Picking Up the Family Pieces

Today I was scheduled for a hearing on parental rights and responsibilities. Two people had two daughters together; one 12 and one 7. They had never been married so there was no divorce. The mother of the two children was married to another man and had a 2 year old with him. My client just got out of prison after serving a 4 year initial period of incarceration on what is called a "split" sentence. His sentence was 8 years to the Department of Corrections with all but 4 years served and 3 years probation. So, if he complete his 3 years of probation with a a problem then he will not have to do any more time in prison. If he violates probation then he may ordered to serve all or a part of the remaining 4 years of his sentence. I originally got involved in this matter by getting appointed in a protective custody (PC) case, that is a neglect and abuse case brought by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). As I mentioned the biological father was in prison for the last 4 years. At the end of 2015 the mother had a criminal charge of operating under the influence. The mother and her current husband blazed through the protective custody case process. DHHS dismissed the PC case in 7 months. That was unbelievably fast. The only thing left to do was a family matter order setting the parental rights of the biological parents. Dad was still in prison so the other attorneys stopped their involvement assuming that Mom would get an order on her own pro se giving her sole parental rights, primary residence and giving Dad little, if any, rights of contact. I felt bad about this. I thought Dad was getting the shaft. I stayed on representing Dad pro bono. We went through the mediation process. Mom was not willing to commit to giving Dad any visitation. Her position was that the two girls were doing well and Mom did not want to upend their life agreeing to visitation. The case was set on two trailing dockets. I moved to continue the case off of both. Mom did not object as she wanted to see how Dad did once he was no longer incarcerated. The Court granted both continuances but after the second continuance the Court set this date in early March. This morning I spoke briefly with Mom and Dad trying to work out an agreement. Mom said that she still wanted to see how Dad did supporting himself before she agreed to visitation. The older daughter remembered Dad but had moved on with her life and was very active in school activities. The younger daughter has no memory Dad. The older daughter showed pictures of her Dad to the younger daughter and told her that that's my real Dad. The younger daughter only knows her Dad as the older daughter's Dad and calls her mother's husband Dad. Dad already has a job. He had worked while in prison. The company kept him on after his release. The Court let DHHS Support Enforcement put on a hearing first. Support Enforcement ran the numbers according to the income information that they had received. Dad said that he could not make it. He was living at his Mom's and needed to save to get his own place. After Support Enforcement finished the Court held a brief hearing on the narrow issue of visitation. He set up a plan to reintroduce to the eldest daughter first. The Court continued the matter until May for a final hearing with hopefully 8 weeks or so of contact under our belt.