Alcohol monitoring bracelets have long been a stalwart in criminal courts, particularly in monitoring drunken drivers to ensure they are complying with no alcohol orders. Now that same technology is starting to be utilized by family law judges. The Wisconsin Law Journal has a great article in this regard, explaining how the technology is being used in Wisconsin. Seems like the same policy could be equally applicable here in California.
As explained in the WLJ:
It’s a novel idea, but one that makes sense to some family law attorneys who practice in Waukesha County.
Circuit
Court Judge Kathryn W. Foster is proposing a plan to incorporate an
alcohol monitoring system, traditionally used in criminal courts, into
divorce and child custody cases.
Foster said it is sometimes
difficult in contested family cases, absent a drunken driving
conviction, to get an accurate picture of whether one of the parties
has an alcohol problem.
“There’s so much ‘he said, she said’ in
family law matters that a neutral source that can either give
assurances or document what’s going on can only be helpful,” said
Elizabeth F. Bagley, of Stack, Fahl & Bagley LLP in Brookfield.
Bagley, who practices in Waukesha and Milwaukee, is unaware of any other courts that use alcohol monitoring in family court.
The
Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring (SCRAM) bracelet would
provide objective evidence to support or discredit an allegation of
alcohol abuse, Foster said.
The devices detect how much alcohol
a person consumes and when. The information can then be downloaded and
reviewed to determine if there is a violation.
The SCRAM
bracelet is primarily used in drunken driving cases. But the proposal
would allow to the system to be used as a tool to determine if
treatment should be recommended or if a child’s safety is at risk.
“It’s
not meant to be used in a punitive fashion,” Foster said. “[But] it
would be helpful to determine if sanctions might be needed or a
suspension of child placement.”
The bracelets could also cut
down on the number of cases that are litigated, if one side is able to
provide evidence that the other party is abusing alcohol.
That, in turn, could make cases less costly.
When
one party alleges the other party has a problem, particularly in cases
involving children, and “you take these cases to trial, the expense of
a Guardian ad Litem and attorney fees can escalate quickly,” said solo
family law attorney Sheila L. Romell.
A reliable, objective
tool, rather than the parties on the stand “tearing each other apart”
could spare clients financial and emotional stress, said Romell.
Without such a tool “it’s really hard to catch somebody and know exactly how much they’ve been drinking,” she noted.
Foster
said the bracelet would also help eliminate concerns that
“hyper-vigilant” spouses are falsely accusing their significant others
of having a drinking problem.
Now, said Waukesha attorney Andrew
C. Ladd, “if someone is being challenged, the person could say, ‘she’s
just looking for any excuse to accuse me of something.’ [This is a] way
to find out if the person really does have a problem.”
“That could shorten some proceedings,” he said.
Questions expected
While practitioners generally favor monitoring, it’s unclear if and when it can be mandated.
Ladd,
who sits on a committee with Foster that will help implement the
system, suggested that initially the bracelet might have to be
voluntary.
“I think the biggest question is what happens if one
person doesn’t want to do it,” Ladd said. “Can you force [him or her]
to do it? I would doubt it in family court.”
And although the
SCRAM bracelet is considered reliable, Bagley said that in criminal
cases there have been instances where the devices recorded false
positives.
“If SCRAM came back indicating alcohol and I had a
client who was adamant that he didn’t drink, that might cause me to
delve into whether something on the device wasn’t working correctly,”
she said.
Ladd said judges may be able to impose sanctions such as supervised visitation if someone refuses to wear the bracelet.
“A lot of this we won’t know until judges start ruling on some of this,” he said.
Foster
said the committee is expected to meet several times in the coming
weeks to develop protocols and determine the best scenario for using
the monitoring system.
Please click here for the original article.
Please be sure to visit
www.hardinglaw.com, the website for the law firm of Harding & Associates, for more information on California family law.
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