Iowa law favors placing a child with his or her parent over all other placement options, even if it means separating siblings. In: IN THE INTEREST OF K.Y., S.H., and J.Y., Minor Children, A.M.Y., Mother, Appellant, filed August 19, 2009 the Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the Juvenile Court to place a child [...]
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Tag Archive: court
Difficult to change custody in a modification
The Iowa Court of Appeals once again stated how difficult it is for a parent to change custody after a divorce. In the case of IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF MICHELLE SAWYER AND BRENT SAWYER Upon the Petition of MICHELLE SAWYER, filed on August 19th, 2009 the Court ruled:
To change a custodial provision of a [...]
Don’t trust a lie detector
As an article on the American Psychological Association website notes, psychologists pretty much agree there’s not much data to support the effectiveness of lie-detector tests to sort out truth from lies.
The accuracy (i.e., validity) of polygraph testing has long been controversial. An underlying problem is theoretical: There is no evidence that any pattern of physiological [...]
You get one telephone call
Iowa Code Section 804.20 – Right to Consult an Attorney or Family Member
Once you have been arrested or restrained by law enforcement, and brought to the police station or jail, you have the right to call either a family member or an attorney. You must ask to make the call; law enforcement does not have [...]
Parents do not always have rights to children’s medical records
The Iowa Supreme Court’s decision in Harder v. Anderson, Arnold, Arnold, Dicket Jensen Gullickson and Sanger, L.L.P. , ruled that a parent, despite having joint legal custody of the child does not have an absolute right to obtain copies of their children’s medical, counseling, and therapy records.
Here, a non custodial parent sent a valid authorization [...]
Juvenile delinquency case procedure & time lines
In many ways, the juvenile delinquency process mirrors that of the adult Iowa Criminal Procedure. A crime is reported. A Law Enforcement officer will conduct the investigation. If the Law Enforcement officer determines that a crime has been committed and the suspect is a juvenile, Juvenile Court Services will be contacted. A juvenile court officer [...]
Child in need of Assistance (CINA) case procedure & time lines:
CINA (pronounced China) cases start with someone reporting a child is in trouble. Often times these allegations are due to an action or inaction of the parents or guardians. These reports are investigated by Child Protective Services. Many cases are opened after Law Enforcement has conducted a criminal investigation.
If the Department of Human Services believes [...]
Juvenile cases
There are two types of juvenile cases in the Iowa court system. CINA (Child in Need of Assistance) cases are opened when the State believes that a child requires state help, usually in the form of supervision from the Iowa Department of Human Services. The other type of juvenile case is a delinquency case. Delinquency [...]
Open adoptions
An open adoption is where family members from the adoptive child’s former family maintain some kind of contact with the child. This contact can range from the adoptive child’s new parents sending pictures and a brief note to face to face contact between the child and the former family members.
Open adoption is not legally recognized [...]
The step-parent and relative adoption process
The step parent and relative adoption process are essentially the same as the “traditional” adoption with two (2) major differences:
1. In a step parent adoption, the biological parent who is losing their parental rights, if that parent agrees and signs a written consent to the termination of their parental rights, the termination of parental rights [...]