Tom McCutcheon – Attorney at Law
I don’t do divorces but I agreed to help a fellow attorney handle a case and ended up trying a divorce case for the first time in ten years.
In personal injury cases that may be tried before a jury, every letter that we write is written with the idea that a jury may see the letter. Therefore, those letters are polite and generally ask somebody just to do the right thing.
Let me tell you that in a divorce case every single nasty, rude or threatening text message is going to come into evidence. Facebook photos and posts can come into evidence. The lesson here is don’t send or post anything that you don’t want a judge to see. I know that in divorce cases emotions run high and it seems like the most important event in your life at the time especially if children are involved. It seems like all that love and affection has turned into hate and revenge. The old saying among lawyers is that criminal lawyers see bad people at their best and divorce lawyers see good people at their worst. It’s true.
Secondly, there is a fairly new law out there called the Protection From Abuse Act. If a household member or people in a romantic dating relationship that exists on a continuing basis over a period of time engage in violence or (and here’s the catch) threats of violence, the Courts can and will issue an order that will prevent a person (now labeled an abuser) from coming around the victim, where they reside or where they work. This can cause you to lose custody of children, your place of residence, any guns you have and could affect your ability to purchase guns in the future.
The reality is that if you were the judge and someone had been threatened and they were in fear of being harmed, you would issue the order yourself. Judges should issue these orders when someone makes a serious threat or a couple gets into a physical altercation. The reality in this day and age is that you can’t lose your temper and make these threats. I have always made it a point for my clients to be the good guys and it’s difficult to do that if your client has threatened to kill the mother of their children or burn their house down. It’s easy to say that you didn’t mean it or you just lost your temper but losing your temper is a choice and it’s one that in this day and age has serious consequences.
Buckle up and drive safely.
McCutcheon & Hamner, P.C.
2210 Helton Drive
Florence, Alabama 35630
Telephone: 256-764-0112
Facsimile: 256-349-2529
