(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Montana Supreme Court removes Lake County District Court judge from child custody case – Daily Montanan [1] ['Keila Szpaller', 'More From Author', '- January'] Date: 2024-01-03 Shanna ManyWounds will be reunited with her little boy after a Lake County District Court Judge abruptly ordered him taken away from his mom in September. In an order Tuesday, the Montana Supreme Court found Judge Deborah Kim Christopher’s decision to be contrary to the child’s best interests, against the advice of the court’s own expert witness, and “causing a gross injustice.” The order, signed by five justices, described Christopher’s decisions in the case to be a “misapplication of the law” and a punishment of the mother unsupported by the record. The justices also note Christopher made her ruling before hearing from the mother’s witnesses. The plaintiffs’ lawyers earlier described the case as one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice they had ever seen in each of their roughly 25 years practicing law, and the Supreme Court’s order found in their favor. The order voids Christopher’s parenting plan, and it grants ManyWounds’ emergency request that the child custody case be removed from Christopher, an outcome the lawyers said would be rare and the justices said is “an extraordinary remedy.” “Judge Christopher created a parenting plan whose stated purposes were to punish ManyWounds for the court’s belief that she had treated (father Jonathan Whyte) unfairly, to reward Whyte because she found him likeable, and to deliberately subject (the child) to potential trauma in a misguided attempt to ‘develop the stress muscles’ of a child that the court believed had been overly protected by his mother and grandmother,” the justices wrote. At a hearing in September to sort out a couple of minor issues in a parenting plan, Christopher ordered the 5-year-old child immediately removed from his mother, who lives in Elmo, and placed with his father, who lives in Oregon. She did so contrary to any proposal from either parent or any allegations of neglect or abuse. Neither parent was represented by a lawyer at the time. Spencer MacDonald and Lance Jasper, both of Missoula, agreed to represent ManyWounds after reading a transcript of the hearing. David Diacon of Lolo represents Whyte. The parents were at an impasse over when the child could get a passport — the father’s family lives in Jamaica — and under what conditions he could be with the father in Oregon for vacations. In their ruling, the justices vacated the district court’s order and the parenting plan Christopher devised — filed 43 days after the hearing and after ManyWounds’ petition to the Supreme Court — and reassigned the case to Judge Molly Owen of the same district. The order said Judge Christopher likely worsened the situation between the parents with her cavalier decision to sever contact between the child and his mother, his primary caretaker to that point. The father had visited once a year for about four days. “We are not suggesting that Whyte is an unfit parent or that he is undeserving of a strong parent-child relationship with (the child) with frequent and continuing contact with his son,” the justices wrote. “We further do not fault Whyte if he was not fully prepared to take immediate custody of (the child) as that was an outcome the parties could not have anticipated at the beginning of the parenting plan hearing. “One of the more disturbing aspects of Judge Christopher’s rulings in this case is the damage likely caused to the largely amicable coparenting relationship that ManyWounds and Whyte had forged. It is this court’s sincere hope that they are able to repair that relationship and successfully coparent (the child) in the future.” In their order, the justices described the child custody hearing as one where the judge made a decision and later heard from the mother’s witnesses; she disregarded her own expert’s testimony; she unfairly blamed the mother for the father’s lack of asserting his parenting rights; and she appeared increasingly upset and emotionally triggered by the information she heard, but did not recuse herself. “Instead, she unfortunately rendered a decision that appears to arise from her desire to punish one parent and reward the other at the expense of a five-year-old child’s best interest and/or from her connecting the circumstances in this case to the circumstances she faced when managing custody and visitation issues related to her own children,” the justices wrote. “Neither motivation is grounded in the requirements of (Montana code) and has resulted in misapplication of the law. “Judge Christopher’s comments throughout the hearing illustrate that her ruling was colored by her personal feelings and perceptions of ManyWounds and Whyte. Judge Christopher repeatedly chastised ManyWounds for being unappreciative of Whyte’s parenting efforts, which she repeatedly described as a ‘gift,’ later declaring ‘I kind of like this guy,’ and opining that Whyte had created ‘the nicest (proposed) parenting plan I have ever seen.’” Although Christopher was genuinely distressed, the justices wrote, neither parent behaved in a way that reasonably should have triggered that response. The justices also said the record doesn’t support the judge’s accusations against ManyWounds, including that she frustrated contact between the father and child. At one point, the justices note Christopher opined that ManyWounds was to blame for the child’s lack of relationship with the father’s relatives in Jamaica because she had not taken him to Jamaica to meet them. They also note the judge believed ManyWounds should sacrifice her own financial wellbeing for the sake of Whyte’s convenience in scheduling transportation to the airport for Whyte. In determining a parenting plan, a court must use the “best interest of the child” standard, and it is improper to use such a plan to punish or penalize a parent, the order said. But Christopher failed to consider the child’s best interests, which include the wishes of the parents and the wishes of the child, the order said. “The court’s ruling that prohibits (the child) from having any contact with ManyWounds at present and that places him in Whyte’s sole custody for five years does not support the best interest of a child who ‘loves both of his parents,’” the order said. The justices also said Christopher did not consider or address potential trauma to the child, and she mischaracterized her parenting plan. Christopher asserts her ruling “flipped the entire current parenting,” but the justices said the current plan allowed the father to contact the child in Montana as often as he wished. “The parenting plan does not ‘flip’ the current parenting; it bars (the child) from all contact with his primary caregiver until a yet-to-be-determined ‘therapist’ determines otherwise and provided no timeframe in which Whyte was required to engage an acceptable therapist,” the justices said. The order also noted Christopher called an expert witness of her choosing, Lake County Superintendent Carolyn Hall, but then completely dismissed Hall’s testimony that the child needs both parents in her parenting plan. “At the same time that the court gives lip service to Hall’s testimony, the court completely disregarded its substance and ruled counter to the opinions Hall offered,” the justices wrote. “The court asked Hall if it would be emotional abuse if one parent kept the child from seeing the other parent and Hall responded that it would. “However, this ruling keeps (the child) from seeing his mother, possibly for as long as five years — an outcome that the court’s own witness testified was abusive.” Hall also suggested it would be “very important” and “less frightening” for ManyWounds to accompany the child to Oregon instead of having the father take him from Montana, but the judge recalled her own experience in making her decision in the case. “I had to share my children with someone who abused them and I didn’t know how badly … But I will tell you as many times as I cried about the life I imposed on them, they tell me, ‘Mom, we wouldn’t trade how strong we are even if we had to go through that again …’ “If you can build a resilience, it doesn’t come from the fun times, the opportunities where you don’t have to assert or develop stress muscles, is what I call them.” The judge told ManyWounds the immediate transition would make him more independent and that “over-protecting of kids results in kids that can’t take care of themselves. And unfortunately on mine it was doubled up. They not only got over protected, they got abused. “So you’re going to get a gift I don’t think you ever expected the opportunity to have.” The judge made her decision despite testimony from ManyWounds and a pastor who said he had a relationship with her and the child that the boy is sensitive and could use a couple of days to get used to the idea of leaving the care of his mom. The justices also said Judge Christopher’s lack of meaningful consideration of the best interests of the child are illustrated by the questions she didn’t ask at the hearing. She wanted to know if the father had a car seat for the trip home, but only after her ruling did she ask, “for the first time,” if anyone else lived in the home. “At no time did she inquire as to the safety or stability of his residence, if he had a bed for (the child), his work schedule, or any other details that would indicate that he was adequately prepared to accept immediate long-term sold custody of a five-year-old child, beyond his apparent willingness to do so,” the justices said. The justices said upon sending the case back that the district court shall restore custody of the child to ManyWounds, and the parents will revert to their previous parenting plan until the newly-assigned judge holds a hearing and issues a final parenting plan. Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to reflect the relationship between the pastor and ManyWounds as identified in the hearing transcript. 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