Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland
In 2011, I was granted primary physical custody of my daughter and joint legal custody (with weekend visitation) was given to her for her mother (in the state of MD). I filed for custody because of ongoing domestic violence issues occurring in the mother�s home. A few weeks ago she took my daughter out of town to VA for the weekend. During the trip, she was arrested and charged with Malicious Wounding along with Malicious Destruction of Property. She had been drinking and fighting in front of my daughter (which is a violation of our Maryland order). She had been detained and failed to notify the police that I existed or had custody of my daughter. Because there was no one to release her to, child protective services was called and she was placed in Foster Care. My daughter would have to stay in foster care for 3 days until court. After being told about this from her family member, I drove to court in VA on presented my order and had my daughter released in my care. I was given a protective order stating that her mother could have no contact. In a later hearing, this was modified to supervised contact only. Her mother was released from custody after 11 days until her trial.
Since then, there has been a CPS investigation and civil hearings for child neglect and abuse. The allegations placed against her of child neglect/abuse were deemed founded by the court and she will be registered with CPS for 7 years. The court issued a final protective order over my daughter stating that any visitation with her mother would need to be supervised. It also stipulated that once we went back to court in MD and the judge made a ruling, the protective order would expire. In her criminal case, she was found guilty of assault (a lesser charge), fined, and sentenced to 30 days in jail (jail time was suspended).
I was told that VA courts had no jurisdiction in MD custody cases, so once I returned to MD, I went to court to speak with the family law dept about how to handle the visitation situation. I was unsure that if I would be violating the order if I only allowed supervised visitation. I had hoped to get an emergency trial, but the paralegal in the family office said that it did not seem like an emergency since the child was in my care in safe. So instead, I filed for a modification of custody, asking for sole custody with supervised visitation to her mother. In the interim, I have been allowing my daughter to see her mother under the supervision of her grandmother on the weekends.
Will I be penalized for only allowing supervised visits on the weekends since the VA order is not "valid" in Maryland? I am weary of allowing my daughter to go with her alone because something like this may happen again. She has clearly violated the order given in Maryland by being violent in front of my daughter and drinking. These were both prohibited in the final order issued by MD.
We all live in Maryland .
1 Answer from Attorneys
Although the VA court lacks custody jurisdiction, it does have jurisdiction over the mother because of the criminal charge. If supervised visitation was a condition of her release pending trial, I think you are within your right to respect that. Even after disposition of her criminal charge, if there is a conviction the court might well continue the visitation restriction as a condition of probation.
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