For the second time, the Washington State Supreme Court has struck Washington's grandparent visitation law as unconstitutional. The current law replaced another state law that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2000, forcing dozens of states to rewrite their own statutes. The court said that the grandparents have no right to court-ordered visits because Washington's law on the matter is unconstitutional. To read the full article to to this LINK.
As I have POSTED before, Kansas has its own grandparent visitation statute at K.S.A. 38-129(a). However, it would seem recently that courts are attempting to find a way to bypass the ruling in Troxel v. Granville and some of our own higher court rulings. It is suppose to be presumed that a fit parent will act in the best interest of his or her child and that presumption is suppose to be given special weight. However, since I argued the Paillet case, I have also argued subsequent grandparent cases, representing parents, and have seen district court judges ignore our case law and ORDER visitation between grandparents and fit parent's children. And in everyone of the cases I have represented a parent in, there has always been a good reason for the FIT parent to not want visitation.
yes, I know a grandmother who's son lost his parental rights. Her other son and his wife adopted that son's children. Now the other son is now in prison and his wife, now is his x-wife, has custody of the children. She is forbidding the grandmother any visitation or contact with the children. Can the grandmother sue for custody? She wants custody of the her grandchildren. Does she has rights considering the natural father lost his rights and the other son that adopted them is in prison?
Posted by: TAMMY | June 20, 2005 at 06:52 PM