Assuming that they are allowed to have visitors in general, can they still see their kids (closely supervised, of course) even if the mother doesn’t want them to? Assume there is another relative willing to bring the kids there if the mother won’t, and that the prison/hospital isn’t impractically far away.
In and of itself, being committed involuntarily to a psychiatric facility does not modify one’s parental rights, including custody and visitation. Being a voluntary patient does not either, obviously.
Being found legally incompetent – a different legal and administrative process* – would probably terminate custody.
I do not believe that criminal imprisonment alters parental rights either. I’m less up on that stuff though.
If an allegation is made to family court that the father is abusive or neglectful w/regards to the child, custodial and/or visitation rights could be modified, just as they could be modified if the father were not institutionalized.
- It should, of course, be the same legal and administative procedure, insofar as it should not be possible to confine someone to a psychiatric institution against their will unless it can be demonstrated that they lack decision-making capacity according to the same yardstick that any other citizen would be deemed incompetent. [/hijack in footnote]
My brother’s ex-wife is in prison. He went to court to get his parenting plan modified so that she no longer has visiting rights with their son while she’s incarcerated because it was too distressing and confusing for him. She still has visiting rights with her other child and sees him perhaps once a month.
Not disagreeing with this, but I think what the OP was asking was if the other parent could be required to either bring the child to the institution or to allow someone else to .
I have vague memories of some convicted murderer taking a visitation case to the Supreme court…thing is, the one wishing to terminate visitation was the daughter, because he murdered her mother.
I can well imagine how horrible it would be to be dragged against your will into an interview room and be face to face with the one who killed your mom.
I believe most Family Courts are pretty open to listening to arguments (although it does often depend on the judge and the individual judge’s tendencies); it’s up to the concerned people to make a convincing one. I would not think a non-incarcerated parent would often succeed in making a case for termination of all parental rights of the incarcerated parent on the basis of the incarceration alone. On the other hand, it might be difficult to get an enforced order commanding the custodial parent to jump through hoops to transport the child to an institution in order that the non-mobile noncustodial parent can have some visitation time. A big factor is the attitude of the child if the child is of an age of multiple digits. (Courts don’t tend to consult 7-year-olds, although in my opinion they should).