Felonies Are a Big Deal

Video Transcribed: My name is Brian L. Jackson. I am a Tulsa fathers’ rights attorney, and I want to talk to you guys again about the issue of stuff that can cost you custody if you are custodial. Today I want to focus specifically on what happens if you get in trouble with the criminal law authorities.

Now I’ll start from the standpoint of any kind of criminal violation that rises to a level above a traffic ticket is theoretically relevant to child custody and could be considered a material change in circumstances because it goes to your character and fitness as a parent. I mean obviously, if you get caught doing something stupid like shoplifting, even if the child wasn’t present or even in your custody at the time, that still could make you look bad and yes, a parent could predicate a motion to modify off of that. Depending on the age of your child, stealing might actually be a serious problem.

But the real crimes that I would say are the most likely to affect your custodial rights would be things like DUI, especially if the child was in the car at the time. Really any kind of substance abuse crime could potentially negatively impact your custodial rights. Any kind of violent misdemeanor but especially domestic violence is going to count against you.

Also felonies. Even non-violent felonies. Felonies are a big deal. If you catch a felony charge, you will probably be facing a motion to modify. In fact, it may be one of those situations where your ex doesn’t have a choice if they want to avoid a DHS problem.

Certainly, if it’s a felony involving child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse, really any violent felony at all, they’re probably going to have to report it and they’re going to have to take action to protect their own rights.

So what does that mean to you? Well if you’re accused of a crime, take it seriously. I mean you should take it seriously anyway because a good majority of crimes in Oklahoma do carry some term of incarceration and obviously you don’t want to be locked up, you don’t want to lose your liberty.

But those issues aside, if you’re a custodial parent, you need to take that really seriously because it could cost you your rights to your children. You could wind up with supervised visitation depending on the nature of what you’re accused of.

It’s a cliché that you’re innocent until proven guilty but just because you’re accused of something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re guilty of that crime, even if you know you were doing something you shouldn’t have been doing number one.

Number two, it may be one of those situations where you did something dumb but that doesn’t necessarily make you an unfit parent, but you damn well better have a good criminal attorney to take care of that situation for you so that it doesn’t cost you your rights to your children on the basis of a legal presumption. Obviously, you don’t want to enter a guilty plea that results in a conviction to something that will be on a statutory list of things that automatically count against you.

So it’s a good idea to get a good criminal attorney and preferably a good criminal attorney who has a really good understanding of Title 43 and what types of circumstances might seriously impact your custodial rights. So if you find yourself in trouble, get a good lawyer and get somebody who really knows what they’re doing before you get into court and get too far down that road. If you are looking for a Men’s Child Custody Lawyer in Tulsa Ok visit dads.law.