When courts deprive kids of great parents

Dr. Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald was also a battered wife who lost custody of her three children. Click on the title for a link to the following story.

Doctor in 1999 South Pole rescue dies in Mass.

AP – FILE - In this 1999 file photo released by the National Science Foundation, Dr. Jerri Nielsen, a National …
By MARK PRATT, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 24, 6:39 pm ET

BOSTON – Dr. Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, who diagnosed and treated her own breast cancer before a dramatic rescue from the South Pole a decade ago, has died after the disease recurred. She was 57.

Her husband, Thomas FitzGerald, said she died Tuesday at their home in Southwick, Mass. Her cancer had been in remission until it returned in August 2005, he said Wednesday.

She was the only doctor among 41 staff at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in winter 1999 when she discovered a lump in her breast. At first, she didn't tell anyone, but the burden became too much to bear.

"I got really sick," she told The Associated Press in a 2003 interview. "I had great big lymph nodes under my arm. I thought I would die."

Rescue was out of the question. Because of the extreme weather conditions, the station is closed to the outside world for the winter. She had no choice but to treat the disease herself, with help from colleagues she trained to care for her and U.S.-based doctors she stayed in touch with via satellite e-mail.

She performed a biopsy on herself with the help of staff.

A machinist helped her with her IV and test slides, and a welder helped with chemotherapy.

She treated herself with anti-cancer drugs delivered during a gripping mid-July 1999 airdrop by a U.S. Air Force plane in blackout, freezing conditions.

In a headline-grabbing rescue, she was lifted by the Air National Guard that October, one of the earliest flights ever into the station when it became warm enough — 58 degrees below zero — to make the risky flight.

After multiple surgeries in the U.S., including a mastectomy, the cancer went into remission.

"More and more as I am here and see what life really is, I understand that it is not when or how you die but how and if you truly were ever alive," she wrote in an e-mail to her parents in June 1999 from the South Pole.

Nielsen FitzGerald never lost her adventurous spirit and even returned to desolate Antarctica several more times.

"She had incredible zest and enthusiasm for life," said her husband, whom she first met 23 years ago when they were both on vacation in the Amazon. "She was the kindest soul I ever met. She was intelligent, with a great sense of humor, and she lived each day to the fullest."

She documented her ordeal in the best-selling book "Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole." It was later made into a TV movie.

The disease made her stronger, she said in November 2001.

"I would rather not have it. But the cancer is part of me. It's given my life color and texture. Everyone has to get something. Some people are ugly, some people are stupid. I get cancer," she said at lecture in Denver.

Nielsen FitzGerald spent the last decade speaking around the world about the cancer and how it changed her life, and she worked as a roving ER doctor in hospitals all over the Northeast.

"She fought bravely, she was able to make the best of what life and circumstance gave her, and she had the most resilience I have ever seen in anyone," said her husband. "She fought hard, and she fought valiantly."

The couple would have celebrated their third anniversary next week.

Indiana University cancer specialist Dr. Kathy Miller, who by e-mail and videoconference helped Nielsen treat herself for nearly five months before she could leave the South Pole, said Nielsen's willingness to speak about her fight against cancer helped give hope to other cancer patients.

"She was very passionate about continuing to live her life," Miller said. "She continued to work for many years, she married again, she traveled extensively. I think that gave a lot of our patients hope that even when disease recurs life can still go on and we can still find a lot of good things in that life."

Miller said Nielsen's advocacy helped cancer patients much like that of Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong and actress Christina Applegate.

"It's easy to underestimate the importance of those public messages," Miller said. "We see increases in screenings when people who have public lives come forward in this way."

Nielsen FitzGerald's passion for life shone through during a visit to the University of Toledo medical school last October, even though her cancer had metastasized to the brain and she knew she did not have much time left, said vice provost Patricia Metting.

"You couldn't help but be moved by this woman and her profound words and just the optimism that she had," Metting said.

Besides her husband, the Youngstown, Ohio-area native and graduate of the University of Toledo medical school is survived by parents Lorine and Phil Cahill, brothers Scott Cahill and Eric Cahill and three children from a previous marriage, Julia, Ben and Alex.

Memorial and funeral arrangements were pending.
___
Associated Press writers Doug Whiteman in Columbus, Ohio, and Tom Davies in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

Why do courts underestimate the danger to children?

Well-behaved 7-year-old, forced to spend summer with his father in Massachusetts, is dead within a month. Click on the title for the Boston Herald story.

Why do courts underestimate the danger to children?

Click on the title above for this story of a new bill in Florida secured by a mother in memory of her two children who were killed by their father in a custody case.

Rates At Which Batterers Get Custody In America (75%)

The following posts by attorney Joan Meier from October 9, 2008, can also be seen by clicking on the title above or entering this link in your browser:
http://abusesurvivors.meetup.com/boards/thread/5575497

Rates At Which Batterers Receive Custody
by Joan Meier, Esq.

One statement in Breaking the Silence: Children's Voices that has provoked controversy was my statement that "the studies are showing" that up to 2/3 of accused or adjudicated batterers receive joint or sole custody in court. While no empirical study can definitively determine a universal statistical rate, the key point is that the research consistently shows that accused and adjudicated batterers receive joint or sole custody disturbingly often. This confirms the anecdotal experience of domestic violence attorneys and victims around the country. The following research supports this perspective.

I. A History of Domestic Violence is Common among Contested Custody Cases.

The remarkably consistent research on this issue is compiled in my previously-issued statement, Research Indicating that the majority of cases that go to court as 'high conflict' contested custody cases have a history of domestic violence (Nov. 9, 2005).

One good example is a study cited by Janet Johnston, a leading researcher of parental alienation, which found that, among custody litigants referred to mediation, "Physical aggression had occurred between 75% and 70% of the parents . . . even though the couples had been separated. . . [for an average of 30-42 months]". Furthermore, in 35% of the first sample and 48% of the second, [the violence] was denoted as severe and involved battering and threatening to use or using a weapon."

- Janet R. Johnston, "High-Conflict Divorce," The Future of Children, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1994, 165-182) citing Depner et al., "Building a uniform statistical reporting system: A snapshot of California Family Court Services," Family and Conciliation Courts Review (1992) 30: 185-206.


II. Domestic Violence Perpetrators are More Likely to Contest Custody than Non- Abusers.

The American Psychological Association's Presidential Task Force on Violence in the Family, the leading review of the research as of 1996, found that men who abuse their partners contest custody at least twice as often as non-abusing fathers. They are even more likely to contest custody if the children are boys.

- American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence in the Family (1996) at p. 40.


III. Accused and Adjudicated Batterers Receive Joint or Sole Custody Surprisingly Often.

The research on this has only emerged in the past few years and most studies have been small and local. Nonetheless, they document disturbing trends, which surprised even me when I first discovered them.

A. Multiple studies have documented gender bias against women in custody litigation.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that women are favored in custody litigation, both the experiences of battered women and the empirical research are showing that women who allege abuse are deeply disfavored in custody courts.

- Janet R. Johnston, "High-Conflict Divorce," The Future of Children, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1994, 165-182) citing Depner et al., "Building a uniform statistical reporting system: A snapshot of California Family Court Services," Family and ConciliationCourts Review (1992) 30: 185-206


II. Domestic Violence Perpetrators are More Likely to Contest Custody than Non- Abusers.

The American Psychological Association's Presidential Task Force on Violence in the Family, the leading review of the research as of 1996, found that men who abuse their partners contest custody at least twice as often as non-abusing fathers. They are even more likely to contest custody if the children are boys.

- American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence in the Family (1996) at p. 40.


III. Accused and Adjudicated Batterers Receive Joint or Sole Custody Surprisingly Often.

The research on this has only emerged in the past few years and most studies have been small and local. Nonetheless, they document disturbing trends, which surprised even me when I first discovered them.

A. Multiple studies have documented gender bias against women in custody litigation.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that women are favored in custody litigation, both the experiences of battered women and the empirical research are showing that women who allege abuse are deeply disfavored in custody courts.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Gender Bias Task Force was one of the first states to document the gender bias against women in family courts. This court-initiated study expressly found that "our research contradicted [the] perception" that "there is a bias in favor of women in these decisions." Moreover, it found that "in determining custody and visitation, many judges and family service officers do not consider violence toward women relevant." The Court's study further found that "the courts are demanding more of mothers than fathers in custody disputes" and that "many courts put the needs of noncustodial fathers above those of custodial mothers and children."

- Gender Bias Study of the Court System in Massachusetts, 24 New Eng.L.Rev. 745, 747, 825, 846 (1990)

More recently, and since the evolution and widespread adoption of "parental alienation syndrome," a multi-year, four-phase study using qualitative and quantitative social science research methodologies by the Wellesley Centers for Women found "a consistent pattern of human rights abuses" by family courts, including failure to protect battered women and children from abuse, discriminating against and inflicting degrading treatment on battered women, and denying battered women due process. Histories of abuse of mother and children were routinely ignored or discounted.

- Wellesley Centers for Women Battered Mothers' Testimony Project, Battered Mothers Speak Out: A Human Rights Report on Domestic Violence and Child Custody in the Massachusetts Family Courts (Nov. 2002)(hereafter "BMTP"), Executive Summary at 2.

A comparable study by the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence found that most of the women surveyed felt the history of abuse was not taken seriously and that they were ignored, disrespected and discriminated against by court personnel.
- Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Battered Mothers' Testimony Project: A Human Rights Approach to Child Custody and Domestic Violence (June 2003), pp. 47, 49, 6.

A study of the Domestic Relations Division of Philadelphia Family Court conducted by the Philadephia Women's Law Project in cooperation with the court, found that litigants are often denied due process, and that applicable legal standards are "not always observed, particularly in the consideration of abuse in custody proceedings, leaving families at risk."

- Tracy, Fromson & Miller, Justice in the Domestic Relations Division of Philadelphia Family Court: A Report to the Community, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE REPORT, Vol. 8, No. 6 (Aug/Sept. 2003), p. 94.


B. Studies show Accused and Adjudicated Batterers Receiving Sole or Joint Custody Surprisingly Often.

My own survey of the case law in 2001 identified 38 appellate state court decisions concerning custody and domestic violence. To my astonishment, 36 of the 38 trial courts had awarded joint or sole custody to alleged and adjudicated batterers. Two-thirds of these decisions were reversed on appeal.

- Meier, Domestic Violence, Child Custody, and Child Protection: Understanding Judicial Resistance and Imagining the Solutions, A.U. J. Gender, Soc. Pol. & the Law, 11:2 (2003), 657-731, p. 662, n. 19, and Appendix.

These cases included a case in which the perpetrator had been repeatedly convicted of domestic assault; in which a father was given sole custody of a 16-month old despite his undisputed choking of the mother resulting in her hospitalization and his arrest; in which the father had broken the mother's collarbone; had committed "occasional incidents of violence"; and had committed two admitted assaults. More such instances can be found in Meier, supra.

The American Judges Association has found that approximately 70% of batterers succeed in convincing authorities that the victim is unfit for or undeserving of sole custody. Another way of saying this is that 70% of batterers obtain sole or joint custody.

- American Judges Association, "Domestic Violence and the Courtroom: Understanding the Problem . . . Knowing the Victim" http://aja.ncsc.dni.u... (at "Forms of Emotional Battering. . . Threats to Harm or Take Away Children")

A survey of battered women by the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence found that courts awarded joint or sole custody to the alleged batterers 56-74% of the time (depending on the county). Many of these cases involved documented child abuse or adult abuse.

- Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Battered Mothers' Testimony Project: A Human Rights Approach to Child Custody and Domestic Violence (June 2003), pp. 33-34, 47-49


A study of 300 cases over a 10-year period in which the mother sought to protect the child from sexual abuse, found that 70% resulted in unsupervised visitation or shared custody; in 20% of the cases the mothers completely lost custody, and many of these lost all visitation rights.

- Neustein & Goetting (1999), "Judicial Responses to the Protective Parent's Complaint of Child Sexual Abuse," Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 8 (4): 103-122.


The Wellesley Battered Mothers' Testimony Project found that 15 out of 40 cases resulted in sole or joint physical custody to the fathers, all of whom had abused both the mother and the children.

- BMTP, supra at Appendix A.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Gender Bias Task Force found that 94% of fathers who actively sought custody received sole or joint custody, regardless of whether there was a history of abuse. While fathers received primary physical custody 29% of the time, mothers received primary physical custody in only 7% of the contested cases. The Study also cited other research which similarly found that fathers who sought custody received primary physical custody 2/3 of the time, with mothers receiving it less than ¼ of the time; and another study which found that fathers seeking custody received joint or sole custody 79% of the time, with mothers receiving sole custody in only 15% of those cases (compared to fathers' sole custody in 41% of the cases).

- Gender Bias Study at 831-832 and citing Middlesex Divorce Research Group relitigation study and Phear et al., 1983.

While the Massachusetts study and those it cited were not able to identify what proportion of the contesting fathers were batterers, the studies cited in my other Statement indicate consistently that 75% of cases have a history of domestic violence, with a substantial proportion of severe violence. Hence, it is likely that a substantial proportion of the fathers receiving joint or primary physical custody in this study had committed domestic violence.

- Meier Statement, Research Indicating that the Majority of Cases that go to Court as 'High Conflict' Contested Custody Cases have a History of Domestic Violence (Nov.)

What good legislative leadership can do

Rhode Island's Senate agreed to establish a Commission to examine problems in Family Court, but did not have the leadership to chair it. Here is what legislators in California are doing. To see the original article, click on the title above or paste this link into your browser:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_12573211


Public officials call for major changes in family law
By Kamika Dunlap
Posted: 06/11/2009 06:54:02 PM PDT
Updated: 06/11/2009 09:03:13 PM PDT

OAKLAND — One by one, parents around the Bay Area are beginning to step forward to share heart-wrenching stories of the injustices they experienced in California's family court system.

These parents have joined with thousands of others statewide to reform the family courts and protect child victims of violence and sexual abuse from judicial decisions the parents say place children in harm's way.

"I'm living proof this is happening today," said Susan, a California Family Court litigant and mother whose daughter was placed with her accused molester. "The family courts crisis is a plague and it's destroying peoples' lives."

About 58,000 children per year in the U.S. are ordered into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce, according to experts at the Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence.

Many people concerned about the systemic problems with family court attended a daylong public forum Thursday at the Alameda County Conference Center.

Some compared the family court crisis to the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals because of what they call an institutional level of collusion of harm against children. Event organizers said they hoped the forum would inspire families who have survived traumatic family court ordeals to come forward in order to shed more light on the breakdown of the family court system.

Participants, including family court litigants, child advocates and the general public, gathered to discuss the family court crisis and take a closer look at problems and solutions. The forum's session featured public testimony by speakers and a panel of legal experts and attorneys who gave free general legal advice about how to best protect themselves in the family court.

The event was organized by the Center for Judicial Excellence in partnership with UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, California Protective Parents Association, Justice for Children, California Safe Child Coalition, Child Abuse Solutions and the Incest Survivors Speakers' Bureau.

Their collective goal was to push to improve the judiciary's public accountability and strengthen and maintain the integrity of the courts.

In addition, the center produced a documentary, Family Court Crisis: Our Children at Risk, and screened a 12-minute clip at the forum.

The American Judges Association found that approximately 70 percent of batterers succeed in convincing authorities that the victims of their abuse are unfit or undeserving of sole custody.

Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele and actress Nancy Lee Grahn from ABC's "General Hospital" are family court reform advocates and also participated in the panel discussions.

Steele announced a new initiative to help better protect vulnerable children in family court. It includes her support of the passage of new proposed legislation by Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, to reform family court. Her initiative also calls for the passage of Sen. Mark Leno's request for a legislative audit of Marin and Sacramento Family Courts. She also is pushing for ombudsman positions to be created in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, where parents can go for help and to plead their case.

"The system has to change in California and across the country," Steele said.

Grahn did not talk in detail about her $1 million family court battle but said her experience was "maddening and perplexing."

She was upset to learn that some laws were unfair and that some court procedures were abusive and treated children like hostages or assets that need to be divided up.

After a three-year ordeal, Grahn finally gained custody of her 11-year-old daughter. She now works with community organizations and travels the state to meet with lawmakers and inform them about the about pitfalls of the family law system.

"I met people who were in similar or worse situations," Grahn said. "There are thousands of women who were protective parents and their children were taken away and handed over to their abusers."

For more information visit, www.centerforjudicialexcellence.org

Why don't custody courts consider evidence? Part 2

This article by Karen de Sá appeared on Thursday, June 11, 2009, in the San Jose Mercury News.To see the original story, click on the title above or copy the link into your browser:

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/739503.html

Did system do right by the children?

Powerless and tormented, a Campbell mother awaits the story her daughter's bones will tell.

The remains of Alycia Mesiti, 14 when she vanished in August 2006, are in the hands of toxicologists and coroners. Since March, when cadaver-sniffing dogs found her body buried in the unkempt yard of her father's former home in Ceres, detectives have scoured for evidence from the girl's petite frame.

Last week, Mark Edward Mesiti was charged with the murder and rape of his daughter. He remains in a Los Angeles County jail on $205,000 bail on unrelated charges of child endangerment and running a methamphetamine lab.

Girl's dad accused of murdering Ceres teen in 2006, as well as drugging, molesting her

With a lengthy criminal past, the 41-year-old still was granted custody of Alycia and her older brother in Santa Clara County Superior Court less than a year before the girl disappeared.

The death of the smiling teen, who loved horses and the singer Shakira, lays bare the intractable choices that Family Court judges face every day, but the tragic outcome has everyone who worked on Alycia's case looking back wondering what more could have been done.

"Dad's story was he was getting phone calls periodically" from the missing girl, said Ceres police Sgt. James Robbins. "But it doesn't appear she ever left the house."

Legal thicket

The family's legal history is a tangle of allegations traded through restraining orders and court filings. A court investigator described Alycia's mother, Roberta Allen, now 39, as an unfit mother who had battled with depression.

Alycia and her brother, now 19 and in the military, were placed in Mesiti's care by the Family Court in November 2005. During the previous seven years, court records show, Mesiti had been convicted of state and federal charges, including bank fraud and drunken driving. He was charged with domestic violence and ordered to attend anger-management classes after pleading guilty to a lesser charge. After failing to comply with court orders to attend drug and alcohol programs, he landed in prison for violating probation.

Nonetheless, Allen described her yearslong legal battle as "very angled toward Mark. I couldn't afford an attorney. He had one."

Over the nine months the children lived with their father before Alycia disappeared, police and child welfare workers fielded repeated warnings of danger in their single-family home in a neat, unremarkable Ceres neighborhood.

Beginning in 2005, the children's court-appointed lawyer, Jonnie Herring, reported her concerns, recommending only a supervised, temporary placement with Mesiti because of "sufficient issues and risks to these minors." In 2006, she reported that Mesiti had failed to comply with court orders to enroll his children in school and remain in touch.

"I am deeply concerned about both minors, especially Alycia," Herring wrote in a report to Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Vincent Chiarello.

Allen said she also reported that the children often were hungry, subject to abuse and unable to call their mother despite her court-ordered visitation and contact rights. Police confirm they made visits to the home.

Clearly, the Family Court had a complex case on its hands with few ideal options when Chiarello granted Mesiti custody. The legal battle had raged for eight years without resolution. The children had been bounced between aunts and grandparents and, in a reflection of the case's complexity, the judge appointed Herring to grant them an independent voice in court. Their parents had gone through mediation, counseling and psychological evaluations.
"There were a lot of issues with both parents," said Scott Sagaria, a San Jose attorney who represented Mesiti in claims his client made against Allen, including that she'd attempted suicide and once hit her son. Noting that attorney-client privilege limited his ability to discuss the case, Sagaria added: "There was a lot of conduct by the mother in the case where, in my opinion, the court had very little alternative."

'Cases with no good options'

Chiarello, too, has declined to comment. But Supervising Family Court Judge Su-san Bernardini, who spoke only in generalities and not specifically about the Mesiti case, described the difficulty of serving on her bench.
"Cases with no good options are a centerpiece of being a judge in Family Court," she said. "We have to make a decision no one else will make."

In the case of a tragic outcome, she added, "You wonder and you look back and you always say, 'Is there anything anyone could have done?' "

Allen, a former assembly worker now working for a restaurant, was deemed unfit by the court. She had made a frank admission to feeling depressed after what she described as years of persecution by her children's father. Before Chiarello's decision, records show, Allen told the court she had fled multiple states to get away from Mesiti and even to Canada, where she and the children stayed in battered women's shelters.

But while Mesiti's court filings were formal, typed responses from his private attorney, Allen's pleading letters to judges were handwritten. She reluctantly agreed to sign off on the custody order -- in large part, she says, because she could not afford to raise the children without the child support payments Mesiti had been ordered to make.

"There were plenty of red flags going up all over the place," she said, "but they wouldn't see them."
When Alycia disappeared in 2006, Allen said she never believed the girl had run off.

"I knew in my heart of hearts that she was gone, but no one would listen to me. I was fighting with police, saying, 'She's not a runaway, she's a missing person!' " Allen recalled. "But the police stopped taking my calls. They said, 'She'll come home, she'll come home.' "

Years of anxiety

So for 2½ years, Allen went mad with worry. Alycia's disappearance was not elevated to a homicide investigation until the longtime detective on the case retired and Robbins, the Ceres investigations supervisor, ordered a fresh round of interviews.

Robbins declined to give specifics because the case is pending, but he said those interviews turned up "detailed information we didn't have the first time."

Police obtained a search warrant for Mesiti's former home on Alexis Court, which he is said to have abandoned a few months after Alycia vanished.

The case broke open with the discovery of Alycia's remains. Within days, police burst into Mesiti's Los Angeles apartment and said they found evidence of a meth lab. Now, he and the girlfriend he had lived with in Ceres face a series of court hearings on drug and child endangerment charges; the girlfriend's 12-year-old daughter had been living with the couple when they were arrested March 28.

Mesiti was in jail when his daughter's memorial was held in April in a Cupertino chapel. During the service, a lifetime of classic childhood moments beamed from photos spanning her short life: Alycia mugging in an oversized T-shirt, stirring a pot of macaroni and cheese and hugging a Snoopy doll. In the last photos, she posed for her eighth-grade prom, a fleeting brush with adolescence.

For her part, Allen tosses endlessly most nights. She tries to stay focused on her last day with Alycia, when she and her daughter ate tuna sandwiches and splashed in a downtown San Jose fountain.

Their next encounter would be three years later at the Stanislaus County coroner's office in Modesto.
"I couldn't even pick up her personal effects," Allen lamented. "There was nothing. There's just nothing left of her."

Why don't custody courts consider evidence? Part 1

This story by Natasha Chen appeared on Channel 25 in Hillsboro, Texas, on Tuesday, June 9, 2009. To see the news video, click on the title above or paste this link into your browser:

http://www.kxxv.com/Global/story.asp?S=10505660

Father stated concern for daughters' safety before murder

The Hillsboro woman who killed one of her two daughters and critically injured the other had allegedly attempted suicide in the presence of the children on May 21, according to petitions from the girls' father.

The father, Lee Jeter, filed for divorce the day after that incident and also petitioned for a restraining order on the mother, Debra Janelle Jeter. He filed for sole custody of the children, and requested that visits from Debra Jeter be continuously supervised.

After the attempted suicide, Debra Jeter was transported to the De Paul Center on a mental health warrant. In a supporting affidavit, Lee Jeter stated, "I am concerned about her possible actions regarding the children."

But during the divorce hearing on June 4, Lee Jeter's attorney did not bring up the filed petitions. In fact, during the hearing, Lee Jeter voluntarily agreed to unsupervised visits from the mother on the first, third and fifth weekends of the month. The night of Debra Jeter's attack was the first of such scheduled visits.

Because the petition for a restraining order and the request for supervised visits did not come up in the hearing, Hill County Judge Harris made his ruling based only on what was presented in court. The judge thus permitted Debra Jeter's unsupervised visits. The transcript of the hearing shows that neither party discussed Debra Jeter's attempted suicide in detail, but did mention that she has been taking prescribed anti-depressants.

When Judge Harris spoke with News Channel 25 off camera, he appeared extremely shaken from the tragic events. The Jeters' divorce is still pending.