Look out for warning signs in family court

A Texas judge recently observed that in criminal court, you get bad people at their best; in family law, you get good people at their worst.

The trick is to avoid certain actions and rulings that are pretty much guaranteed to bring out the worst in people, and to monitor the parties for red-flag behaviors.

The criminal is easy to spot: He's usually in handcuffs with a caged-dog look in his eyes. In family court, you find out who's dangerous after court is adjourned and darkness falls. Sometimes, these dark actions are provoked by court rulings; sometimes by attorneys.

I've noticed heated custody disputes go one of three ways:

1. Litigants lie or exaggerate about domestic violence to get custody, and some judges buy into it. A former client on the receiving end of this was denied custody until I proved his ex-wife's claims were bogus.

2. The judge and counsel fail to recognize violence or neglect between the parents or a parent and child.

3. One parent seeks to exclude the other from the child's life, only to the child's detriment. This happens in far too many family law cases. Some social workers and judges think it's beneficial. In contrast, for example the United Kingdom is one jurisdiction that has taken such a dim view of this behavior, often referred to as "Parental Alienation Syndrome," that laws there prohibits it and violators could be charged with child abuse.

When the warning signs go unheeded or parties are angered by what they feel are unfair motions or rulings, tragedy can strike.

In April, amid tumultuous divorce proceedings, a South Pasadena was accused of murdering his 5-year-old son after a trip to Disneyland, just to get revenge against the boy's mother.

In June, a long-simmering custody battle in Utah ended with a murder-suicide that left the couple's son parentless. The mother had sought a protective order back in 2008, but the judge denied it saying she didn't meet her burden of proof. Custody was given to the husband, who refused to let their son see his mother on Mother's Day. He later shot the mother as she sat in her car and then drove off and shot himself.

Recently in Winnipeg, a mother denied the right to see her two children was so desperate that she kidnapped the youngsters. The mother was charged with kidnapping even though her children, who were in foster care, did not want to live with their father pursuant to a 2013 court order.

And in Oklahoma earlier this year, a lawyer and his divorce client were shot and killed, apparently by the woman's estranged husband.

Before making any motions or rulings, here are five red-flag warning signs every family law attorney should look out for: interference with visitation; substance abuse; threats to take the child away; problems at work; and actual or threatened physical violence.