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Who is getting the children?
NWI Times
Mar 3, 1996
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/who-is-getting-the-children/article_07575e28-5791-5f79-a1fbb78abda66cb9.html
GAL* DIVORCES
No. of Cases Filed Disposed
1994 30 901 897
1995 30 873 830
*Guardian Ad Litem (indicates number of cases to which a GAL was appointed or reappointed)
Source: Porter County Court Administrator
Fees paid to attorneys serving as guardians ad litem
1994 $8,596
1995 $6,180
Source: Porter County Auditor's Office
Editor's note: Porter Superior Court Judge Thomas W. Webber Sr. has asked sheriff's police to investigate complaints against a court volunteer, Beatrice Lightfoot, who serves as a guardian ad litem for children in family court. But Lightfoot says she's being unfairly targeted by families who don't understand her role. Here's a portrait of how and why courts intercede as a family disintegrates.
"In April 1993 he moved to Arizona to find a job and found a girlfriend instead. He came back in July and took the children. I went (to Arizona) in December to try to get the children." - Sharon Reed
Nearly three years later, Reed is still trying to retrieve her children.
The experience introduced Reed to a house of horrors called divorce.
To Reed, complicating the picture, rather than helping, was the court's appointment of a guardian ad litem to represent the best interests of her children.
Reed, like other parents who recently have come forward, is convinced the guardian ad litem, Beatrice Lightfoot of Chesterton, caused her children to be taken away.
But Lightfoot says parents overestimate the influence and authority of a guardian ad litem.
What is a guardian ad litem?
Addressing the issue when Reed's complaints surfaced nearly two years ago was Ann M. Haralambie, a lawyer who specializes in family and juvenile law in Tucson.
According to the Civitas Child Law Center at Loyola University Chicago, Haralambie "literally wrote the book" on the issue.
She is the author of "The Child's Attorney" and the two-volume tome, "Handling Child Custody Cases." The American Law Institute-American Bar Association awarded her a special merit award in 1993, in part for the latter book. She travels the country, training judges and lawyers in child custody issues.
"A major point I make in that book is that nobody knows what the heck the role (of a guardian ad litem) is," Haralambie says.
"In concept, the guardian ad litem is supposed to represent the child's best interests to the extent a guardian ad litem can figure out what that is.
"Various (state) statutes may have nothing beyond the court may appoint a guardian ad litem. Some states have very, very specific rules."
In Indiana, the statute specifies that a "guardian ad litem" and a "court-appointed special advocate" may subpoena witnesses, present evidence, perform investigations and prepare reports for the court.
The terms are used interchangeably. And their goals are the same.
"The idea is to put as much information before a judge as possible so a judge can make a full, informed recommendation," according to Scott Newton, a spokesman for Child Advocates in Marion County.
This non-profit agency trains and supervises a court-appointed special advocate program, also called CASA, for abused and neglected children who come under court supervision through the intervention of child welfare authorities.
Meanwhile, in Porter County, the role of the guardian ad litem has evolved to serve a different child: one who is struggling within an unraveling marriage.
Why a guardian ad litem?
Over the course of nearly three years, Reed's now ex-husband, Thomas L. Morris, was granted custody of their two sons and a divorce -- in that order -- in Arizona.
Reed couldn't afford the fees quoted by local attorneys to handle the complex dissolution, custody and jurisdictional issues. Nor did legal aid services prove to be interested or adequate to undertake the case, according to Reed.
While Reed struggled with getting heard across state lines, Porter Superior Court Judge Thomas W. Webber, at the request of the Arizona court, ordered a home study by Porter County child welfare authorities.
He also appointed Lightfoot as guardian ad litem. Lightfoot, 63, previously served as a CASA in juvenile court but moved to family court as a guardian ad litem in recent years. She is the county's only guardian ad litem who is not an attorney and is highly regarded by county judges and magistrates for donating her services.
Attorneys are paid out of the county's legal services funds, though at a lower than standard rate. The county most recently approved a maximum rate of $75 an hour.
Reed says Lightfoot appeared at the door of her Portage trailer at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning.
She acknowledges the trailer "was a mess."
"The living room was fairly trashed because boxes were in the living room to be sorted for spring cleaning," Reed says. "And I had four little kittens running around at the time.
"She said she wasn't here to judge my house. She was under court order to be spokesperson for the children.
"I told her about (Morris') police record and that he took the children. I told her without the children I'd have nothing to live for."
Morris, meanwhile, was living in a four-bedroom, tri-level home belonging to Jean Peck of Mesa.
A custody evaluation by Arizona authorities says Morris told them he had relocated to Mesa in April 1993 to seek housing and employment in anticipation of moving his family there.
Morris added he instead was informed by Reed that she was seeking a divorce.
He returned to Indiana to pick up the boys with Reed's approval. He and the boys resided with Peck beginning in July 1993, following Peck's separation from her husband.
A schoolteacher reported to the court that "there are definite tensions" between her sixth-grade pupil, his parents, and their new partners.
"Sharon is very good at weaving webs of untruth." - Thomas Morris.
Morris says the guardian ad litem's "main concern was the trailer was filthy, and Sharon would leave them alone there when she went to work until she felt like coming home."
The couple's children were 10 and 12 at the time of Morris' comments.
Morris expresses concerns about Reed's housekeeping and her boyfriend.
"There is a matter of a pistol put in their face."
He acknowledges he has a felony record, saying prosecutors dropped all the charges except criminal confinement. "That was 17 years and if they dig up my file from day one, that's everything except for some bogus checks with her name on it."
Court records indicate Morris was charged with rape, sexual deviate conduct and two counts of criminal confinement on March 14, 1978, for his attack on two women whose car had broken down in Highland.
In a plea agreement, Morris pleaded guilty to criminal confinement and was sentenced to two years in Westville Correctional Center.
He substantiates Reed's allegations that he answered "swinger magazine ads" and indulged in pornography, but says "90 percent were to fuel her fantasies."
"We can't understand why they can't be with their mother." Jerry Setters.
Thomas Morris' aunt, Jerry Setters, says she's written to the Arizona courts supporting her nephew's former wife.
"He's lived with us since he was 17. He just did whatever he wanted," Setters says about her nephew. "He could pull the wool over anybody's eyes, and that's what he's doing in Arizona.
"I did write to the (Arizona) commissioner stating (things) about Tom and his life here, and I guess it didn't do any good."
Setters says Reed "has always worked and taken care of the kids. Tommy didn't work that much."
It's unclear what information made its way to Porter County and Arizona authorities because reports by Lightfoot are considered confidential.
But one handwritten report to the Arizona court on Aug. 26, 1994, makes no mention of interviews with Reed, her family or employer.
The report says Morris loves his sons and feels Reed leaves them alone, and it relates hearsay accounts by Peck and her daughter, Mindy, about the boys.
The report concludes with Lightfoot's recommendation that the Peck home is the best placement for the boys, that Reed needs parenting classes and to move out of the trailer.
"Not only (are) the boys not safe here, they aren't safe in this park when no one's at home, no food cooked, dirty home. They are raising themselves. They will be in trouble soon," the report says.
When originally contacted about Reed's allegations nearly two years ago, Lightfoot said the trailer was not an issue. "I own Oak Tree Trailer Park. I've owned it for 20 some years and I have nothing against trailer parks.
"Are (children) fed, clothed, supervised? Those are the things I look for.
"My job is not the park, my job is the children," she said. "I don't make any determination of where they go or who has custody."
But it's known the Arizona court made its determination without a home study on Reed by local child welfare authorities as it ordered -- because none ever took place.
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