I think you’ve mistaken my post as having come from the OP.
You’re blaming the wrong guy. He claimed to be focusing on the letter of the law, not me. I agree that under the letter of the law, this meets some definition of kidnap. Very clearly. I do not think it meets the definition of kidnap that 90% of people would have in mind, and that elicits the visceral fear that once led us to make kidnap a capital crime. The legislature can define anything how it wants. I submit that to the great majority of people, absconding (illegally! yes, I know!) in a messy custodial situation with kids sprung from your loins whom you intend to (otherwise) take care of is not, for most people you or I know, “as bad” as snatching a stranger’s kid to kill, or even to raise as your own.
Sorry for conflating the two. I meant that the OP had no real focus on law when he put “kidnap” in quotes and continues to try to justify it.
It’s a good question. Here’s my distinction. No custody decree is set in stone. 15 years + one day ago, it was an open issue whether mom or dad would get custody. It was never an open issue whether a stranger would get custody. 14.9 years ago, dad presumably could have appealed or re-opened the decree, submitting new facts, seeking a new determination, with the possible outcome that custody would, after all, go to him. So, he was always a potential custodial parent. The stranger can’t say that.
But . . . dad’s a hothead, a law-breaking hothead at that. Or, he’s paranoid that the California family courts are rigged and he can’t get the fair hearing or re-hearing he deserves. Or, he’s right that the system’s rigged and he can’t, right now, get the fair re-opening of the case that he deserves. So he engages in what he calls self-help and we call custodial kidnap. Fast forward fifteen years, and he says, well, I still think I was right fifteen years ago, but more importantly, I’m the more appropriate parent now. And – in some non-zero percentage of cases – maybe that’s true and his self-help could be retroactively ratified.
None of that really works with a stranger, who didn’t have a colorable or possible right to custody at any past time, which dad and mom both inherently have ab initio.
But none of that is talking about what’s best for the children, which is what you’re focused on.
While I might sympathize, I don’t get how breaking a court order and denying my kid his mother would be raising my son the right way, or being the better parent. Maybe the mom was batshit insane, but that’s what the court system is for.
Got it.
But causation becomes a more likely conclusion when you subtract out the rate at which those pathologies are present in bitterly broken homes where the kid is not abducted in violation of the custody order. I don’t see that calculus having been done in your cite.
I am thinking about what’s best for the children. They have one parent who commits serious crimes and one parent who doesn’t. Already I’m seeing one parent who looks better than the other.
Let’s just assume that you’re correct about a whole lot of things- that the best interests of the children are related to their happiness, that a criminal court case is even *about *the children’s best interests , that the only function of incarceration is punishment, and that the mother and children are the only victims. It appears that in your view, it’s okay to send him to prison in a year or two , after they’re off to college with the possibility of visitation by the mother in the meantime. Answer me this- why would you assume that anyone will be able to find him or the kids if they are left to live with him while adjudication is deferred? He has already shown that he will ignore court orders and I would expect him to disappear with the kids again - and probably do a better job of it this time.
Reward in this case doesn’t have anything to do with the children being a prize. The “reward” is not the children , exactly. It is that he would legitimately achieve the goal he acted illegally to obtain. If a convict escapes from prison with five years left to serve, is found ten years later, and is not made to serve the remaining five years, he is being rewarded for his escape in exactly the same way this father would be rewarded if he retains custody.
My understanding is that there is no information out there about the circumstances of their split, the terms of custody, or any reason he might have had for doing what he did?
Does anyone think any of that matters? Is there anything the mother could have done 15 years ago that would, in your view, justify the father in moral (not legal) terms?
Certainly. The mother may have been abusing the children and the father may have abducted them to to protect them. But it’s alos possible the father abducted the children so he could abuse them.
But, as you said, we have no evidence of any of these possibilities. All we know about the character of the parents from the article linked in the OP is that the father abducted the children.
Which has already been conveniently split in half.
I’m seeing the argument “the children are the only victim and they seem fine.”
What if he had sexually abused one of the children as an infant, and for some reason we have proof of this? Let’s say the kid has no memory of this, does not seem traumatized by it, and just wants things to stay the way they are. Other than that one time, he’s been a great father. Would you still be saying “yeah, but it’s all water under the bridge, why break up the family now?”
From the point of view of the kids, here and now, they might see their mother’s actions as harmful because of the disruption in their lives, and they were never aware of any different circumstances. But consider if the children had somehow discovered their mother online. The situation could reverse, and they could consider their father the cause of the disruption. Hopefully in this case, as it is, they will eventually realize their father’s culpability. Like most of the other posters in this thread, I find it strange that pardoning the father’s crime would be considered a way to diminish the disruption that he caused.
Bravo, sir or ma’am. Bravo.
While I understand the sentiment in the OP, as others have mentioned it’d be awful precedent. ‘Kidnap the kids, honey, just make sure they don’t get found for 15 years (10? 5? How many’s enough?) and you won’t be punished.’
We don’t know what kind of bullshit the guy’s been feeding the kids about their mom. I think the chances are low that he’s told them the truth. He’s probably been lying his ass off, and their reaction to being contacted by their mom is probably informed by false information.
Bingo. In the family matter, depending on the laws of the jurisdiction(s), the kids might have a very significant say in deciding with whom they end up living. (For example, where I live, kids of that age make the decision.)
But even if the kids want to remain with their father, and even if the family court were to grant the kids’ request, the court handling the criminal matter will probably separate the kids from their dad, for as with most criminal matters, the best interests of the children are not paramount in sentencing, whereas it is very important that the court does not sanction kidnapping by letting a person get away with it. If he gets jail time, the kids will not be with him.
I skimmed this thread so maybe I missed it, but has anyone pointed out how strange it is that the daughter, after having a correspondence wth the mother, abruptly and curtlly decided to cut off contact, say leave us alone, we’re happy. Doesn’t that come across as very very strange, in a 'maybe things said like this in cases like this are equally likely to false in some way as they are to be what the seem on the surface"?
The whole argument against the mother seems to rest on taking it for granted that
-
this is actually the kids wish
and, but more importantly, -
a childs best interest invariably means not disrupting their life.
Based on the strangeness mentioned above, it seems more likely the quote came from the father himself, or from the kid after the father found out about the mother’s contact and coerced that abrupt change with lies.
That’s obviously conjecture, but no more unlikely than the assumption that what was said is true merely because it was said.
Ultimately though, punishing the father now is more valuable to the best interests of many more children than those specific 2, because it sets a high profile precedent that you WILL be punished when you are found if you do this. If the father isn’t punished, it sets a much more dangerous precedent that, if you can stay hidden for a little while, you’re fine. It stops more cases like this from happening, and if the worst cost for that is potentially disrupting a two kids life emotionally, then BFD.
eta: Basically what Muffin said.
“more likely it came from the father himself?” Your online correspondences may be different than mine. I find it equally likely (and yes, facts are limited) that daughter was trying to be cool, entered into a casual online chat with mom, and mom amped up the intensity to a “let’s get re-acquainted and spend the rest of our lives together” level, and daughter kind of flipped at the stalkerish quality of the tone and backed out kind of harshly, and mom flipped and called the cops.
Yes, your scenario is less likely, because we have independent verification from the child welfare people who have talked to the kids and said (quite apart from the online texts that you, contra Occam, speculate were fabricated) that, basically, the kids are not relishing the prospect of a new life with mom.
The father has had 15 years to tell the kids how horrible their mother is, and they weren’t hearing anything from her to contradict it–because he kidnapped them in violation of the Court’s order. He’s the bad guy here, period.
If he had some reason to seek to change the custody decision, he should have used lawful means to appeal/modify it. He failed to do that, and took the law into his own hands. Time for him to pay the piper.