Tag Archives: Mississippi Supreme Court

Blog, Divorce, Family, Legal News

Mississippi Fails To Add Domestic Violence As A Legal Reason For Divorce

Melissa Jeltsen Senior Reporter, The Huffington Post

Advocates say the state’s antiquated divorce laws can make it harder for victims to leave abusive spouses.

A bill that would have added domestic violence as a legal grounds for divorce died in the Mississippi state Senate last week.

In Mississippi, a person can get a divorce if their spouse is a habitual drunk, commits adultery, has an incurable mental illness or is naturally impotent.

But if their spouse beats them? That would make things more complicated. As it currently stands, domestic violence is not among the 12 legal grounds for divorce in the state.

A recent effort to rectify that died in the Mississippi state Senate last week.

The bill would have made domestic violence the 13th legal justification for divorce, as long as it was “established by clear and convincing evidence, where the perpetrator commits upon a spouse one of the following: attempting to cause, or purposely or knowingly causing, bodily injury to the spouse; or attempting by physical menace to put the spouse in fear of imminent serious bodily harm.”

Wendy Mahoney, executive director of the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said she was disappointed that the bill failed, and characterized the state’s current divorce laws as antiquated.

“In this day and age, we were just trying to get some language that would be more fitting about what transpires in situations of domestic violence,” she said.

The coalition pushed for the bill after many domestic violence survivors reported that their greatest need was assistance with legal services, particularly divorce.

“Basically, we wanted to make this process easier for individuals, being that they are already dealing with so many issues — child custody, rebuilding their lives and so on,” Mahoney said.

William Wright, a divorce lawyer who has been practicing law for 42 years, said it’s harder to get a divorce in Mississippi than in most other states.

Under state law, if both members of the couple agree to divorce, they can claim “irreconcilable differences” and don’t need to provide a legal reason, he said.

But if one spouse doesn’t want the divorce, the process is often stymied. The person seeking the divorce must settle on unfavorable terms or claim one of the 12 grounds allowed by state law, and the court will decide whether to grant it.

“What you have down here is that the one who doesn’t want the divorce just holds out for a good deal,” he said. “One party holds the other party hostage.”

Wright said domestic violence victims trying to divorce abusive partners typically allege “habitual cruel and inhuman treatment,” which is among the current legal grounds for divorce.

But that can be hard to prove unless the abuse was physical and ongoing, he said. Subtle types of abuse, like emotional, verbal and economic, are much more difficult to demonstrate.

Stacey Sarver, legal director of WomensLaw, said that while it’s common for states to include cruel and inhuman treatment or extreme cruelty as a grounds for divorce, most don’t require proof that the abuse was ongoing or “habitual.”

“It seems in Mississippi, one incident is not enough,” she said. “That is not commonly found in the statutes of other states.”

Mahoney said she hopes the bill will pass in the next legislative session.

“We will have more support next year, and I think we will be better positioned to make sure it passes,” she said.

Sourced From – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mississippi-domestic-violence-divorce_us_571f7969e4b01a5ebde34227

Blog, Divorce, Family, Legal News, Supreme Court

Mississippi Supreme Court rules same-sex divorce legal

Anna Wolfe, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger

6:15 p.m. EST November 5, 2015

JACKSON, Miss. — The Mississippi Supreme Courton Thursday acknowledged the divorce of a same-sex couple under Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.

In the process, two justices made claims that states may not have to follow U.S. Supreme Court rulings when they believe the court is creating policy as opposed to interpreting the law.

Five justices agreed with the ruling, consisting of just four paragraphs, that same-sex divorce is legal and should be recognized. Remaining Justices Jess Dickinson, Leslie King, Josiah Coleman and Jim Kitchens objected.

Dickinson acknowledged in his dissent, signed by Coleman, that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage and state Attorney General Jim Hoodhas informed the court that, following Obergefell v. Hodges, he finds Mississippi’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Dickinson, however, goes on to question whether the U.S. Supreme Court exceeded the authority of its court.

“And while it is true that the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution obligates state courts to follow the United States Supreme Court’s constitutional interpretations, even when they disagree with those interpretations, there is substantial support from legal scholars that state courts are not required to recognize as legitimate legal authority a Supreme Court decision that is no way a constitutional interpretation, but rather is a legislative act by a judicial body that is — as Chief Justice Roberts put it — a decision that “has no basis in the Constitution or (United States Supreme Court) precedent,” Dickinson writes.

Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts wrote the dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges, which is why Matt Steffey, constitutional law expert and Mississippi College of Law professor, doesn’t believe Roberts’ opinion can be used for a valid argument.

“A dissent is the opinion of the side that lost,” Steffey said.

Steffey said Dickinson is simply saying the U.S. Supreme Court got it wrong. Steffey also said Dickinson’s argument is the same one that the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens Council and former Gov. Ross Barnett used to oppose Brown v. Board of Education.

“It’s exactly the same line of argument considered and rejected by our founding fathers,” Steffey said. “I’m talking about the line of thinking where every person gets to decide for themselves what the law means instead of following binding decisions of the court.”

In 2013, a judge in DeSoto County prevented Lauren Beth Czekala-Chatham from divorcing her wife, whom she married in California, because of Mississippi’s same-sex marriage ban.

Chief Justice William Waller and Justices Michael Randolph, Ann Lamar, Randy Pierce and David Chandler wrote an order in favor of Czekala-Chatham, overturning the Desoto County Chancery Court ruling.

Czekala-Chatham said she hopes to soon be divorced from her wife, who now lives in Arkansas.

“I’m happy this battle has been won. But the war on discrimination is still ongoing,” the 53-year-old Hernando resident told The Associated Press on Thursday.

She said searching for a job as a credit analyst has been difficult because potential employers see her involvement in the case.

“This fight has damaged my life in ways I can’t recover from,” she said.

In Dickinson’s dissent, he acknowledges the Chancery Court of DeSoto County’s refusal to grant a divorce to the appellant.

Dickinson attempted to prove his argument that the Supreme Court is able to “exceed its authority,” with what he called an “absurd hypothetical” about Congress taking all guns from gun owners.

“One example of this view, for instance, is that if the Supreme Court concluded that gun violence impedes the flow of interstate commerce, leading it to interpret theCommerce Clause as granting the Congress the power to confiscate all privately owned guns, who would feel bound to follow it? This absurd hypothetical, some believe, debunks any notion that it is impossible for the Supreme Court to exceed its authority. So in the context of today’s case, the question becomes whether it has done so in Obergefell,” Dickinson wrote.