Showing Evidence Is the Best Way to Defend against It.
Video Transcribed: How can you defend against an emergency custody order at show cause? My name is Brian L. Jackson. I am a father’s rights lawyer in Oklahoma here with Dads.Law, where fathers are not disposable.
Today, I want to talk to you guys about what to do if you’re served with an emergency order and how to defend against that. An emergency custody order is what I’m talking about. So the first thing to understand about that is when you go to show cause, the burden of proof is going to be on her to establish cause for why the court should sustain the emergency. And she’s going to have to show that there’s a threat ongoing of imminent severe or irreparable harm to the child or children on the order.
Usually, when these are filed, and procedurally this is supposed to happen, there’s a DHS investigation. Now, if DHS ends up unsubstantiating the claims, then one of the first things you do to defend that emergency if it’s still an issue, summons the DHS worker to court and have them testify about why they unsubstantiated it. Now, that’s not necessarily a slam-dunk deal, but it’s helpful. Other things you may want to also look into doing, obviously you’re going to gather together any witnesses you have who might have seen it, and that’s very specific to whatever the allegation is.
If you’re dealing with a situation where it is an allegation of a threat being made or something, you might also want to get together any exhibits, like communications between you and the ex, communications between you and the child, et cetera, that tend to refute those allegations.
For anything with an injury or something like that, you’d want to see medical records. If there are any photographs of the alleged injury, pin the timeline down on when it exactly happened and who might have been responsible. In some cases, you may need to summon other professionals or experts into court, like doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and the like. It just really depends on the specifics of the allegation. One of the things to understand is that emergency show cause hearings happen very quickly.
There’s a statutory deadline of 10 days. So in other words, if you get served with one of these things and you’re not already represented, you need to get a lawyer yesterday, so they can get on top of that and prepare it as quickly as possible.
If it’s at all possible, you do not want to waive your statutory 10 days because then you’re dealing with the availability of the court. And that could mean you don’t get a hearing for a while. And in the meantime, it gives her an opportunity to establish a status quo. And that can potentially bite you in the ass later when you’re going in for temporary orders because she’ll go in and argue through her attorney that you haven’t had contact with the kids. Well, they just don’t know you. And we need to do reconciliation therapy and we need to do this and we need to do that. So it’s important.
You don’t want to waive that, the statutory 10 days if you can help it, which is why you want to get a good lawyer on that immediately. And one place you can find a good Child custody lawyer in Tulsa is Dads.Law, where fathers are not disposable. Thanks, guys.
