Legal Question in Family Law in Missouri

Re: parental rights of a convicted rapist

You need to talk to a lawyer in the county in where the paternity case is pending.

I assume from your questions, there is an active paternity case pending.

If not, you still need to talk to an attorney about the mother's rights.

I practice law in Harris County. I am unaware of any judge ordering a parent to take a child to prison for visitition. Normally when I have a parent in prison, I get the mother sole custody with child support starting 60 days after his release from prison. I also based all future visitation on "mutual agreement".

If there is no paternity case pending, it might be best for the mother NOT to establish paternity, thereby, NOT giving the father future rights and duties when he gets out of prison.

I am curious why you are asking about him getting custody? If he is prison, how can he get custody?

I really sounds like to you need to talk to a person that practices family law and perhaps criminal law.

As a victim of a crime, is there a victim assistance advocate (or something similar) in your community that will assist her with things such as notification of when he will be released and helping her contact the parole board each times he comes up for parole?

Does the mother have a restraining order? If so, she will probably qualify for all visitation exchanges to be through the SAFE Program (or a similar program in your county) so that she never needs to have contact with the father.

Good luck!