Court Opinion

ID: 9778556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:12:23.918764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:11.594052
License: Public Domain

REED, Judge
(concurring).
I concur with the result reached in this case, but I question the legal approach used in the majority opinion.
The majority opinion clearly recognizes that the past decisions of this court have not been consistent in applying the procedural limitations of the remedy of habeas corpus to child custody cases. In some cases we have advocated a strictly limited procedure by which the issue is confined to the “right of immediate possession of a child.” In other cases, we have approved the action of the trial court or of the parties in treating habeas corpus proceedings as an avenue to determine permanent custody of the child concerned.
If the majority opinion stands for the proposition that habeas corpus proceedings in child custody cases must be strictly limited to the “right of immediate possession of the child” as it appears to hold, then I disagree.
The employment of the form of habeas corpus in a child custody case is not for the purpose of testing the legality of confinement or restraint as contemplated by the ancient common-law writ, or by statute, but the primary purpose is to furnish a means by which the court, in the exercise of its judicial discretion, may determine what is best for the welfare of the child; the decision is reached by a consideration of the equities involved in the welfare of the child, against which the legal right of no one, including the parents, is allowed to militate. Howarth v. Northcott, 152 Conn. 460, 208 A.2d 540, 17 A.L.R.3d 758. The controversy does not involve the question of personal freedom, because an infant is presumed to be in the custody of someone until it attains its majority. The matter is really equitable in nature. See 39 Am.Jur.2(d), Habeas Corpus, Sec. 148, pp. 280, 281.
In this case, the children lived with their mother and father in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The father died on July 23, 1969, and for the next four days the children and their mother stayed at the home of the paternal grandparents in Bowling Green. The mother made preparations to return to her own home in Bowling Green with her children, but the paternal grandparents refused to surrender them. The paternal *874grandparents undertook to plead in the mother’s habeas corpus action that the best interest of the children required a change of custody. I would not apply super technicalities in such a situation. The children, the mother and the grandparents were all long-time residents of Warren County, Kentucky. Upon the showing made before the trial court, there is nothing to indicate that the present legal custodian of the children who is their natural mother should be deprived of the immediate possession of them until the final question of custody is determined.
A trial court may make a determination of who is entitled to the immediate possession and physical custody of children as a preliminary matter under the label of equity as easily as this can be done under the label of habeas corpus. In the troublesome interstate cases, and particularly in those where the presence of the child is merely casual, temporary or briefly transient, the court may decide that the best interest of the child requires that a court more familiar with the circumstances and better able to afford continuing supervision should decide permanent custody.
Nevertheless, I am too haunted by recent reported instances of revolting, sadistic treatment of children, even to the extent of murder, to tie the hands of a court to act in the best interest of the child because of the restrictions of an ancient common-law writ which was never designed or intended to apply to the custody of infants.
Therefore, I concur in the result because the trial judge carefully determined that there was no danger to the children. Hence, as a preliminary matter, it would therefore appear that the present legal custodian of the children should retain their possession. Nevertheless, I do not agree with the legal proposition that the matter of ultimate custody could not be tried out in these proceedings and by this circuit court.
NEIKIRK and PALMORE, JJ., join me in this concurring opinion.