All right, looks like we're live. Um Oh, let me get the microphone here closer to me. Uh hopefully this is working this time. Uh thanks for joining me. This is Freedom is Scary, obviously, and this is, hard to believe, episode number 60. And you know, this is about really what I probably get the most questions about, the most calls about, and that is basically the the right to be a parent and custody questions, family court questions, and when what are your rights? And so, I have a the perfect guest and guest to discuss this with me tonight, and that is one of the, you know, hated divorce attorneys around the country. And this is Andy Fox, who is in Tennessee. And what's important about him, I'll bring him right on here, but he is he is both a patriot and a divorce attorney, believe it or not. And I met him through Daniel Horowitz of the the Blaze and the Conservative Review podcast. And had him on here a week or so, or maybe 2 weeks ago, I can't even remember, when we and we were talking with Chris Whiff, so um I'll bring go ahead and bring him right on, but let me give you a quote here. I I like to give a quote, and this one pertains to this topic specifically. The liberty interest at issue in this case, the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interest recognized by this court. Meaning the Supreme Court. That was a quote from Troxel versus Granville, United States Supreme Court in the year 2000. I'll go ahead and bring Andy on here. Hey Andy, how you doing? How you doing? Yes, sir. Doing well. Thanks for having me on again. I appreciate it. Yeah, well, I'm I appreciate you coming on. Let me make sure that logistically we're all right here. Can everybody hear us all right? Looks All right, you're already getting questions about ex-wives and $70,000 in back child supports. You know, um I appreciate you coming on. You know, I I I didn't have any you know, particular pointed questions for you. We just kind of wanted to to discuss this topic in in general. I know it's people have a lot of questions about this sort of stuff and uh and it's just a weird gray area of the law where you have the Constitution uh implicated and then you have all sorts of state laws and procedures implicated and then you have just all sorts of knowledge implicated that some of these divorce lawyers have acquired over the years that, you know, people have no idea about. So, um and uh so, you're in you're in was it Knoxville, Tennessee, right? That's correct. Knoxville. Eastern Eastern division of Tennessee. Tennessee, of course, has uh well, it has four major cities. Uh the three biggest are Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville. Uh Chattanooga is uh fourth behind Knoxville. Uh and, you know, uh and Memphis is western, Nashville is middle, and Knoxville is eastern. And uh eastern division. They call them the grand divisions, the three grand divisions of the state. Uh there are federal courthouses in each one of those cities in the grand divisions. And and I do have to I mean I'm taking it uh pains to explain this because actually sometimes I'll get calls from people from out of state and they'll say, "Hey, you know, I have a case in Nashville or Memphis. Is that close to Knoxville?" Well, no, it's not. And uh so you need to explain it for everybody. Um Memphis is about 5 and 1/2 hours away from Knoxville and Nashville's about uh 2 and 1/2 hours away from Knoxville. Yeah, I think when I I played football at the University of Central Florida, when when I first got there, another guy in my class, uh a young quarterback, well, young, he was same age as me, quarterback showed up there and I want to say he was from Knoxville. I can't remember. He was from He was from Tennessee, I remember that. I don't remember what his name was, but he was a he was a great quarterback. Do you remember the school? What's that? Do you remember the school he was from? I don't remember. I don't I don't remember. But I mean, I guess Tennessee's had a lot of great quarterbacks, just like Florida has. Um let's see. And I'll try to pay attention to some of the the questions here. Um already, do you practice in Florida? I don't think so, right? Do you? No, not yet, anyways. Who knows? People like you and me, we may end up in Florida the the way uh Florida's going and the rest of the country is going, right? Yeah, did I mean, did you watch the the UFC fight this weekend? 15,000 people in a stadium in Jacksonville. I didn't You know, if I can digress for a moment, uh I was a huge UFC fan uh when it was uh broadcast with uh Fox or what is it? FS1? You know, because their business model was giving a lot of free stuff and then every once in a while you do a pay-per-view. So, you know, and that worked for me. I mean, I watched the free stuff all the time and I would check in for the you know, not every pay-per-view, but a lot of them. When it went to ESPN Plus, I didn't I don't have a Roku or anything like that, so I was reduced to watching it on like a laptop or, you know, computer screen. Uh and you know, it just got I I could never keep up with it, so they they lost my interest. They lost me as a fan, really. And they're I feel like ESPN's going back to the uh you know, kind of giving a little bit of free stuff just on regular ESPN to try to attract people to uh you know, get onto the pay model. And so I'm I'm getting back into a little bit. Yeah, it was you know, it it used to be when when I had DirecTV, yeah, I I just order the pay-per-view through DirecTV, and then of course you could watch the the prelims for free on on ESPN. And I would I was a little bit the same way, but actually now that I've you know, I I have it paid for whatever I had to pay for on ESPN, and also I also paid for the Fight Pass on UFC, and there's actually a lot of good value there cuz you can watch all sorts of all sorts of different fights that would never be on TV in the with the UFC app. But it's actually it's actually pretty easy um just dealing dealing with the app. I mean, it it the one I mean, the UFC when all these other sports, just like LeBron James has done in the past few days, I mean, just kind of showed their ass to the entire country and uh taken, you know, political stances, the the UFC meanwhile's like they're getting down to business. Like the like the whole country's locked down, a lot of the world's locked down. I mean, and hell, they're in they're in like Abu Dhabi with with uh you know, doing their own thing and and chugging through all this stuff. And here they're they're again like leading the way in Jacksonville this weekend having like the first real big uh UFC fight where you have a live crowd. I mean, it's like every seat was full and I I'd posted something on Facebook, I believe it was. Well, yeah, Facebook. Saying like I I posted a picture of the crowd and I'm like, "Look, everything's going to Florida." And used to and rarely they have UFC events in Florida, but everything's going to be in Florida because I mean, you have they have freedom there. You can't have I mean, here in West Virginia, we're still we're still locked down. You still have to make an appointment for the DMV. And um they're harassing kids just to have kids sports, but in Florida, like you can you can now go to UFC fights. So, yeah, we might have to go to Florida. The problem is is they've gotten very good and I'm not a native Floridian, but I grew up there, went to high school there, got my undergrad degree there. My father was a quarterback for the Gators. I mean, I'm a Floridian everything except for birth. And they've make it they make it absolutely impossible if you have any professional degree to go retire to Florida. I mean, they protect their turf. So, there's no like reciprocity from like any state with Florida. You have to go there and you have to turn into a law student again and you have to take the bar. And say even if like you or I wanted to go there and just do federal court stuff, that's still the same as we were doing in Tennessee or West Virginia, you still have to take you take the Florida bar and good jump through all those hoops. They make it so difficult so you so that we can't do that, but I get I guess it's just how much do we want to do it. But you've inspired me. You know what? I I think I'm going to have to uh uh go the extra mile here and get back on the UFC bandwagon because if they're going to they deserve my viewership and I need to support them exactly for the reason you stated that they're leading the charge and they're not letting this lockdown stuff slow them down and they're not politically correct. Uh and frankly, you know, I'm I'm a boycotter type. So, you know, I've I've written off the NFL. I've written I Now I'm writing off uh Major League Baseball. I mean, I I started I'd been getting into MLB for the past, you know, 6 7 years. Uh yeah, I I watch a lot of sports when I work out. That's, you know, and and that's when I watched a lot of UFC. So, I You got me all inspired, man. Thank you. I'm going to I'm going to get back on the UFC bandwagon. Yeah, you know, if you get the if you get the UFC app and they call it the fight pass, I think. I mean, I get notified It's only the only notification I don't mind on my phone. It actually says like like watch this, you know, pro fight that you'd never heard of and they're actually like great fights. And the other day I I got one that had a a a female fighting her first pro fight and we actually knew her because she trains at the same gym that that my son does. And we watched her first pro fight. It wasn't UFC, it was a different different or different group, but it I mean, that's like the only sport I can stand to watch anymore anyways. I mean, I always liked to play sports, but I never really got in I would never really was big at watching them except just maybe the Gators because my father. Never even liked watching UCF. Um but but uh UFC like I I I really enjoy watching. I mean, if you if you Yeah, it was 70 bucks this weekend. But not only did you see people enjoying freedom, but you also saw I mean, you saw a guy like break his leg in half on accident. You saw an American girl defeat the Chicoms, you know, dethrone the the Chinese champion. And sort of like 1981 hockey versus the USSR, whenever that year was or 1980. It it really has has uh I've really enjoyed watching it. But But anyways, yeah, you need to you need to start watching UFC again. Yeah. So, you saw it was like a Silva back when Silva cracked his leg across uh uh what's his name? You you know what fight I'm talking about when he he gave him a Yeah. Yeah, it was like that and and it was Chris Weidman that did it, unfortunately. I mean, it was It was I mean, I hated watching it. I really liked him. I hate to see it happen, but but uh yeah, and it was uh let's see. Yeah, it was Chris Weidman who who had beat who was like famous for beating Silva, wasn't he? Uh and and that's I mean, God, it was it was but the the fight of the night for me was was they call her Thug Rose beating the Chinese champion, I mean, the world champion from China, but they had you know, they're they're getting getting into UFC. They're wanting to take over UFC just like they do everything else in China. And and of course, you know, UFC wants to capitalize on on on that new market, not new market, but really opening up there. So, they're you know, there was there was a lot of That's really what why I wanted to watch that fight and it was an amazing fight. I mean, she knocked her out with a kick to the face, but but yeah, I mean, what would you rather watch basketball really other than that? I mean, with these spoiled these spoiled brats that are complaining though they're multi-gazillionaires. Yeah. Anyways, um there's probably a lot of family court divorce work with those guys as well, I would imagine. Yeah, they probably have a lot of child support cases, right? Just like the football players and I I see the uh the audience is getting uh antsy, so let's dive right in. I did want to give a quick uh uh disclaimer. Any statements I make on this show are purely for informational purposes and do not constitute legal advice. All right. Now we can start talking. Right. Right, good idea. Yeah, there's there's I'm not sure if Jay Where Where did he go? Jay in particular, he's he's very critical of of me. Uh what's wrong with you? You've no audience because you don't focus on the subject at hand. What does UFC have to do with you're here for? Well, why are you still here, Jay? You know, you know, it There's a There's a complaint box somewhere. I mean, just click the complaint box and you can complain to my manager and he'll look into getting you a refund for the time that you've spent here. So, I'm I'm sorry, Jay. Um anyways, where were where were we? Uh so yeah, you're a divorce attorney and you're also a patriot and you've been like me fighting a lot of the the fascism that's occurred in the past year. Um and let me I guess I'll answer Jay's question first is, you know, is there a constitutional right to be a parent? I'm sure you've dealt with this and correct me if I'm wrong, but but yeah, uh you know, every father, mother, parent has a constitutional right to be, you know, an an active part of their children's lives. It's protected by the 14th Amendment to the to the Constitution. And the government, of course, can interfere with it, but they can only interfere in well, what the Supreme Court calls limited circumstances, but in reality, I think we know that that's a lot of circumstances. But the you know, the right to be a parent is a fundamental right. Yes. Um let's see. Uh some of the Supreme Court cases, Palco versus Connecticut, 1937. Quilly Quill on Quill wa I don't know how you pronounce that. Quill Quill on versus Walcott, 1978. There's Armstrong versus Manzo, 1965. Santosky versus Kramer. I'm not sure what year that was, but yeah, it's a fundamental right to be a parent, but the court can limit it in certain circumstances like they can any fundamental right. And uh you know, what are the state's interests? For instance, in child abuse, do the Does the state have an interest in investigating potential child abuse? Yeah. Does the parent have an interest in keeping their family together? Yes. So, the court will look to see if the if the CPS or DHHR, whoever the governmental actor is, whether they're engaging in a unreasonable intrusion into, you know, your right to be a parent, your right to keep your family together. And you know, it's sort of a balancing test. So, I mean, it Have you Let me ask you this first, have you ever had Have you ever in any of your your custody cases or divorce cases, have you ever had to go into the 14th Amendment or federal constitutional rights or due process or anything like that? Well, in a case recently, I've had to do that because I have a client who's been accused of um breaking into his uh child's mother's residence. And uh now, he had He had custody of this child. He He obtained custody of this child a number of years ago when I represented him, and she got arrested for uh uh driving under the influence while the child was in her car when the child was a a toddler, 1 and 1/2 or 2 years old. And this happened again a number of years ago. There had been no parentage case. You know, one thing I wanted to say for the audience as well, if I can digress again, is that uh family law cases are driven almost completely by state law. There are, you know, the the provisions stated by the Supreme Court with respect to, you know, the fact that it's a fundamental right, but each state has its own way, its own laws in in dealing with these issues. In Tennessee, uh a mother had is the sole custodian of a child unless there's a court order stating otherwise for any child born out of wedlock. Not not for if if a child's born out of wet born out of a marriage, then uh both parents are considered the natural guardians of the child. But uh when it comes to children born out of wedlock, which is of course uh you know, increasing in frequency in these days, the mother is the sole custodian. And you know, the father if he wants to obtain legal rights, the right to uh you know, pursue visitation, the right to pursue custody if if uh the father is uh more fit, more comparatively fit to be the residential the parent of the child, um they have to file what's called a parentage case. And this child that they've been living together for some time, and uh then they they split up and she was the primary residential parent for this child. She was the sole custodian of this child. Well, then she got caught uh driving under the influence with the child in her car. So, you know, I I immediately took the case to uh to the court, filed for an emergency, got custody of the child, and then you know, uh as your listeners may know, when when uh you obtain an emergency relief, usually you're going to have to have a hearing within a pretty quick period of time. In Tennessee, when it comes to uh temporary restraining orders and things of that nature, you have to have a hearing within 15 days. Now, there's an exception for family law cases, but the judges try to stick close to that uh that particular limitation. So, we were showing up for the emergency hearing, and she showed up drunk for that. And uh I think she got arrested for public intoxication at the courthouse. And so, we won that one, and my client went on to of course to to secure uh custody uh on a permanent basis. Now, what happened later though, several years later is uh he you know, they they continued to have an on-again, off-again relationship, and uh one day she accused him of breaking into her house and sexually assaulting her uh you know, during an exchange or something or no, actually the child was at his home, but he she was not being faithful, and so you know, he showed up and caught her, and so this was her response. Well, he got arrested. I mean, in this climate, you know, uh the the uh those types of the the pendulum has swung very far towards uh the victim, the alleged victim, and it's almost uh in situations like that, you have to prove your innocence. So, she was able to use that to secure and I'm getting to the the moral story here, but she was able to use that to to secure temporary custody and retreat, you know, get the child back in her custody right now. My client is uh he is uh just seeing the child on a uh you know, supervised visitation basis. Uh and so, what happened though is he's got these criminal charges against him. He's got a I'm not a criminal defense lawyer really. I I do very little of that. Uh and uh you know, then I'm representing him in juvenile court, but there are delays going on in the uh criminal side, and he can't you know, they're still waiting the prosecution's waiting I think to get some some tests back, and you know, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is very behind on that kind of thing. So, he's got these criminal charges hanging over his head. And uh but the juvenile court hearings keep coming up to be heard. You know, we they're trying to say that the child was dependent and neglected in his care. So, he's got two or three different proceedings going on right now. Uh and it would I I I put or I wrote a brief saying that the juvenile court hearing cannot proceed until the criminal case is uh completed because it's it's putting two constitutional rights up against each other. And in order, you know, it if he proceeds uh if he has to proceed on the juvenile court case to protect his fundamental right as a parent then he's giving up his fifth amendment right against uh uh incrimination cuz he's going to have to testify and then vice versa. So, uh in that instance recently, I have brought up some constitutional issues and I don't think anybody really wanted to get into it. They just said "Do you want a continuance? Okay, here you go. You know, we'll we'll we'll push it on down the road. Nobody's going to complain." But that's uh really the the only instance recently in which I had to uh bring up constitutional law issues. Yeah, I had a similar situation that happened locally where there was a I don't know that they were married maybe maybe they were married. No, I don't think they were married, but they had kind of bought a house together and they had kids together. And then they they separated and then there's litigation and so then the dad at one point comes back to the home to get some of what he claimed was his stuff and then took his stuff and left. And then so then the mom calls the cops and next thing you know, the dad gets charged with a felony with like with felony burglary. Um breaking and entering, whatever it was, and that was litigated and the judge actually the judge actually dismissed the charges against the guy because, you know, his name was on the deed, though they were separated and there was there was custody litigation going on. Um, but yeah, it's it's this is probably this is probably one of the most common you know, ways that people encounter the court system and inevitably it it pisses everybody off one way or the other. You know, we recently had the legislature here in West Virginia enact new legislation or attempt to act enact new legislation that was sort of fathers rights that said that you know, they kind of took jurisdiction, not jurisdiction, but discretion away from the family court to give less time to the dad without you know, some evidence of really bad conduct or something like I'm paraphrasing here, but it there was a presumption of like 50/50 between the mom and the dad because, you know, the family court judges here is I guess probably everywhere have the reputation of siding in favor of the moms or favor of the females. Uh, is it that is it that same way in Tennessee? As far as the as far as the the the judges or people thinking that the judges side with the the women is versus the fathers? Uh, in a non-domestic violence situation, I think there's a great evolution away from that. Tennessee used to have what was called the tender years doctrine which uh, has been uh, repealed. It's no longer um, uh, part of our statutory scheme. And uh, what that used to say of course, was that a child a young child, I think 3 years and younger, uh was automatically placed with the mother There was a presumption that that child belonged with the mother. That Like I said, that's been repealed. And um I'd say in the past 15 years there's been a very strong move towards a presumption towards equal time. Now, not uh not officially, uh officially uh custody is based uh merely on or or on a set of factors that are in the statute. In fact, actually those factors are not comprehensive, but there's about 12 factors that are listed in the custody statutes that give courts guidance in in how to analyze a particular case. And and there there is some language in the statute that that speaks to um maximizing the amount of time that each parent has uh taking into account the uh the factors that are in the statute. But uh although it's not uh it's not officially in the statutes, in many of the uh judges and chancellors courtrooms, that's a that's the jumping-off point. So, I think in Tennessee it's you have a uh a reasonable chance in in most courtrooms of uh the judge looking at the case evenly, regardless of uh who's the mother and who's the father. In Tennessee, are they like specifically like family court judges, like we have here? Uh no. Well, let me take that back. There are some counties that have um a family court judge that have been pre uh created by private act. For instance, in Knox County we have one. That's fourth circuit court. And that court's jurisdiction is limited to family law matters. But the uh some counties you can have, you know, like in Knox County three different court systems effectively Well, if you want to include juvenile court for, you know, children born out of wedlock, you have four court systems that you can file a a family law case in. You have Well, actually that's you know, that's mistaken. Knox County circuit court because this special family court was created um the regular circuit courts do not have jurisdiction over family law matters. So, you have four circuit court, you have chancery court, and you have juvenile court for uh family law matters of one stripe or another. But, divorce cases are usually they're only in chancery court or circuit court. So, we not Tennessee is an unusual state in that we maintain the distinctions between law and equity. To some degree, that also has largely been eradicated in almost every single case you can file in a court of law, that's circuit court, you can also file in a court of equity, which is chancery court, and vice versa. There are still a few things that are uh uh relegated to one court system or the or another. But, they both have general jurisdiction over divorce. And so, what you find is it it varies county by county where people will file their cases, and you know, it's it's really a you get to know the particular uh judge or chancellor in whatever county that that uh venue's going to be in, and you make a decision about Well, I think I think this judge might be better for this case in this particular circumstance. That's why in Tennessee at least it it does have value to uh be experienced as a family law lawyer. Yeah, I don't know I don't know if it's the same way there, but here they tend there tends to be a high number of pro se litigants in in the family courts and that and the state has actually promoted that over the years to try you know, make forms available and make it as easy as possible for people to proceed without lawyers. And so of course then, you know, they do that just and that works well until it doesn't. You know, then and then uh you know, the the problems pop up and then they then they go to a lawyer like after it's too late. Well, what what happens is yes, the same thing the same uh trend is going on and uh Yeah, there's a desire on the I mean I I'll I'll say it's a a well-intentioned desire to democratize law for people because, you know, family law cases can be extraordinarily expensive. And um although the irony is not for agreed divorces. In fact, my I have an associate that works for me and and she handles the agreed divorces and I I think we're probably the the cheapest in the area as far as uh offering agreed divorces and that's what pro se litigants generally try to pursue and so they have these you know, these forms that are made available to them uh online and you know, I guess many have been able to stumble their way through them, but you know, what tends to happen or what my experience is before COVID hit and courts were you know, we we weren't going into court except by Zoom, is that they would have to come back to court over and over again because even these forms, you know, lawyers have tried to make forms understandable by lay persons, but still they don't they don't get all the checks right. All they don't mark all the boxes right. They leave stuff out. They they file the wrong forms. They, you know, they get something off the internet that's not correct or it was, you know, 3 years old. And and so the judges have to spend their time uh correcting it, but they can't even do that cuz they can't give them legal advice. But, you know, they they kind of say, "Well, you got this wrong. You got that wrong. Come again later." And they'll spend a bunch of time while people with paid lawyers are sitting there, the judges will have to spend a lot of time uh you know, explaining to people where they got things wrong. So, it you know, like any well-intentioned uh initiative, it really has a lot of unintended consequences that uh create problems for other people. And and don't necessarily serve the people that uh it's intended to serve, you know. Um we had we had a drunk man on a laptop ask a a question. I actually think I'm not sure if this is what he was talking about, but I think this is a pretty good topic. And his question was uh why are lawyers replacing the judges in family court? I'm not sure if he's talking about what I think he's saying, but the way it's gotten in West Virginia is is that you don't in a custody dispute case in family court, you don't really go in and call witnesses necessarily or cross-examine witnesses necessarily. The process that they've created is and it can be different in different but with different judges, but they will appoint a the ad litem if there's a high if there's a high conflict custody case and they'll they'll appoint a guardian ad litem whose job is as per the the order appointing him or her, usually her, to go and make an investigation and then report back with a written report and recommendations to the to the court which usually comes in like the day of the hearing or maybe the night before or something like that. And so in lieu of the actual witnesses against the father or could be the mother, you have basically you're we're just all dealing in hearsay testimony. The guardian you know, can go to the house and and look at the house. I mean, there's lots of good things that can be done, but we're we're basically taking the witnesses out of the courtroom and we're almost in a lot effectively making like these guardian ad litems, making them like the judge. And I was just I hell, I was just in a hearing all afternoon starting at 1:00 and ending I think it was like 4:30 of fighting in court over like the world's worst custody case and and it was just the the parties were in agreement. The parties were in agreement. It was the guardian ad litem that was determined to make sure that my client did not see his child. And we're fighting the guardian ad litem and it it it's been going on for years and instead of being able to question the witnesses, the only right I have really, if the court allows it, is to for me to cross-examine and question the guardian ad litem. And you know, that brings up real question to me of of federal constitutional rights of the 14th Amendment of due process. I mean, if you have a fundamental right to be a parent and you're not even getting a chance to to uh Yeah, I mean, you know, the confrontation clause doesn't doesn't apply in family court, but there's I think it's it a certain point you have a due process problem if you're take Yeah, if you're if you're taking a guardian ad litem and making them the judge and it's all happening on, you know, outside of court and and you're not even getting to participate in the process. Is it Is it that way in Tennessee where you have these guardian ad litems that are that are kind of taking the place of of what used to be witness testimony and presenting evidence in in court? Uh no. In fact, the Supreme Court uh I got to I have to uh give uh credit where credit is due. The The Supreme Court dealt with that issue in Tennessee quite some time ago, actually, and they made it clear in the Supreme Court rules that guardian ad litems serve purely as counsel representing the children's interests. So, they're they're counsel just like uh you may be representing the you know, the father or the mother. Uh they are lawyers representing uh the children and they don't they don't testify, they don't give evidence any any more than you and I would give evidence in a hearing. They can offer it, they can cross-examine and and and call witnesses directly as well. Uh so that, you know, you effectively have multiple parties um in a hearing in which the guardian ad litem exists, but they do not give reports. Now, that that used to exist in Tennessee, that that format, but uh like I said, the Supreme Court uh took that away and and really put they created the proper role for the guardian ad litem. Now, that That form of guardian ad litem still does exist for conservatorships, conservatorship will, and guardianships as well. Um conservatorships in Tennessee are like guardianships for an adult. Uh and and guardianships are not intended in Tennessee to deal with dependence and neglect situations. Uh I know in some states actually, they don't have effectively a dependence and neglect statute, you know, uh that and so they pursue um problems with uh a child's, you know, the the parenting of a child in a uh a guardianship petition. Can't remember which state that was, but in my career I've I've dealt with somebody from another state. Maybe they the the people moved to Tennessee and so, you know, we used what's called the the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act to uh domesticate the case into Tennessee. But uh there are some states, maybe in California, where they don't really have a dependence and neglect statute. Tennessee has a a vast set of statutes to deal with children who are um in undesirable uh living situation. And they the general term for it is called dependence and neglect. And and that's uh in anytime you have a dependence and neglect case, they are that's when a guardian ad litem is assigned. It's not In fact, the Supreme Court discourages the um appointment of a guardian ad litem in a divorce case. They Now, you're talking about the Tennessee Supreme Court. That's correct. That's correct. Uh yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, in the Tennessee Supreme Court uh discourages the appointment of guardian ad litems in a divorce case because their their policy on that, their belief is generally the parents can be expected to pursue what they believe the best interests of the child to be. Between the two of them, you know, I guess iron sharpens iron and and the the best interest of the child is going to be evident to the court. Uh but not not so in a dependency neglect case. In that you have the state, usually it's the state, asserting that the children are uh are not uh in a uh edifying living situation. And so that's when the guardian ad litem is appointed. So you actually have witnesses witnesses and cross-examination and all that in in regular custody cases in Tennessee. Yes, oh yeah. Yeah. You you duke it out. You don't have to rely upon, you know, a report given by some pseudo expert because there's nothing about going to law school to qualify somebody to be an expert on what's in the child's best interest. But they can certainly represent their legal interests. And uh you know, best what you know, ultimately the court is the one who determines what the child's best interest is. And and no longer does a guardian ad litem serve as a uh a mini judge like they used to. I mean, that used to be a problem and uh you know, then of course you had the problem of well, what is the report then? This isn't a legal document like you said, it's hearsay. How does this get into the record? How can a judge properly uh consider what's in this you know, document, these findings when it's when it's hearsay. So Ten- Tennessee the Tennessee Supreme Court has done a good job of eliminating that problem. Yeah, I I you know, I think this is why I get I think so many calls about people with problem with problems like this you because the state steps in or a court or a guardian ad litem steps in and causes people to be separated from their children and people think to themselves, all right, how is this constitutional? I have a civil rights issue here. And you know, that is that is really a a good question. Like for instance, in this case that that I litigated today of this you know, it it's been going on for 4 years based on allegations. Did CPS get involved? No, no call to CPS. No call to CPS. Did the Did the the police or prosecutors get involved? No, no no criminal allegations, no criminal charges. Basically, we just have one party and really a a guardian ad litem um taking the position that, you know, they a father can't can't be around his child. And and literally in this in this hearing, you had a guardian ad litem who was just a lawyer and probably done it quite a few times arguing arguing with uh somebody who has has dealt with thousands of children over over like 30 years of doing this as a career. And so you have a guardian ad litem saying that, well, this person isn't qualified unless they come back with the conclusions that I want them to come back with. Mhm. And and so then you have this being litigated in front of a family court judge. I mean, obviously, we have no jury or anything like this. It's up to just the discretion of the judge. But what evidence is being presented? You have a written recommendation of a guardian ad litem, which in this case, there were more there were multiple reports, one of which was like 60 or 70 pages long. I mean, that is a huge guardian ad litem report. And you know, what do you do? This is full of hearsay testimony. You're not getting to test the the the credibility of that evidence. And if the judge doesn't allow you to cross-examine the guardian ad litem, then I I you're you're basically out of luck. So all you can do is ask the guardian like, "Look, well, um did you talk to this witness? Or you Or did you talk to that witness? Or why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that?" So, you're just you're just stuck attacking the their investigation just like you're attacking the the police's investigation. And and I'm just wondering, you know, how did we get there? You know, and why do we have family court judges if they're just going to outsource? And I I don't know. It sounds like Tennessee had that problem at one time and found a a good way to to get around it. And like like many areas of life, West Virginia has been pretty good at being like 49th or 50th in the in the country at solving problems. Like they'll they'll get around to it one day. But Well, yeah Yeah, you ought to take a look at uh uh Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 40 and 40A. Um because those deal with guardian ad litems in custody cases. And And like I said, it's it's a great innovation. I mean, I I I give them credit. You still have the problem though. Well, now, one thing you uh about Tennessee system that deals with child welfare is that a dependency neglect case can be filed privately. It doesn't have to be filed by the state. Um And And in And that case, of course, when it is filed uh privately, there usually there are supposed to be a reference to uh what we call what you call CPS, we call DCS, Department of Children Services, or the department. But uh you can litigate a case all the way through without department involvement, and the court will not uh you know, hold that against you. The court will uh weigh the the evidence on its own merits. I've I've represented grandparents under those circumstances before where where the department refused to get involved and uh it's been some time I haven't done a lot of that kind of work in maybe 10 years. But uh in the mid-2000s I was doing a lot of uh grandparent representation because you know, they were objecting to where their grandchildren were being raised and you know, usually it involves it involves drug use. I mean, that's what it is. Substance abuse leads to uh almost invariably an inability to live what I call a normal life. In fact, often the the deals, you know, if you don't litigate a case all the way to completion uh a dependency neglect case, they'll say, "Hey, you know, let's make a deal. If you can keep a job, live in the same place and pay rent and uh stay off drugs for a year, we're done. We you know, if you can do those things, uh there's no reason to intrude upon your rights as a parent because this child is not going to be uh you know, under threat." But people that struggle with substance abuse can't make it that long. Typically, they can't even make it 6 months. That's the uh Department of Children's Services threshold usually is a 6-month time frame. If you can do the right thing for 6 months, you get your kids back, we'll leave you alone. Um and you know, typically people that struggle with substance abuse can only make it about 2 or 3 months. They can only stay off that long before they break down. I don't know if it's you know, a mental thing or just you know, the the temptation of the fix is too strong, but that that's been my experience with them. Yeah, it's it's it's a huge problem here as well and I mean, there there are counties in West Virginia for instance, McDowell County down the southern very southern part of the state of coalfield areas where the majority of children I understand are being raised by grandparents and I've talked to a lot of them before but it's really really sad and it's brought up a lot of issues of grandparents rights and I've dealt with a few of those and I've I've I've actually litigated quite a few of them because what happens in in West Virginia is that this the the foster system is it seems like it's run for reasons or profit comes into it I think or or business comes into it sometimes above and beyond what's best for for the kids or or the rights of grandparents and so you'll have kids taken out out of the home for drugs for instance and and instead of placing them with one you know the paternal or the maternal grandparents they'll go ahead and just place them with a foster family and they have some sort of contract in place with some middleman organization that you know that that places them with a foster family and the foster family gets gets not not all cases obviously but I've literally personally experienced cases like this where there's no allegations against the actual blood grandparents and that the children aren't placed with them after being taken out of the home they're they're placed just with complete strangers foster parents and then the longer they're away the harder it is to to get them back or around their grandparents and the grandparents are forced to file a motion to intervene in the case and and the judge can say no to that and and they the only real right they have in in West Virginia is to be considered for adoptive placement and other than that the the department can basically do whatever they want and there's a whole lot of injustice that that happens with that and and I think I'm sure some of it's through incompetence and then some of it I really I really think has to do with with you know a profit motive. And I don't know of any other really good explanation for it. That's man you're making me feel better and better about Tennessee system. I think now this is you know of course my experience. And uh my experience is that uh you uh well that case workers will attempt to use a relative what they call a relative placement before they try to bring the child into the state custody. So they'll they'll try to find somebody related to the accused parents to place the child with. Uh and they they try to keep the children out of the system if they can. Now that's my experience. I'm not saying that's everybody's experience. Uh but uh you know in general I think Tennessee has a pretty good system. You know there are still times when I feel like they should get involved and they don't. There's certainly times when I feel like uh case case workers have gotten involved and they shouldn't. But I'll give them credit they they do try to rely upon relative placements before you know bringing a child into a system. Many many years ago in fact before I started practicing law I worked for uh state government. And uh I had contact uh well my my assignment was with Department of Children Services. I was with the the Department of Finance Administration Budget Office and so I worked uh with several departments including one of which was uh what they used to call Department of Youth there was a big uh children back then were heavily institutionalized uh for reasons other than um engaging in you know, juvenile delinquency. They called them uh status crimes, you know, running away and stuff like that. Uh and there was a big push back in the uh early '90s to stop trying to bring children into the system like like what you're discussing and and institutionalizing them. And maybe that that had some uh residual effect because uh I think that the focus is to try to keep them uh from having to get into the foster system. Yeah, in in West Virginia, it's a little different like the the custody cases are litigated in family court and then the abuse and neglect cases go to the circuit court. And what's happened and that's the court that's just like the you know, that they would have felony murder trials or felony criminal trials in. All all civil cases that are not small claims. So, what happens is is being West Virginia the abuse and neglect cases just outnumber everything else and they have statutory priority. So, basically the the judge the circuit court judges have I I've heard them complain that they've basically become glorified social workers. That that's all they're doing is dealing with all day in and day out all of these all of these uh you know, family issues and and and custody issues and looking at drug screens of of the parents and and going over these these uh you know, reports of how you know, status reports of how they're doing and what the plans are moving forward and and meanwhile everything else is getting on the back burner including including like I said murder trials you know all felony criminal cases and much less any you know a a right of way dispute or something that you need to get tried. It's all put on the back burner and that's completely clogging up the entire circuit court system and and then at the same time you have the family court judges that handle everything so long as the the department isn't filing it. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I and I don't think West Virginia's got it set up right but but at least in circuit court you do have witnesses testifying. I mean you do have that but then the problem is is everyone knows it doesn't matter. Like you can contest if the department if the DHHR CPS if they're coming after you they want to take your kids like they're going to do it. There's not a whole lot you can do. I mean you can you can go through your due process rights you can make make them call witnesses you can cross examine the witnesses you can argue till you turn blue but it it everyone knows it it's probably not going to they're just going through the motions you know they're you know if the state wants to have you adjudicated of having abused and neglected a child so that they can do X Y and Z then it it's going to happen. You know I I I don't recall of any cases that I know of where you it was like a a criminal case where you had a trial and there was an acquittal. I've never even heard of that happening in abuse and neglect case. Maybe it's because they only bring you know cases they can prove really bad cases or or maybe it's just because you know that's that's sort of the the system in place the government has set up you know and and there's just there's no real good way around it without a jury. You know if you don't have a jury, it's just like criminal cases. If you just had judges deciding these things, you wouldn't have very many acquittals. I don't think. I mean, you'd have some probably, but Well, I got a story for you. I actually uh uh was representing a young lady. This was years and years ago. And uh her parents were and saying all kinds of things about her to try to justify the court taking her child. And she I got in I was like her second lawyer. I got into the game late. Um and the grandmother was trying to say that that my client had misrepresenting something to a police officer. And uh it was complicated, but long story short, she was saying that that exchange and what happened during that exchange was one of the reasons that they were claiming that they should have custody of the child. Well, it just so happens that the the police officer that was involved in that situation was somebody who had been involved in a grassroots guns rights organization that I'd been a part of in the late '90s during the Clinton administration. And uh you know, so I used to see this guy at the meetings and stuff. And he happened to be in court that day, too. And I saw him. And uh I had him come testify, and he said, "Oh, no, no, that's not what happened at all with you know, what the grandmother was saying." And so I was able, like you said, to get an acquittal. But it was by uh you know, it was extremely providential that I had the uh the evidence at my disposal to get that done. That was That was a That was a great win right there. The The other side was stunned that that had all worked out um to have him there on the same day, and that I had a, you know, I knew the guy and it's like, "Hey, can you come testify?" Um, you know, I saw uh some interesting topics that we might want to cover real quick in some of the comments. If you don't mind uh uh Yeah, go for it. Yeah, so for I saw two things that um that were mentioned. Uh number one, somebody wanted us to talk about the 4D system. I don't know if you do child support at all. I I can certainly uh speak about that at length. And um then uh see, what was the other one? Uh Okay, this one. tapping of phones. Tapping of phones. Now, that's something else uh that I can speak about at length. I actually, that reminds me, I did uh pursue a constitutional uh rights case with regard to tapping of phones in Tennessee. This was a Tennessee case and this was a a person talking about tapping of phones by DCS in Tennessee. So, you have at least one Tennessee fan watching right now and uh a number of years ago um it came to my client a client of mine's attention that uh he had been wiretapped by his wife by his ex-wife. And actually, I think they were still married at the time. I didn't represent him at the time. But uh it it came out he had gotten some of the psychologist records and she had disclosed to the psychologist that uh she had taped him speaking to his 3-year-old daughter uh without his consent. So, you know, and that's a violation. Well, it depends on the issue of what's called vicarious consent. I don't know if have you dealt with some of those wiretapping cases and vicarious consent? Is is Tennessee a one-party consent state or a Yeah. Yes. Okay. They're a one-party consent state. So, uh he uh you know in in throughout the country there are two main camps when it comes to vicarious consent. One is that uh the legis- that the courts will say, "Look, there is no uh vicarious consent exception built into this statute, and we're going to construe the statute narrowly. That's what judges do. They don't create law. Um and because there is no vicarious consent uh provision in this statute, you know, we're going to throw out this this evidence. Usually is Usually there's some kind of you know, wiretapping that's uh that's gone on, and uh it's usually very icky circumstances like a child is talking to their rapist. You know, like somebody's molesting the child, and you know, they're they This doesn't happen as much on the anymore because people have cell phones and text messaging and stuff like that, but you know, before the rise the advent of text messaging, you know, this adult would be calling this child, and the parents would you know, like a neighbor or something, and the child might be crying, and parents are like, "What the heck's going on? My child cries every time they talk to you know, Bob down the street." So, they would wiretap them, and find out that you know, the child has is being molested, and so, you know, this would create a criminal action, and the courts would then have to rule whether or not um whether or not uh this evidence is should be excluded because it's it was obtained illegally. Uh and Iowa was where all this began. I think they were the first state to adopt uh vicarious consent, but some courts like Michigan for instance in Georgia uh they they construed the statute narrowly and said, "Hey look, we don't make law. There's no consent adopted in the statute." And because the wiretapping statutes in almost every state are identical to the federal wiretapping statute which was created back in the '30s or something like that. And so they you know, they didn't think about these issues and there's no uh legislative exception built into the statute. But then like then you have states like Iowa that say, "Well, we don't care. The parents can consent on behalf of their child. That's what happened here. The child can't consent on their own. They're a minor. They don't have the ability to consent and you know, the parents fundamental rights as a parent uh give them the ability to consent on behalf of their child. They're charged with the protection of their child. Um and and therefore we're going to rule that this evidence is not uh is not inadmissible because there's been a one-party consent to this conversation. The child consented via the parents through vicarious consent and therefore, you know, the evidence will be allowed and you know, it leads to the conviction of the child molester. That that was the basis under which the case that that vicarious consent doctrine first got started. I had a very interesting uh path though or interesting argument because we were talking about a wiretapping occurring between uh you know, with another parent with a parent on the other side versus just some third party that has no no uh rights over the child. You know, that was my argument. It's one thing uh to you know, when you're having parents who are up against somebody who has no rights to speak with the child no you know, no right of uh society no no right to be with the child. But when you have two parents who both are charged with uh the responsibility of caring for a child and they both have the benefit of the society of the child is a different dynamic. So, I was representing this husband and uh you know, we found out that uh that he she had wiretapped him during the course of the divorce. And again, I didn't represent him during the divorce, but this was you know, one of those cases that lasted for years and years and years. I mean, they they they couldn't get enough litigation during the divorce. They had to fight and fight and fight. And in fact, uh it's actually they're still not quite completely finished, but all this happened back in the 2009, 2010. Uh and so, we filed a uh we filed a a claim against her in circuit court, not in the family law court, but in circuit court uh over the wiretapping issue. We We actually had three claims against her. We We actually tried It was a jury trial. Uh we had three claims. One was um Uh one was a defamation claim as I recall, which it ended up We thought we were going to have proof for it. We had no proof. We had to dismiss it. One was um you know, uh another kind of unconscionable conduct claim, which went to trial because she accused She was accusing him of uh molesting the child. Uh for for that what that led to That was a very short-lived allegation. It deprived him of his Christmas co-parenting. But uh you know, it was quickly put down. I mean, there was no evidence for it, but you know, he suffered uh you know, he suffered uh you know, harm. I mean, it was very agonizing for him to to you know, be investigated for molesting his child. And the wiretapping was tangential it was it was involved to that involved with that um you know that but she as part of her invest her own investigation wiretapping when when she was talking to the child. So we tried that case and got a hung jury decided not to retry it. And we actually took the wiretapping issue to the court of appeals and they you know dodge the bullet because I was trying to create a kind of a his right to the society of the child versus her right um uh to you know presumably protect the child. Uh and they what they did is they said look there's no bright line rule what's uh a child is 3 years old cannot consent. They don't have the the mental capacity to consent to a telephone conversation. So a parent is going to have a right to vicariously consent to their uh you know to their phone conversations at that age. Now an older child maybe 14-year-old child that that may not be the case. But for a child that age they're going to have the ability to consent and something one factor that I didn't mention was that Tennessee uh has a parental bill of rights which allows a parent to have unimpeded conversations with their child. So that was this I said look the legislature has enshrined this right. That they can have conversations unimpeded. Well I mean if they know that there's a possibility that the other parent is listening on the other side that's going to be an impediment. That's going to put a a cloud over the conversation they're not going to be able to have a uh a robust relationship knowing that the other parent possibly is listening in. So that those are the two things I were trying to uh put together to get some important constitutional uh a premise out of but it didn't work. Yeah, and and I wonder if that extends to the state. So, if the state takes custody that, you know, I want it you know, if if they can So, are you are you saying that that Tennessee is has adopted this this this vicarious liability where parents can consent for recordings or or they haven't? Well, at least that's what I said. They kind of dodged the bullet. They said, "Well, we're not going to draw a a bright line rule here, but certainly for a child that's, you know, 2 or 3 years old um you know, a parent is going to have the ability to consent on behalf of them for the purpose of recording conversations because they just don't have the they don't even know what a recording is necessarily. I mean, I guess in this day and age of cell phones they probably know that, but say if it's a year and a half old child, that child's not going to have the ability to to consent to phone conversations. So, the answer is yes, at least with respect to uh young children, parent uh a parent will be able to consent. And you bring up a great point. If the if the child's in the state's custody then I think the state who's charged with their protection are going to have the ability to consent to recording conversations between the child and other people including a parent. I had this come up to where where um we're we're dealing with a baby baby and one of the parents actually bugged the room to where the visitation was going to take place. And so, they had come up with this this recording and you know, everyone's thinking, "All right. Well, so obviously they're they're they're recording everything, but but didn't necessarily assume that they're they're recording outside of their presence. And you know, and and so they they ended up bugging a room that the visitation with a baby baby is taking place. And the other side found it. I mean, they found it. Oh man, there's a recorder in here. What's this doing here? Turned it on. I mean, looked at it and it's it's recorded all of their all of their visitations, you know, with the baby baby. No one in the room. So, they called the the cops. The cops come. They get the prosecutors involved and they're ready to to charge the other side with a with a felony with felony wiretapping. Mhm. And you know, so that ended up not being litigated because that that provided a pretty good motivation for for, you know, the others the other side to relax and sort of sort of back off. The other the other fairly recent time that I've encountered something like this, and I think the technology is is going to cause this to come up more and more is they have all they have like these new watches and and also phones that you can if you're if you're sending off your kid to go in a visitation with the other party, the technology exists to where like the watch or the phone can can be called from a, you know, via third party by the other parent and pick up pick itself up and start recording GPS information and start recording audio. And you know, that that brings up all sorts of interesting issues and and questions, um you know, of well, what's a what's a felony there first of all and what's not. And then, you know, what what what's admissible and and all that. I think is this technology is expanding so fast. I didn't even know that it existed in one case I I where where uh even my clients were able to go into this app that they had with their daughter and get this GPS information and there there was an allegation of like stalking or something and and that we went back and looked at the GPS information and it showed exactly where this car their car was driving when it stopped how long it stopped for what the location was and how fast it was going and we were able to use that in court to disprove you know false allegations of stalking and and and all sorts of stuff and I didn't even know that technology existed really at the time. And it's scary to to to see what you know you know what information is being being collected at this point. I mean are you seeing that in your cases in Tennessee of of of of all this new technology being used? Yeah, um I've had a case or two where uh some you know like Well, okay, I had one case in juvenile court. Again, remember juvenile court in Tennessee is not just the place where dependence and neglect cases are tried but also where there where they can adjudicate custody between uh unmarried parents. And that's what that's a parentage case is what that's called in Tennessee. Now, they have concurrent jurisdiction with two other court systems, the chancery court and the circuit court system. Um but and they I think back in the day juvenile court had exclusive jurisdiction of that issue but they don't anymore. You can file it in any of three court systems but I had a case that ultimately we won the case because dad got you know I I had all this I spent a ton of money doing discovery on dad. I mean we we went all out and you know my my client's parents helped her. So we you know we could have gone to trial for days and days, and we ended up winning because on one of the trial the first trial day, dad showed up and he tested positive for meth. So, that made for a very easy uh resolution in that particular case, but in the future, when you know, he was allowed to have uh he was allowed to have supervised visitation with his uh parents present. And there was a time where mom would uh would send the child with a GPS tracker because she wanted to make sure that they weren't letting the child go off with him. Now, I can I can say all this because uh at this point, he's basically out of the child's life, and so, you know, we don't have to worry about that situation arising. But, yes, we we used it in that particular situation. In Tennessee, they'll tell you uh they they the courts um their general disposition towards technology is uh when the child comes into your home, and I'm talking mostly in a divorce situation, when the child comes into your home, uh you can do whatever you want with the electronic gizmos that the child brings with them. You can put them in the closet, you can let them keep them going, it's up to you. Tennessee does provide for uh two phone calls per week for uh the parent who currently does not have physical custody. So, if you have a, you know, week on, week off child custody arrangement, you know, the the parent that does not have physical custody will be able to have two phone calls during that week. You can always contract or, you know, order to have more, but you have to have at least two, and there are no rights whatsoever to text, uh have, you know, Facebook messages or anything like that. Or even, you know, actually there are no rights even right now. We're a little bit behind the times probably to have any FaceTime messages. You can have phone calls. That's That's what's allowed in Tennessee. I mean, what are we talking I'm sorry, go ahead. Well, no, let's let's finish this uh let's finish this topic before we get to the 4D. Yeah, uh let's see. Uh So, as far as I mean, what what's your advice as far as, you know, if if people I mean, I think a lot of this custody stuff, especially with our guardian ad litem type of litigation, is it's really turned into, as much as the family courts will let you do, is like presenting screenshots of text from each other or or from Facebook Messenger or whatever. And so, everybody's saving every screenshot. And there's not a whole lot of phone calls to to record necessarily, but but uh I mean, I think it's a good question that people might have is is, you know, fathers in particular, like what can they do or should they do to protect themselves from false allegations or just to preserve evidence, you know, if they're looking at custody litigation in in their future or false allegations in their future. I mean, what's Have you found a way that, you know, is a is what you think is the best way to to sort of, you know, CYA? Well, I mean, I I'll tell you I've I have at times advised my client, you better walk around with a tape recorder or video camera or something like that. And I surely don't do that in every case, but uh there have been cases where I've said you can't take a chance. Uh and it's it's been helpful from From time. I see Becky Henderson Does DHS in Tennessee represent? No. No. The uh the prosecutor's office that prosecutes uh violations of the general criminal laws of the state of Tennessee do not pursue child dependency and neglect cases. Those are pursued by lawyers that work for the state Department of Children's Services. So, those those are two separate uh institutions. Um I'm not hearing you right now. Oh, I'm sorry. It's not that way here. I said it I'm sure the prosecutors here in West Virginia wish that they weren't responsible for this, but it's the prosecutors that litigate all the all of the abuse and neglect cases. They don't have any sort of separate counsel for that, which Wow. You'd think that you'd think that it would make sense to separate them. Man, they West Virginia should really take a look at Tennessee's system. I mean, Tennessee's system is not perfect. I get aggravated sometimes by it. I sometimes I think people are treated unfairly, particularly uh in in small counties. You know, I do most of my work in, you know, bigger counties, including Knox County. And they're, you know, the county serve the metropolitan area of Knox County uh you know, all of those county most of them, not all of them are pretty sizable. And so, I think when you get uh you know, larger counties, you get uh I don't know, more professionalism sometimes. You know, the the problem with smaller counties is you know, you'll have somebody who they go to college, they come back, they get a job where they came from. And, you know, they didn't like uh Bobby Sue in high school, and you know, now they have power. And it takes, you know, I mean, if you have somebody that wields that kind of power and they don't wield it with integrity, you can cause real problems with with people. But, something like that is not uh is likely to occur uh you know, in a bigger county cuz because there's a lot of oversight, whereas, you know, in a rural county, you may only have one uh one caseworker. And so, you you better be on that person's good side, right? Um and the other thing that that I don't know if it's the same way, but it's hard to to have accountability in in in this process, whether abuse neglect or or the family court system, when every absolutely everything is confidential. So, I've seen I've seen I've had a lot of people call me about you know, the the judges have issued basically gag orders on the litigants, so they I saw I think I talked to one lady who tried to report what had happened to her to like the FBI or something, and the judge actually came down on her for that and says, you know, you you're not allowed to release these, you know, confidential proceedings on to any social media, to any news media, to any to anyone. And and it was like she had she had gone to the FBI allegedly. So, you know, it it creates a process where the you know, I think at the very least it perpetuates, you know, people believing that that it's a corrupt system, that it's protecting itself, and and you can't even tell anybody about it because it's just all confidential. And so many other things aren't confidential, but yet we've decided that, you know, just even like child support cases in West Virginia, you know, confidential, you can't can't access the records or release it to anybody, but yet, you know, they you know, they can charge somebody, you know, with a sex offense, making them a registered sex offender, and absolutely every detail of their lives is is, you know, mandated to be public public information, but it it that way in Tennessee where, you know, you you everything absolutely everything is confidential related to these? Um yeah, I just wanted to note I'm sorry for the inappropriate laughter. I looked at a comment that uh like you were talking that that was a little amusing, but um yeah, Tennessee uh that that in fact you you bring to light one of my um dislikes about the Tennessee system. And that is that there is no accountability for somebody who wants to abuse the child welfare reporting system. And I've certainly represented people uh you know that have been visited time and time and time again, you know, like because an ex-spouse or, you know, an ex-mother-in-law uh repeatedly reports them to uh uh the child protective services and they get hassled. And you know, and sometimes, you know, that the the CPS people will be like, "I'm sorry I have to do this again. You know, can I see your house?" And they they go through that rigmarole. Uh and there's no accountability for people making these false allegations because all reports to child welfare authorities are confidential. And you can't pierce that it is an impenetrable wall. There's no way you should go that you can get through it. You can't get through it with discovery. You can't get through it with, you know, the judge won't give you any exception. You will not find out uh who are making or who is making these uh these false allegations. You know, and generally they they occur when there's not even any litigation. It's It's I believe that there ought to be some uh like a a government ombudsman that that uh uh, people who are being harassed by the department uh, because of repeated uh, invalid um, reports. They they ought to have an ombudsman that they could go to who could be empowered to pursue people who are making frivolous allegations. Now, the the only place where there's an except exception for that is if somebody makes a um, false uh, child sexual abuse allegation. And in that particular situation district attorneys are empowered to pursue them for that false uh, abuse allegation. But in practice I don't think I don't know if anybody's ever been prosecuted for, you know, making a false child abuse allegation. And and by the way, while we we earlier discussed that uh, there is a separation between the uh, the people that pursue removing custody from parents who uh, have been accused of dependency neglect. And there's a separation between that and uh, the criminal justice system when it comes to uh, abuse sexual abuse allegations uh, there is what is called a SIPIT assembled. It's a child protective investigation team. SIPIT CPI T that's the acronym. So, that's how uh, the district attorney would even be aware of um, you know, these kind these uh, false allegations or whether or not an allegation is false. And of course, you know, in child dependency situations, I mean sometimes the parents are accused of dependency neglect because they're abusing the child. It's not always you know, neglect like, you know, they left they uh, you know, failed to watch over their child adequately or something like that or they're you know they're uh, uh you know constantly suffering from substance abuse. Uh so you know I mean criminal uh prosecutions do result from these uh you know dependency neglect allegations but they're just you know criminal prosecutors are not the ones separating the children from their parents in in the family court what you call family court what we call juvenile court. Uh do you do you want to talk about 4D or do you want to keep exploring that particular issue? Yeah well yeah hit hit that. What what is what is 4D? I've never heard of it. Well uh that's the child support side of family law. Um the 4D program is it's it's title 4D of the uh Social Security Act of 1996. And that was the uh that was the act that created the centralization or the central child support receiving units for child support in every state. Every state receives these funds from uh you know from the federal government and you know as as part of the deal to get these federal funds they states had to set up these centralized child support receiving units. And um so no longer were counties collecting child support. It was all going to this you know this state entity. And also as part of this deal states were required to pursue people not paying child support uh you know to recover to the extent possible monies expended for uh families that were receiving welfare. So, you know, if you're if you've if you're a single mother and you've signed your children up for uh health care, in Tennessee they call it TennCare, because you meet the means testing requirement, or if you're receiving What do they call it now? It's It's not AFDC anymore. It's uh Tennessee Assistance, TANF, Tennessee Assistance Assistance for Needy Families. If you're receiving some kind of a welfare benefit, then the state is required to pursue child support from the parent uh who is not the custodial parent. You know, they're going to have a duty to pay child support. So, uh 4D is what created this system. And uh 4D child support lawyers that are appointed as part of this 4D program to pursue the uh uh non-paying or the people that owe child support, they also have to offer their services to anybody. They They can't They can't just limit it to uh people who are receiving welfare benefits. They have to pursue child support on behalf of of anyone. Uh so, there's there's not as much uh outside of divorce cases, people don't uh hire lawyers to pursue child support as much as they used to. I do get a case every now and then because when you when you get uh when people are part of the 4D system, you know, they're a number. I mean, a 4D lawyer might uh and by 4D lawyer, what happens is uh county by county, they they will uh at least in Tennessee, they contract either with the the prosecutor's office or uh uh private contractors to pursue child support. And so they you know, they hire lawyers to that's all they do all day long is is file child support cases and appear in court on them. And so you know, they might show up to court with you know, 30 cases on their docket or something like that. And you know, sometimes people don't they want a uh more uh a personal approach. Maybe they have some unusual aspects to their case and so you know, you I still get child support cases sometimes where I'm pursuing rather than defending a child support case, but that's that's what 4D is in a nutshell. It's an attempt to recoup uh welfare monies expended on behalf of uh people who should also be receiving child support. Yeah, it's like a like a subrogation type of deal uh for for welfare benefits. That's kind of what it is. Yeah, that's a great analogy. Yeah, I I dealt with this the other day with uh a guy that was in the military and you know, he wasn't even on the birth certificate, told it wasn't his child. Um they had been married, but they had they had the child after the the divorce. No mention of of a pregnancy and it and it it was sort of a gray area. It could have could have been possible, could have not been possible and and so they came after this guy and uh and in the end we got the court to order a DNA test to to to see whether or not it was actually his child, but they I mean, yeah, the the mom didn't even ask for it, just applied for benefits and then boom, automatically they they came after the alleged dad who wasn't even on the birth certificate of any or anything, but like everything else the federal government's gotten involved and and dictated you know, all this stuff and and uh you know, it it's like it's like the the the size of the federal, you know, the the the size of the the body of like the federal register and and uh that controls our daily lives. Like we don't we don't even know. I mean, they have this whole class of lawyers that like most people never even heard of dictated by federal law. Uh but that's Yeah, here they call it the they have a whole bureaucracy around this. They call it the Bureau of Child Support and Enforcement or something like that. And I actually had them come after one time a a proceeds from a Section 1983 action where this guy was beat up by police and we had a good case. It was caught on video. It was in the news. Next thing you know, I get this notice from this bureau of All right, he's got back child support. And this guy's like he's like 50 years old or something. So, I mean, this is from like 30 years ago. And so, with interest he had a kid you know, that that's now like 30-something years old. And so, we have this lawsuit that's in the news and next thing you know, they're serving me with a lien that they got a court order for from child support from when this 30-something-year-old guy was a kid and with interest this guy never made any money either. It was just imputed child support. He wasn't involved in it that or they just imputed uh minimum wage or something for years and years and years and then they they tacked interest onto it. So, meanwhile years later, I settle this case and it was just it was a six-figure settlement, a good settlement. And I had to cut them a check before he got a dollar. And it was I had to pay all of it with with interest and everything. There was nothing I could do. It was crazy. It was the craziest thing. It's like I was not anticipating that when I filed the lawsuit that I'd have to be paying off this guy's child support. But but you know, what do you know? They they they're very diligent about that. I mean, they're they're looking everywhere for for child support. Other, you know, other government benefits, no, they they don't care if it ever gets reimbursed. For some reason, they they they've just got a complete like hard-on for for child support. Well, no, I'll tell you why. Because, um they get the states you know, some of the states' money, the some of the block grants are based upon the percentage of recovery. And that's actually created a uh um a problem or or controversy in Tennessee over the past 5 years. Uh they were looking to increase their uh recovery percentage. You know, to get a better, you you know, block grant or something from the federal government. And so, there were people in the Department of Human Services Administration, the bureaucracy, who were wanting to actually lower child support for, you know, for the for everybody. So, that because Tennessee has Tennessee has a child support guidelines. It's it's kind of a uh we have what's called called income sharing, where they take the the parents' uh uh incomes into account and the number of days they spend. Like, I I I say there there are two main variables when it comes to child support in Tennessee. Uh the the number of days that each parent spends with the child or children, and then what their incomes are. And they take these uh these two figures, these two variables, and they plug them into an Excel spreadsheet, basically, and come up with what your child support obligation is if you're the uh well, it it doesn't even matter if you're the the uh custodial parent. Because, I actually represented a guy one time who was the custodial parent. He had a 2/3, 1/3 time-sharing situation. Mom had 1/3. Uh and he made about he was making about $125,000 a year. She was making about $35,000 a year. And he was going to have to pay her child support because he made so much more money. And that's just how the child support worksheet played out. Uh what happened though was this was right this was like 2007 2008. He was in a He was an architect and his his income went down because of the the real estate crash. So he wasn't going to owe her money anymore. And uh that case went away because she was going to go back to owe him money and she decided to drop it. But uh anyways, those are the two two main variables. Um and well, shoot. I forget where I was going with that thing. Uh you have uh uh these uh child support receiving units though that uh their whole goal is to to maximize the percentage. And and like I said in Tennessee, what was happening is they wanted to lower child support for for everybody. You know, change how the the dynamics of this child support calculator so that they would have a greater recovery rate for the the uh people that they have to go chase down. And you know, that that created quite an uproar for you know, you know, family law attorneys cuz they were like, hey and as well as uh you know, child support referees, magistrates because they're like, you know, we we create child support to help the person who's uh you know, caring for these children for a purpose. Not not so the state can maximize its economic uh block grant recovery, but you know, to help the people who need money to raise children. So it it was very interesting to see how these uh uh bureaucrats who don't have anything to do with family law trying to drive the amount of child support that people receive so that they could increase their federal grant money. They're That's a an irony for you right there. Yeah, it it's crazy that the this whole area of family law and and child welfare and all the stuff, it's such a huge body of law. There's so much to know. And it it it really is I mean it's hard to to stay on top of it. It it really is. Uh What What do you think I mean from I mean you've done this a long time. I mean what What do I mean what do you think uh people need What do you think they need to know that that that they don't realize about I mean so much of child custody litigation is just the facts. I mean you can't make up your own facts. They are what they are. You can present them You can hire a better lawyer. You can present them in a different way, but what's I mean what's I mean what's your advice on what people can do just to you know make sure that they you know that they're putting themselves in the best position they can if they're looking at at custody litigation um that that they may not realize. I mean something that's not obvious. Yeah. Well, first of all uh people need to I think part of what they need to do is manage their expectations because this is not the 1950s anymore. And you know, I still get calls, "Oh, so-and-so cheated on me." Um you know you know, I want to go after full custody. And those you know, nowadays you can be a bad spouse and a good parent. And people need to to come to terms with that and understand that probably uh if if there's been infidelity, it's probably going to have little or no impact on child custody. Uh that that's one thing. Uh they they need and then on top of that, they need to understand that family law court is not a place to exact a pound of flesh. I remember one time there was this was not a uh it was not a case that involved custody, but you know, the chancellor said this is a business deal basically. He was saying, you know, we need to get down to talking about uh what's really at stake here, which is the division of a marital estate. So, you know, don't don't talk to me about, you know, who done who wrong is kind of where many judges come from now. They they're about, you know, dividing the marital estate up in a in an equitable manner and as I said in Tennessee, and they're not going to get uh they're they're not going to be interested in uh you know, going after somebody for their misconduct. That that's not going to be an issue. They're they're not there to say, "Well, you were a really bad spouse." So, I think, you know, managing people's expectations go a long way and and recognizing whether it's just or not just in terms, you know, in moral terms, that uh being a bad spouse doesn't mean in the court's eyes that you're going to be a bad parent. So, then you need to Once you can uh once you can you know, get that aspect, you you can separate those concepts, then you can start thinking rationally about, you know, what I call the reasonable range of outcomes. That's what I When I talk to people about their case, like when they come consult with me, I I talk about you know, what the range of reasonable range of outcomes are. And um you know, and and the goal is to you know, get the two parties inside that reasonable range of outcomes and then you can then you can come to a settlement and and you can do that pretty quickly. You know, a case that starts out contested that settles quickly, you're going to spend three or five thousand dollars. Case that goes to trial, you're going to spend 30, 50, 80 thousand dollars more. I mean, it depends how much discovery you do. So, divorce cases are extraordinarily expensive. I recognize that. I hate it. Uh but that's the way it is. Um and so, if you can you know, if if both parties can uh be you know, reasonable, then you know, they can get out of that unfortunate circumstance relatively unscathed. Now, I see somebody mentioning something about parental alienation. Now, see, so much of what drives family law litigation is because you don't have two reasonable people. You have somebody that, you know, maybe they're a narcissist. Um and um and so, you're not going to be able to to settle the case. They have unreal unrealistic expectations or maybe their lawyer's giving them bad advice. And uh they don't you know, part of a lawyer's job in family law is to manage expectations and to say and and to help people divorce themselves from emotional attachments like to a house or something like that. I remember I had a case where I I tried, you know, we effectively came out with the same outcome in mediation after a trial. You know, we were say 15 thousand dollars into a case and you know, and I I had made an offer that you know, said sell the house, my client will pay alimony for a certain amount for certain number of years and we're done. Well, the uh the wife had, you know, an emotional attachment to the house because like her dad helped them get the land and he helped build it and blah blah blah. Well, that emotional attachment cost tens of thousands of dollars because uh she she insisted on having the house and the other lawyer tried to wrangle it uh in such a way that, you know, alimony kind of represented that my client would pay was his share of the house. And and I told him, "Judge, he's not going to do that. I don't know why we're arguing this." And finally, at the final argument, my adverse counsel stopped arguing that and he said, "Okay, Judge, we're asking for this much alimony." And he realized that, you know, that that argument just wasn't going to fly. Well, you know, my client had to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get to that point that we could have been out of mediation. So, you want to get a a lawyer that's going to um not uh tickle the ears of their client, but but uh is going to speak truth to them and help them understand what the reasonable range of outcomes are. And of course, you got to hope that your You got to hope that your uh spouse is your ex or soon-to-be ex-spouse's lawyer is going to do the same thing because that's how you can get uh cases settled in a reasonable way. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I've told people before and I think it's true that, you know, a good lawyer, you know, can be expensive, but a bad lawyer can be even more expensive for both sides. And unfortunately, we, you know, we uh that's something you don't know necessarily is, well, is the other side going to hire a lawyer and if they do, who's that going to be? Because there are particular lawyers that they could choose who are going to make this process a whole lot more expensive because you can't deal with them, you can't talk any sense into them, and they're always wanting to go down a certain road rather than, you know, really try to try to work something out. I I think family I agree as well. I mean, a lot of people they just want to go in and throw bombs in family court and I think there's a time to do that, you know, when you have to if when you're backed into a corner. But ideally, you you want to work something out before you get into court and not leave it up to a stranger, the judge, you know, to do it. So, you you know, you use It's It's an area of the law where I think good advice can go a long way. You know, and it's not just, you know, pure litigation. It's There's a lot of just advice to give based on seeing things go wrong so many times. And I think I think I like the advice about, you know, manage expectations because everybody has, you know, unreal expectations and that I've heard that same thing a lot is I'm going from I want full custody, you know, I want full custody and and that that's just not that's just not how it works anymore, you know, not not usually anyways. Um but yeah, I I That's just the sort of thing that that stuff I was looking for. What if for people in Tennessee, what's what's the I mean, who who might have some sort of need for your assistance What's assistance? What's the best way for them to get in touch with you? Uh andrewfoxlaw.com is my website. Now, I'm I'm in a what's called an office sharing association. It's called Gilbert and Fox Law Firm. Um the the guy I practice law with, Roger Gilbert, he does personal injury and workers comp, so we don't overlap. That That's the name of the law firm, Gilbert and Fox Law Firm. My individual website is called andrewfoxlaw.com. And this this guy Duck asked, "How can you win if the game is rigged?" And here here's here's what I think is the only the only good answer to any of this is that unfortunately when when you have a child with somebody or you get married to somebody, the other party is almost always going to have the unilateral ability to make your life a living hell if if they want to. And there's not a whole lot you can do about that. You know, for you know, I I I had one guy represent three false allegations of sexual assault of a child, beat all three of them. And still has to deal with that person. I mean, the the government, the prosecutors, the police didn't do anything about it, didn't punish that person. So, yeah, all it takes is is you know, he said, she said to really, like I said, make your life a living hell. And the only thing that you can absolutely do to prevent that scenario is to is to invent a time machine, go back in time, and not marry that person or not have a child with that person, which is obviously not an option. So, it's just something you have to deal with, which is which is usually should be great motivation to do whatever you got to do, whether it's by manipulation or just being a nice guy or a nice nice woman to keep the other person happy even if things aren't fair because they you know, you if they're crazy, if they're crazy enough or they go off the deep end, I mean, they can cause you all sorts of problems. But, yeah, I don't know if you if you agree with that or or uh Well, have a different take on it. I Well, one thing I would say is don't uh you know, make sure that uh before you get married that uh you You a lot of time with that person. Don't get married after 3 months or 6 months or I mean I I dated my wife for 4 years before we got married. So, you know, there there uh uh can be a lot of problems if you don't know who you're getting involved in or involved with on the front end. Someone had mentioned why why get married. I I think that's that's the conclusion a lot of people have have come to is is they don't get married. Yeah, of course, you know, I mean I'm uh I'm uh a Christian, so I you know, I believe in the biblical uh family model and uh you know, um I I think that can be a very successful model if if both people are oriented correctly. And I think well, I'll say the re nature or you know, I I of course again, you know, I I like the biblical model of uh family, but I think if you even look at uh you know, non you know, people that are not been uh afforded exposure to that throughout the years have always the family is the best the nuclear family is the best model for uh for raising children. And uh you know, you can look at like I said, you can look at East Eastern Asian countries, Japan and South Korea that they they have that they have that biblical or they have that model and weren't ever exposed to Christianity. So, uh I think that that's why you get married because if you want to have children, most people do, that gives them the best opportunity to be successful. It's not perfect. We're in a fallen world, a broken world, nothing's perfect. But that's the best model you have. And And by the way, here's my little uh a little uh phrase I have when it comes to, you know, family law cases and and court and stuff. It's that uh court is a terrible remedy, but it's the only one you have. So, if if things aren't working out, you know, that's what you're stuck with. I did see somebody mention something about mediation. Yes, mediation uh people can mediate cases before they file for divorce. In fact, in Tennessee, you have to mediate a case before you can go to trial. You have to mediate a family law case to try to get it to settle. And that can be very very helpful. Yeah, it's uh They don't do a whole They They make you do mediation in a car wreck case in West Virginia. Pretty much every other kind of case, but I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I've I've ever seen a a requirement to mediate a family law case, whether divorce or or custody. And And a lot of times that you just there's an informal mediation, just a meeting to try to negotiate things, but nothing with the with the um influence and zeal of of an actual, you know, formal mediator. And it's it's I think I've realized if anything else in our conversation here is is that West Virginia has a lot of issues, you know, systematic issues to use a a the popular word of the day, that can be easily remedied by by looking to a state like Tennessee that's dealt with the same stuff and figured out a better way of doing things. You know, a a better way of preserving people's rights, of being more fair, and and looking after the best interests of the the children. But uh But anyways, uh probably I'll wrap it up with that. Um Yeah, I I appreciate you you coming on to deal with this. You know, it's not it's not the most glamorous topic, but it's it's probably the one that touches people the most. I mean it and it affects them the most. I mean I know cuz I I get I get a lot of phone calls and probably the majority of them have to do with children or custody or whether from the state or or judges or whatever than than anything else. I mean it it really does it really does affect people like and in a what in a wide wide swath of society. Yeah. Yeah, well thanks again for having me on. It was my pleasure to uh carry this conversation on with you and yeah and hear the differences and I I I hope you guys it sounds like West Virginia has an antiquated system is how I would put it. They need to modernize. Well, the funny thing is is that we just we just our legislature just created a intermediate court of appeals because we didn't have one here. And so now we're we're getting all new judges for this intermediate court of appeals and that that might help this topic some because I think it's going to it might speed up some of the the process of the of all this abuse and neglect stuff that that's clogging the systems, but you know, I don't know how much of many of these reforms have really been brought up to the West Virginia legislature or whether they they know about a lot of these problems and maybe other people don't agree as as much as I do, but but I've I've definitely heard from people, you know, you know, widespread complaints and I've I've seen problems myself like I said with the whole guardian ad litem system and and pretty much everything else that we talked about. So I'll I'll have to take a closer look at at Tennessee's laws and you know, maybe the next legislative session if you know, it it it's it's a shame that they you know, they won't rein in our governor, but if they're they're willing to to work on the the the justice system then I guess we can we can tackle that. Uh And also you will have to talk again about you know, your you know, the the continued effort at at fighting some of the these you know, your governor and as we're fighting our governor over here. And uh but that's you know, that that's just a whole another video by itself as you know. Look forward to it. Yeah, again thanks thanks for coming and uh have to have you on again soon. All right. All right, see you later Andy. All right, so that was Andy Fox again a divorce attorney from Tennessee and also he's been involved filing a lot of the legal challenges to some of the Tennessee governor's tyranny which I don't think is as bad as we've been dealing with over here. But he's been you know, a an advocate for our constitutional rights at the same time as sort of working his day job as a as a divorce attorney in in Tennessee. And like I said, this is this is one of the topics that I hear about most often is has to do with you know, what constitutional rights do you have? What due process rights do you have? Do you have the right to an attorney when they come in and take your kids from you or threaten to? And these are complex topics and there are answers to a lot of this stuff. You know, there are constitutional rights to be a parent. But it has it's it's a very limited very limited effect on on reality other than other than yeah, you have you are entitled to due process and a hearing and and all this sort of thing, but it may not make you may not like the result of the hearing. But there it looks like it's hard to believe that our system is so different than Tennessee, you know, in West Virginia. All of my complaints, 70% of them it sounds like have been solved and or at least made better in Tennessee. And as usual West Virginia usually runs like 48th, 49th, 50th in solving problems. And this is a a problem in West Virginia. Like he said, grandparents raising kids, that's happening a lot in West Virginia. I mean grandparent grandparents are doing a large amount of the parenting in the state because of the drug problem. Um for for any number of reasons I suppose, but it brings up a lot of constitutional issues, I think, when when it you have at the same time this foster system and then you have money being paid and choices of foster parents instead of grandparents. There's lots of complex issues here. Uh Daniel, please do a show on how to gin up civil rights cases against cops. Well, that's pretty much mostly every other show that I do. But this is really an underserved, especially by myself, area of of civil right It like I said, it's not as it's not as glamorous, but it it's something, you know, here's the thing. What what can you do if if there is a 14th Amendment federal constitutional right to be a parent and that the government has to comply with those rights, you can educate yourself on those rights. And I read some of the Supreme Court cases in the area of of parental rights that you can review so that you can conform your conduct with, you know, what the what the standards are. So, that's something that's something that you can do. Uh what else can you do? Let's see. You can make sure that your attorney is able to educate the court on matters of, you know, the fact that you have a fundamental right to be a parent, to have a relationship with your your child, to keep your family together, and that there are limitations on a court's ability to intrude into that fundamental right. And it might require, you know, a different strategy. And attorneys can develop ways to present evidence in such a way that you can demonstrate this interference with, you know, a father's right to have relationship with his child and that what the government is doing and it may just be through a a a family court judge or a guardian ad litem is an interference on that right, the the right to to exercise your fundamental right to be with your child, to to have a family, and keep the government out of it. I mean, the fact is is that there's a lot of case law out there on this. Um the right to raise children as you choose, Meyer versus Nebraska, Supreme Court, 1923. Uh Pierce versus Society of Sisters, Supreme Court, 1925. The right to make decisions about children, Wis- Wisconsin versus Yoder, 1972. Troxel versus Granville, 2000, another big one. Again, these are all US Supreme Court cases. Um other constitutional protections, uh Prince versus Massachusetts, 1944. Stanley versus Illinois, 1972. And a lot of times when the courts gets it get get into interfering with your your right to to get married, um they use Well, they now they just like to apply it towards the LGBTQ stuff, but it used to apply to just um husband and wife uh being married and have the right to be a family without the government interfering. Uh, there's the right to procreate cases, Skinner versus Oklahoma, 1942, Griswold versus Connecticut, 1965. These are all Supreme Court. Eisenstadt versus Baird, 1972. And of course, Roe versus Wade, 1973. Uh, do you have a right to a lawyer? And, uh, and not family court cases, but where they come take your kids, abuse neglect style cases, yeah. Yeah, Lassiter versus Department of Social Services, 1981. The court held that parents have a due process right to a fundamentally fair procedure that may require the appointment of counsel. What rights do unfit parents have? Santosky versus Kramer, Supreme Court, 1982. So, the US Supreme Court found that even after parents are found unfit in a contested court proceeding, that they still do retain constitutionally protected parental rights. There's other issues you can get into. For instance, with the confrontation clause. If the government comes in and takes a statement from a child, you know, can that be admitted as hearsay evidence, say it at subsequent criminal trial? This has come up before. Confrontation clause and and children's statements. There was a US Supreme Court case on this. Something versus Ohio. Let's see, what was it? Let me look that up since I mentioned it. Ohio versus Clark, I was close. So, when when do you have the right to a confront your accusers? They held it as a three-part test. Was it a statement made in the context of an ongoing emergency, investigation of child abuse, who did the questioning, was it a teacher or law enforcement, was it informal and spontaneous, was there any indication that it was to gather evidence, what was the child's age? So, there's all sorts of law out there that's really under touch because it's not something that's great or necessarily fun to talk about. All right. So, thanks for watching and I'm going to do a video on Wednesday about about a topic I much prefer to talk about and that is about the Second Amendment because just today the Supreme Court um announced maybe it was yesterday, I don't know. But, the Supreme Court is hearing a Second Amendment case. And and so, I'm going to have somebody from the Gun Owners of America here to talk about that on Wednesday. So, please join me Wednesday night 6:30 and we'll talk gun stuff. And appreciate you joining me and uh appreciate Andy Fox for joining me again. And I'll see you next time to talk about guns.