Visit to Family Court

My visit to the New York County Family Court was an interesting experience in two aspects. First, I found the visit to be a very enriching experience in terms of the opportunity that gave me to compare how different jurisdictions organize their judiciary to attend what they consider to be a particular kind of conflicts under the rubric of Family Law and also to contrast how they treat the privacy concerns that arise in such kind of cases. Second, I had the opportunity to hear a peculiar case of custody, which exemplified how some hegemonic discourses are so deeply ingrained in the decisions that are taken in family courts but at the same time illustrated how the lives of the persons affected by those decisions is so far removed from those hegemonic discourses and how the law sometimes is just a complication rather than a solution for “family matters”.

Although I knew already that in New York juvenile courts where under the specialized family courts, it was still a surprise for me to see quasi criminal process to take place under the rubric of family court. Since, in Puerto Rico the juvenile courts operate like a criminal court, I expected that the proceedings in New York which take place in family court differed more from the criminal proceeding and embodied a spirit more in tune with the kind of processes that take place in family courts. I thought that was the reason for having these proceedings in the Family Court. Yet, the proceedings in the 4^th floor of the New York County Family Court were much like the ones I used to be part of in the criminal courts in Puerto Rico. There was no major difference that allowed me to make the connection between family and juvenile courts.

 The prosecution and the legal aid lawyers were talking among themselves without any contact with the clients who were being brought into court by police officers, a lot of rescheduling took place in the courtroom, and a disinterested judge kept moving cases along. The only difference was that since we were in a Family Court which had a waiting area for the parties, in the courtroom the only ones present were the persons involved in the case like in family proceedings.  Although it was really interesting that the only thing I had to do in order to gain access to the courtroom was to talk to the bailiff and say I was a NYU student.  Especially since in Puerto Rico family court proceedings are closed and persons like me can only be admitted into the hearing if the parties agree to it.  This was not for me a major concern with the juvenile proceedings, since it is a quasi criminal proceeding and there is a strong public interest recognized by the Supreme Court in that citizens oversee that the courts are working properly. But it was a major surprise when I went to hear a custody proceeding.

The bailiff in the custody proceeding did not even mention to me that I should not make any reference to the name of the parties in my paper, like the bailiff in the juvenile court did. Even more, the judge hearing the custody case, after she dismissed the parties and dispose of the petitions, filled me in with all the details of the case. I believe she wanted to justify to me her decision in the case. Perhaps, my face of confusion and astonishment led her to obviate the rules established to preserve the privacy of the parties. Nonetheless, I profited from the opportunity and asked a couple of questions to the judge in order to understand better her position. 

The case was about two siblings who were in the custody of their grandmother who passed away recently this year.  Their uncle filed a petition for custody and the dad of their 20 years old half-brother did too. This last man who did not have any biological connection with the children was supporting them economically since the uncle had to leave his job in order to take care of the children and his mother who was dying of cancer and he was involved in the life of the children since they used to visit their half-brother often.  However, the children who are living with his uncle had expressed that they want the things to stay the way they were and that they had concerns with being under the custody of their half-brother’s father. 

During the hearing the attorney for the half-brother’s dad stated that the parts had agreed to have a joint custody. However, the uncle who was representing himself stated clearly that his only concern was the children and that they had expressed that they would like for things to stay the same. Yet the uncle seemed inclined to agree with the other party filing for custody because of his unemployed status. The mother, who was also at the hearing, perhaps as an interested party, did not want either for the current situation to change. The attorney assigned for the children, who did not seem to care much about any of the arguments that were being presented in court, only remitted herself to the report in which the children said they did not want things to change.  Thus, the hearing was basically a discussion between the judge and the attorney of the half-brother’s dad, who was not able to posit any legal reason for which the joint custody was to be granted. The judge, on the other side, was concern with raising a total stranger to a level of the mother (who did not ask for custody) or to that of a biological relative (as the uncle). So she decided not to grant the petition for the half-brother’s dad and grant the one filed by the uncle, even though he was unemployed at the moment.  The idea that permeated her reasoning in court was the hegemonic idea of the biological family.  Yet, when she dismissed the parties and talked to me, her major concern was not the non compliance with the biological family model (although it was in fact part of her reasoning), but the unsettling feeling that a legal change which was not supposed to alter the current situation of the children could disrupt the relationships between the adults and in turn affect the children.

At the end, the visit at the Family Court confirmed my intuition that most of the issues that are heard in family court and/or that are within the regulation of Family law are best solved taking into considerations extra-legal factors and disregarding the hegemonic discourses embedded in the law.