My Experience with Judge Kaye Hearn
The race to fill the Supreme Court slot has been like no other that we've seen, especially with the amount of venom directed at Don Beatty. I could join the circus, and given the subject material on my blog, it probably wouldn't surprise anyone if I did.But I'm not going to do that.
Instead of making charges of a political and somewhat sterile nature, allow me to share with you a personal experience, not an opinion, of Kaye Hearn, one of the candidates:
In 1995, I was a single parent, finally moving forward with my divorce and custody fight for my oldest daughter. It had been quite a circus up to that point, but every judge had ruled in favor of my keeping custody of my oldest daughter.
Then one afternoon, my ex-wife and I were in front of Kaye Hearn, then a Family Court judge. While she ruled in favor of my keeping custody ... she wouldn't order child support.
Yes, you heard that right: Judge Kaye Hearn did not order child support by my ex-wife, the non-custodial parent, to me, the custodial parent.
Does anyone suspect gender bias?
If the roles had been reversed, and I was the non-custodial parent, do any of you think I would have gotten off the hook for child support?
It was the last hearing where she was present, and she never showed up for the final hearing. Therefore, we never got another chance to have her ordered to pay. As a result, I've never seen a penny of child support, and believe me, there are a lot of times that little bit of extra money would have helped out.
I guess that wasn't on Judge Hearn's mind that day, but you can bet it's been on mine ever since.
If you're a legislator casting a vote to fill this judicial slot tomorrow, or know someone who is, I hope this thought will be on yours as well.
Instead of making charges of a political and somewhat sterile nature, allow me to share with you a personal experience, not an opinion, of Kaye Hearn, one of the candidates:
In 1995, I was a single parent, finally moving forward with my divorce and custody fight for my oldest daughter. It had been quite a circus up to that point, but every judge had ruled in favor of my keeping custody of my oldest daughter.
Then one afternoon, my ex-wife and I were in front of Kaye Hearn, then a Family Court judge. While she ruled in favor of my keeping custody ... she wouldn't order child support.
Yes, you heard that right: Judge Kaye Hearn did not order child support by my ex-wife, the non-custodial parent, to me, the custodial parent.
Does anyone suspect gender bias?
If the roles had been reversed, and I was the non-custodial parent, do any of you think I would have gotten off the hook for child support?
It was the last hearing where she was present, and she never showed up for the final hearing. Therefore, we never got another chance to have her ordered to pay. As a result, I've never seen a penny of child support, and believe me, there are a lot of times that little bit of extra money would have helped out.
I guess that wasn't on Judge Hearn's mind that day, but you can bet it's been on mine ever since.
If you're a legislator casting a vote to fill this judicial slot tomorrow, or know someone who is, I hope this thought will be on yours as well.
Justice is supposed to be blind, fair and impartial. We don't need judges who believe that there are exceptions to that rule, especially on our state's highest court.
Not to get personal, but there should be a final Order prepared by your lawyer that sets forth the reasons for Judge Hearns'decision not to award child support. And, as your lawyer should have told you, that decision can always be revisited.
In other words, the problem may be your lawyer rather than Judge Hearns.
Incidentally, you may want to check out http://parentsrights.blogspot.com
We asked for an Order reviewing issues, including awarding of support. We didn't get support.
She passed away in the fall of 2001, so it's a moot point now. Since she'd never worked, there was no Social Security survivor's benefits for my daughter, so we're just plain stuck now.
Frankly, as much as we have lawyers pushing to make the discipline of medical professionals transparent, we deserve to have that same standard applied to prove that even supreme court judges and lawyers aren't getting special treatment for their DWIs or 1-900 phone sex money laundering cases...
I think Judge Bridges could have ordered chile support regardless of whether your ex appeared if you asked for support in the pleadings and she was aware of that fact.
I am sorry for your loss and, particularly that of your daughter. And I commend you for raising a child on your own. But, I am concerned that you oppose Judge Hearn's adavncement based on an experience that may be atypical of other people's experience when there may be a legal/logical reason for her decision that was never made clear to you.
Unfortunately, family court lawyers can charge almost anything. There is a cap on what worker's comp attorneys can receive and on what guardians can charge and what people have to pay for child support. But family court lawyers can go hogwild, so their clients are often afraid to ask questions for fear of the cost.
maybe we still will, but not in enough time to make a difference in today's planned judicial vote.
maybe he would have spoken up sooner, but was afraid of ending up on the wrong side of a judge?
you do raise good questions about how the family court system seems less about solving problems and more about making money for attorneys and GALs. maybe earl will talk about some of this in the future ... well, earl?
btw - he may not have been clear, but since i know him, allow me to clarify that it was ex-wife, not his daughter, who died.
I could have been clearer.
i appreciate you and radar taking the time to visit and share your thoughts. come on back, friend!
I completely understand why you were (still are) upset by the ruling, but your characterization of her reasoning behind it is, quite frankly, offenseive. The thing is, Judge Hearn has a long history of jurisprudence from which to research, and I think you'll find she's been very fair-minded. For instance, in Stanton v. Stanton, she reversed the family court's award of custody to mother and gave custody to father. She also remanded the issue of child support to the family court so it could determine the amount mother was required to pay.
I found that case by doing a two minute search on Westlaw. I imagine there are others. I don't know the circumstances of your divorce, and I don't know whether Judge Hearn got it right or wrong, but it doesn't appear that gender bias had anything to do with it.
doesn't the personal experience of someone who has actually been in a courtroom count for something?
how often has one person's willingness to step forward encouraged many others to speak out about a problem or a public official? if indeed this was an aberration, then fine, weigh what i had to say against the rest of her record and let the facts speak for themselves.
there is a lot of gender bias in the family court system, and in our society, when it comes to the roles of mothers and fathers.
i can tell you about how three years in a row, the IRS would not allow me to file as Head of Household without seeing custody papers.
i can tell you how SC DSS sent me a form letter that offered to find the absent FATHER of my child, and then couldn't find her, although her husband was in the US Navy ... and she was in the phone book.
as a custodial father, i have been ignored by "the system" at best, and discriminated and mistreated at worse - many times. judge hearn did something that to me, as a private citizen, without a legal education, seemed questionable to me. was i wrong to speak out?
perhaps some of us are not as knowledgable as you seem to be, but when we feel that we've been wronged, we have a right to speak out, and have our complaints heard and considered on their relative merits.
I think anon 2116 has some valid points. There is a danger in anyone reaching a conclusion on a judge’s fitness based on either limited experience or on limited information. That is one reason both the Bar and the Senate Judiciary Committee have a process for screening judicial candidates.
I think Mr. Capps also has some valid points though. First, the attacks on Judge Beatty and Judge Diane Goodstein that were advanced by the out-of-state group the CIA, lawyer Michael Rose in Dorchester County, and Will Folks were “over the top.” Second, Mr. Capps had the courage to both speak out against a perceived injustice and to admit that he has no idea of whether his own experience is typical of other people’s experience with Judge Hearn.
By the way, http://parentsrights.blogspot.com/2007/05/south-carolina-family-law-blog-for.html is a good place to start in seeking information about family court and parents’ rights issues.
We simply do not have all the information here to comment. And it is just to easy to be critical of a judge's decision in a single case. That is why we have Motions for Reconsideration and the Court of Appeals.
My personal experience with Judge Kaye Hearns was that she was the only Judge, prior to the Final Order that got it right!
In my case while the Supreme Court was ruling on a matter that came out of an unclear Order from a temporary hearing to pay an amount of child support that, if upheld would have bankrupted me, my ex filed a Rule to Show Cause. Once the Supreme Court ruled in my favor and I knew exactly what to pay and how much I got caught up. But would my ex be satisfied, of course not. She pursued the RTSC requesting an exorbitant amount of attorney's fees.
My attorney argued she was not due attorney fees because the matter was on appeal, once the Supreme Court clarified the lower court's order we got caught up and there was no basis for the RTSC.
Judge Hearns ruled against my ex-wife and you could hear the other attorney's jaw hit the floor.
So a belated thanks to Judge Hearns for getting it right for the "secondary custodial parent." I'm still trying to figure out what that means in South Carolina.
PS Sometimes, being Anonymous, may also mean that you just don't have the time to mess with this blog stuff, be bothered with getting a more descriptive identity, but appreciate everyone's good fight and have an opinion you want to express.
Secondary custodial parent ... yeah, that term sounds a little fuzzy to me too.
Glad it worked out.
This is why we have a hearing process, to make sure varying opinions and experiences about a given judge's qualifications are heard. I just wanted to make sure mine was heard and considered as well.
But in the end, Hearn really didn't have much of a shot at that slot, the way the votes broke down, so either way, it didn't matter.
Her ruling (2002)have been extremely gender bias in my case. She ignored the state law, transcript of records, and appropriate federal laws and wrongly awarded a big portion of property and $700 monthly for life of my military pay to an adultrous ex-spouse (female). I would like to see her gone from our SC Courts...