K’hook choosing 2 for board, 1 for judge

Eighth in a series on justice

By DEBORAH E. LANS

HUDSON–In February 2024 the state Senate issued a report headed “The Crisis in New York’s Family Courts.” It was just the latest in a series of reports, including one commissioned by the Chief Judge of the state’s court system, reaching the same conclusion: the Family Court was suffering from a lack of resources and handling many cases not appropriately in the court system in the first place.

In Columbia County, the Family Court is presided over by the County Court Judges and, like its counterparts throughout the state, its caseload addresses core family issues: abuse, neglect, termination of parental rights, domestic violence, delinquency, adoption, guardianship, custody and child support among them. In the county, the court is not in crisis, though it is challenged by resource gaps that largely arise due to the county’s relatively small size. As elsewhere, much of the conduct it sees is the product of other circumstances the court cannot address, such as poverty, a lack of affordable housing, insufficient wages that require parents to work multiple jobs, and child care issues.

The Columbia Paper spoke at length with Columbia County Court Judge Michael Howard. The bulk of his docket every week is Family Court matters, although he also hears criminal cases every Monday, handles Surrogate Court matters and spends one day each week hearing Family Court cases in Ulster County.

A theme common to many Family Court cases is whether and how a family can stay intact or best serve the interests of children. What is the best disposition when there is evidence of abuse or neglect? Should a child be removed from the parent(s)? Should parental rights be terminated to “free” a child for adoption? Should a child be in foster care for a time and if so with kin or strangers? If two parents are warring over custody, how should decision-making and time-sharing be arranged?

Judge Howard says his greatest challenge is finding ways to keep family members safe and, where possible, keep families together while providing the services they need to function better. The size of the county does not support many services that larger communities can host, but the court has many partners it works with: the Department of Social Services, Greater Hudson Promise Neighborhood, Columbia County Sanctuary Movement and ReEntry Columbia being among those named by Judge Howard.

Judge Howard also notes that the attorneys working for family members are often the persons who reach out to other services, for addiction or mental health treatment for example, to support their clients and divert from, or lessen the impact, of judicial intervention.

Where once family courts in the state were prone to separating children from families for reasons of abuse or neglect, today the system recognizes that “strong, stable, positive relationships – especially during childhood – are the linchpin for both individual and societal well-being,” as family law scholar Clare Huntington has written. Where the family’s ties are positive, accordingly, family separation is institutionally disfavored as it disrupts a child’s most basic relationships.

Judge Edwina Richardson Mendelson, a leader in the state’s court system, put the system’s approach this way: “Removing a child from their parent or primary caregiver must be reserved for the most extreme and egregious of threats to a child’s safety and wellbeing.” Moreover, in those cases where removal is necessary, the child welfare system in New York will now make “every effort…to have the child live with relatives and keep them connected with their family,” i.e., in “kinship” care.

In considering ways to address the crisis seen in family courts, the state Senate report placed primary emphasis on “narrowing the front door” – meaning, finding and funding the resources necessary to prevent and divert families from the Family Court in the first place. The report notes that “only a quarter of child protective [e.g., abuse, neglect] cases involve intentional, harmful acts by parents. Most cases involve parents who cannot meet their children’s basic needs due to poverty. For the vast majority of these cases, social services and poverty-reduction measures are required, not heavy-handed and invasive litigation in a court system that is already struggling with extensive backlogs.”

At the Hudson Police Department, Chief Mishanda Franklin looks to narrow the front door of the justice system (juvenile as well as adult) by recognizing that much petty crime results from mental health or substance use disorders that can better be handled outside the courts. Thus, in appropriate situations her department talks with victims about whether to substitute restitution or treatment for arrest and with parents about preventive services when a child appears to be “headed in the wrong direction.”

Data from the court system concerning the activity of the Columbia County Family Court indicates positive trends. First, the number of abuse and neglect cases has been reduced by about two-thirds since 2010, meaning that non-judicial interventions have significantly increased. Likewise, cases involving juvenile misconduct (delinquency or “persons in need of supervision” filings) are down more than 75% in that same period, consistent with what Judge Howard sees as “a downward trend in youth violence.” Indeed, there have been only a handful of such cases in each of the recent years. Family offense (violence) cases, however, remain at about the same level. (Domestic violence will be the subject of a later article.)

Meanwhile, child custody and support cases account for most of the current Family Court docket. In the former, the court has a great need for lawyers to act as attorneys to advocate for the children in the family – a compensated service for which special training is required. Forensic studies of family dynamics by mental health professionals are handled by Albany specialists, but Judge Howard says they understand the challenges of the more rural Columbia County setting.

Other areas cited by the Senate report as needs of the system are less apparent in the county. For example, the need for interpreters is often filled by the county Sanctuary Movement.

A continuing a substantial need, not of the court but of the community as a whole, is greater access to mental health services. As Justice Howard notes, families struggling or in crisis often will benefit far more from supportive services than judicial interventions. As other articles in this paper have shown, affordable housing and child care are also core needs that affect family stability and health in the county and require immediate attention.

To contact reporter Deborah Lans email deborahlans@icloud.com