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11:42

NEWS STORY

 * Government & Politics
 * Justice


MONTANA SUPREME COURT REMOVES LAKE COUNTY DISTRICT COURT JUDGE FROM CHILD
CUSTODY CASE


JUSTICES SAID JUDGE DEBORAH KIM CHRISTOPHER SUBJECTED CHILD ‘TO POTENTIAL
TRAUMA’ IN MISGUIDED PARENTING PLAN

BY: KEILA SZPALLER - JANUARY 3, 2024 11:42 AM



The interior of the Montana State Supreme Court (Photo by Eric Seidle/ For the
Daily Montanan).

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.

Page 1 / 19
Zoom 100%

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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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide
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KEILA SZPALLER

Keila Szpaller is deputy editor of the Daily Montanan and covers education.
Before joining States Newsroom Montana, she served as city editor of the
Missoulian, the largest news outlet in western Montana.

MORE FROM AUTHOR

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Lawyer awaiting Montana Supreme Court order: 'We don't even… by Keila Szpaller
December 27, 2023




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1
X



MONTANA SUPREME COURT REMOVES LAKE COUNTY DISTRICT COURT JUDGE FROM CHILD
CUSTODY CASE

by Keila Szpaller, Daily Montanan
January 3, 2024

<h1>Montana Supreme Court removes Lake County District Court judge from child
custody case</h1> <p>by Keila Szpaller, <a
href="https://dailymontanan.com">Daily Montanan</a> <br />January 3, 2024</p>
<p>Shanna ManyWounds will be reunited with <a
href="https://dailymontanan.com/2023/12/27/lawyer-awaiting-montana-supreme-court-order-we-dont-even-know-where-the-kid-is/">her
little boy</a> after a Lake County District Court Judge abruptly ordered him
taken away from his mom in September.</p> <p>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
href="https://dailymontanan.com/2023/11/20/alleging-gross-injustice-by-lake-county-judge-lawyers-ask-mtsupco-to-step-in/">
a gross injustice.”</a></p> <p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p> <p>The
order voids Christopher’s parenting plan, and it grants ManyWounds’ <a
href="https://dailymontanan.com/2023/12/04/unusual-court-records-raise-misconduct-concerns-in-child-custody-case-lawyers-say/">emergency
request</a> 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.”</p> <p>“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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>She did so contrary to any proposal from either parent or any
allegations of neglect or abuse.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>“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.</p> <p>“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.</p> <p>“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.”</p> <p>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.</p> <p>“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.</p>
<p>“Neither motivation is grounded in the requirements of (Montana code) and has
resulted in misapplication of the law.</p> <p>“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.’”</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>“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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>“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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>“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.</p> <p>“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.</p> <p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p> <p>“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 …’</p> <p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p> <p>“So you’re going to get a gift I
don’t think you ever expected the opportunity to have.”</p> <p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p> <p>“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.</p> <p>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.</p> <a
href="https://dailymontanan.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ManyWounds-Order.pdf">ManyWounds
Order<br /></a> <p><em>Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to reflect
the relationship between the pastor and ManyWounds as identified in the hearing
transcript.</em></p> <style> figure, .tipContainer, .socContainer,
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