Legal Question in Family Law in Tennessee
joint custody to full custody
My ex-husband have been divorced for three years and have joint custody of our twelve year old twin daughters with no child support involved. I do not feel it is in the girls best interest to go back to their dads. There has been some evidence of drug and alcohol use/abuse in their presence as well as he drops them off somewhere or leaves them at home for long periods of time. Do I legally have to make them go back or can I can keep them? What legal channels and options do I have?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: joint custody to full custody
Your husband -- NOT YOU -- can go back to court to get a change of custody. So see what is involved in that, you probably should visit my website at jesbeard.com, and in particular the links at http://jesbeard.com/6b.htm and at http://jesbeard.com/6h.htm
It's important to remember that on going to change custody by changing a prior court order of custody, it is no longer just a question of who the children would be better off with, but a question of whether things have become bad enough to make a change appropriate.
But on the question of whether you can simply keep the kids and not return them -- the answer is no. Doing so would not only be contempt of court, but also the crime of custodial interference and could result in time in jail.
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