and a divorce was granted. But Bastine said the divorce was invalid because Hughes did not learn she was pregnant until after the papers were served, so her husband was not aware of all the facts.
Hughes is appealing Bastine's decision.
The judge said in a telephone interview that the case involved a thicket of other legal issues — especially because she was receiving public-aid benefits, and the state had an interest in determining paternity.
But several legal scholars questioned his reasoning, saying that the law provided for paternity issues to be settled separately from a divorce. In Washington, a child born as many as 300 days after a divorce is legally presumed to have been fathered by the ex-husband unless a paternity test proves otherwise. Hughes said she and the man with whom she became pregnant planned to have such a test after the birth.
"I cannot think of any policy that would require this woman to stay married to a person who was in prison for abusing her," said Carol Bruch, a law professor at UC Davis.
In any event Hughes, who lives in Spokane and is due to give birth in March, remains married to her abuser — a situation she describes as psychologically devastating. She said her six-year union with Carlos Hughes was "more like a prison than a marriage."
When she got pregnant in June, Hughes said, her estranged husband was serving time for domestic assault. She said she has had no contact with Carlos Hughes, who recently was transferred to a jail in Montana to await trial on federal drug charges, for two years.
But, she said, her husband called her grandmother from the jail and told her that he was taking the pregnancy as "a sign from God" that the couple should be together. "It made my stomach turn," Shawnna Hughes said.
Although there is a restraining order preventing Carlos Hughes from initiating any contact, Shawnna Hughes said she was terrified by the prospect of him coming back.
She has custody of their two boys, ages 5 and 3.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Northwest Women's Law Center, an advocacy group in Seattle, have joined in Shawnna Hughes' appeal. If the ruling is upheld, they say, it not only amounts to discrimination but also could establish a perverse incentive for an abusive husband to get his wife pregnant in order to force her to stay married. And it could prompt some women to terminate their pregnancies to obtain a divorce.
"You can't use a woman's status as a pregnant person to discriminate against her," said Lisa Stone, executive director of the women's law center. "You simply can't say, well, everyone else in the state is entitled to get a divorce in a timely fashion, except this one group of people."
Bastine, who retired Friday after 10 years on the bench, is well-regarded among family-law practitioners in Washington state, known for his efforts to expand access to legal services for low-income clients and his pro bono work, among other things. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil, he served as chairman of the Spokane Legal Services Board before he became a judge.
Some lawyers expressed puzzlement over his blanket statement that pregnant women could not get divorced.
"My personal view is that what Judge Bastine did is not necessary under the law," said J. Mark Weiss, a Seattle lawyer and former chairman of the state bar association's family law committee. "In this type of situation, forcing her to remain married, that's a real problem."
Further roiling controversy in the case, Bastine told Shawnna Hughes that she had forced a prolongation of her marriage on herself with the "intentional act" of getting pregnant.
"You have created the situation by your own actions that delay your opportunity to dissolve your marriage," he said in the Nov. 4 hearing.
Getting pregnant with a friend from her high school days was unintentional, Hughes said, the result of failed birth control.
Regardless, said her lawyer, Terri Sloyer, the standard right to obtain a divorce after the 90-day waiting period should not be affected by a pregnancy.
"What are we telling women here?" Sloyer said. "We're not living in 15th century England."
Carlos Hughes did not return requests for comment submitted to him at the detention center in Montana. A reporter for the Stranger, an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle that first wrote about the case, met briefly with Hughes last month. But he declined to discuss the controversy, saying: "I want to talk to Shawnna first."
Shawnna Hughes has a houseful of responsibility, with her two young sons as well as her own brother, 8, and sister, 16, whom she looks after. She has said that she and the man she says is the biological father plan to name the child they are expecting Jazmine Aurora.
Asked whether she had any wedding plans, Shawnna Hughes said, "Oh, I just don't know about that.
"With everything I'm going through right now, I don't know if I ever want to get married again."
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Char Fox
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Gecko
Carpal \'Tunnel
Reged: 06/01/04
Posts: 19807
Loc: Third rock from the sun
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Don't ya just love it when the media takes a simple point of law...in this case, the lack of disclosure...and blows it all out of proportion?!?
Case in point: "This is a woman in domestic violence asking to get out of the relationship," Sloyer said. "We're telling abusers that if you can get her pregnant you can keep her married to you."
In my opinion, the whole DV issue has NOTHING to do with the REAL issue...which is paternity of the as yet, unborn child and that child has a right to know WHO their "father" is.
And did you all catch this...
In the first article, she pleads with the court: "If this court vacates my divorce and stays it until the birth of my child, it will prevent me from marrying the father of my child prior to her birth."
But in the second article when asked about wedding plans, she says: "Oh, I just don't know about that."
And good grief...look at this new guy: he's currently in jail for some gang-related shooting.
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If you air your dirty linen in public, expect people to comment on the skid marks!
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kansasmom
addict
Reged: 01/04/05
Posts: 465
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You are right about the disclosure law...she was wrong. But to me it is ridiculous. She doesn't want to be married, so what. The man, looser that he is, will still have rights to the child, pay support, etc. (as long as the courts say he is fit I guess)...I don't see what the difference is between being married and not. People have babies all the time and are not married...what is the clause then? Are they saying that just because you are not married then you do not have to disclose your pregnancy to the potential father? Then it would seem that you are trampling on father's rights...lol...god, get the divorce and get a CO...marry your other "baby's daddy" and move on...lol...
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That which does not kill me only makes me stronger.
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almostheaven
Carpal \'Tunnel
Reged: 07/13/04
Posts: 10468
Loc: West Virginia
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Because there was nothing "relevant" to disclose. The child could NOT be his, as he was in prison. Can't figure out how it would be the other guy's either, as he also appears to have been in jail. Probably some poor third party who may never know. They can't do paternity until after the birth. But even if it turned out to be her husband's (impossible through bars), the 300 day rule would still enable the state to collect. So rescinding this divorce after it was already granted is stupidity at it's finest. Especially when there was no law that made that mandatory.
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Char Fox
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loverboy
recently joined
Reged: 04/16/06
Posts: 9
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Women abuse the legal system all the time and complain on the rare occasion when it works against them
imbra.org
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