Court Opinion

ID: 9853473
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:49:26.699316+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:49.548229
License: Public Domain

MESCHKE, Justice,
concurring.
I largely concur with the majority opinion on the effect of the domestic-violence presumption. I write separately to express my understanding about how the presumption should work in a difficult case like this one.
Most parents are imperfect to some degree. Yet the Legislature has wisely decreed any imperfection resulting in family violence cannot be permitted. While that is an ideal to be desired, judges are handicapped by separation in space and time in patrolling family conflict. Still, judges are empowered to attach rigorous consequences to past conduct when convinced that it occurred.
Therefore, I join in the majority’s view of the statutory presumption, just as I joined in the majority opinion in Heck v. Reed. A trial court must make detailed and specific find*851ings about the degree of family violence whenever the subject comes up in a child-custody case.
A single act of family violence may suffice to apply the presumption against custody to a violent parent if the act is significant enough and not too remote. Yet reciprocal violence between parents has little bearing on the custody choice between them, unless the degree of violence by one is “significantly greater” than the other. “Roughly proportional” violence between parents effectively should defeat the statutory presumption, unless the mutual violence is so severe that it disqualifies both as unfit parents. Whether both parents are unfit will usually be adjudged only when the child is so deprived that the proceedings turn to terminating all parental rights.
Although the statute is silent about reciprocal violence, when the dispute is over the choice between parents for primary physical custody, equivalently violent conduct between them (not directed at the child or another household member) will rarely disqualify both. No other interpretation of the statute is manageable. On the other hand, I expect that there will often be a “significantly greater” degree of violence by one parent toward the other.
If this trial court sought to say the violent conduct of these parents was “roughly proportional,” or the degree of Annette’s violence significantly exceeded Bruce’s, then this custodial placement was correct and should be continued. Therefore, this reversal and remand should not be understood to foreordain the result.
The majority opinion simply requires the trial court to focus its findings more carefully and more specifically on the degree of violent behavior by each parent, as the statute requires, in order to identify the preferable custodian for five-year-old Andrew. While those harsh characterizations may be unpleasant findings for a trial court to make, somewhat reminiscent of our former fault-based divorce laws, the statute clearly compels “specific findings of fact” to protect the victim and the child.
As I understand the majority opinion, our reversal here does not stay the current custodial placement, nor does it compel the trial court to place custody with Annette. On this record, the final findings and dispositional placement remain for the trial court to make. With that understanding, I join in the majority opinion.