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South Carolina Family Law Blog Information and Insight On Family Law Issues In South Carolina

Being Called the Devil in Court

By J. Benjamin Stevens on Posted in Research & Investigation, Trial of Cases

I recently represented a man in a contested divorce and child custody case.  The facts were strongly in our favor, partially due to the woman’s questionable conduct during the marriage.  During the trial, things continued to go in our favor and against the woman, and it was obvious to everyone in the courtroom that her frustration level continued to increase.

Upon direct examination by the woman’s attorney, she began to list her many complaints against my client.  After several minutes of this, she proclaimed that he was "the devil."  She paused for a moment, and she then said that the person sitting beside him (me) was "the devil" too. 

Now, I have been called many names during my professional career outside of court.  In fact, I dare say that I have been called pretty much every name under the sun.  Practicing in an adversarial system, people typically either love me or hate me — depending on whether they were my client or the opposing party.  However, this was the first time that I have been called a name like this on the record. 

Of course, word has quickly spread of this new moniker, and I had another attorney greet me last week by stating "well, if it isn’t the devil himself" (followed by a quick grin and chuckle).  I have warned the court reporter that she might be inundated with requests for that portion of the transcript.  My wife has also enjoyed this new "title" for me at home as well.

When the trial judge was announcing his decision at the end of the trial, he listed the wife’s demeanor during trial and her obvious intense hatred of her husband as reasons that he awarded custody to my client.  In fact, the judge stated that he believed that if custody was awarded to the wife, she would take steps to insure that the children were alienated from their father and that she would work to destroy their relationship with him.

There are two morals to be learned from this story:

  1. Your bad actions and/or misdeeds can (and usually do) come back to haunt you at trial.  I typically advise my clients to assume that they are always being recorded and not to do or say anything outside of court that they wouldn’t want the judge to see/hear.
  2. Even if things go against you during trial, you should remain calm, cool, and under control.  It will never benefit your case to call the other party names from the stand.  Instead, it will almost always backfire and result in you looking worse in the judge’s eyes.
  • Lisa Gilliam

    What happens when you behave exactly the way you are suppose to in and out of the court room. You work hard to give your children everything they need to grow up to be a productive member of society. Only to find yourself representing yourself in court and after 6 years the court appointing custody to a convicted drug dealer, and 3 time felon. You have no criminal history and the child is thriving in his current enviroment. At what point does the Court stop playing politics and start doing whats best for the child period?

  • haley batchelder

    I have 3 children who live in Vermont with their father. I moved out of State about 3 years ago, due to consent verbal and physical abuse from my children’s father. I was very scared of him and I just wanted out. I am going to court to hopefully get my children back! Their father has left me messages, calling me every name in the book, and saying all this in front of my children! In return I get served a order for relief from abuse. My point is I believe in karma, and what goes around comes around.

  • Holisa Wharton

    My brother was released on April 1st, 2008 from prison after serving a 8.5 years of a 10 year sentence. He is trying very hard to find employment with no luck so far. He continues to job hunt daily. The mother of his two children (never married) is asking him to pay $125 per week for his two children, which I paid last month or according to her attorney (don’t know if she actually had an attorney, she will put him up for child support for the 8.5 years he was in prision and he will be arrested. I am trying to pay the $500 a month to prevent until he gets a job because I am afraid that she can actually have him arrested and he has been away from us and his children too long already. Nor do I understand how locking him up will get her her money. She is a LPN and currently enrolled in an RN program, she just purchased a new home and a new vehicle. I am a nursing instructor and atually was her insturctor, so I have an idea of her income. Can she put my brother up for child support for the 8.5 years he was incarcerated? We are not against the child support, we actually want her to put him up so that he will only have to deal with the courts and not her, because right now if I am a day late she starts the phone calls and threats. I don’t know how long I can keep this up because I support a husband and 3 children of my own. I have failed to pay some of my bills make sure she gets her money. So my question is what right if any does my brother have? Can she put him up for child support during the peroid he was incarcerated or will the child support start from now?
    Please refer me to someone that can advise me as how to best help my brother. He is trying relaly hard to take care of his children. He gets them every other weekend and whenever she insist that he take them or will let him have them. He has met with some prison- to- work- group that is helping him look for employment. I want to emphasize we are not against child support (our parents were divorced and my dad paid child support). My brother is on house arrest till August and probabtion after that so he can not afford a warrant of any sort. I am paying this young lady to keep her from serving a a warrant on him, which is what she says her attorney will do if she does not get her money. Can she do this and if so what or our options.

  • Vernon R. Cubbler

    DOES ANYONE REALLY CARE IF THE FATHER DOES THE RESPONSIBLE THING?
    I write this from an experience and an anguish of trying over the last eight years in being responsible for and to my children in making certain that my child support is paid, and on time. But in that, I have received anything short of fairness as it concerns the Family Court System of the state of South Carolina, especially Kershaw County. For any new father, and I say new as to the particulars of Family Law and the dictates of Child Support as I was eight years ago, went at this in sheer ignorance. Believing that part of my responsibility was to provide for my children also meant that I should continue paying the mortgage on the house my children lived in almost cost me a visit to jail. For while I was paying this same mortgage, my child support was piling up. And it appeared that I was a criminal beyond all means in not paying the child support, yet my children did have a place to lay their head at night. I finally wised up for no other word and in response to almost leaving court in shackles, paid the child support, and in the ensuing months, watched my former residence lapse into foreclosure, the ex was supposed to sell the home and subsequent to, the children had to move. But, I paid my child support, and I paid it on time.
    In the years to come, since my ex had placated herself as a Mother Teresa to the judge for care, control, and custody of my five children at the final divorce hearing, I then lived in small housing that afforded me the ability to live and as well, always pay my child support, and on time. As the ex-subsequently married and her new husband and she began creating a self-serving lifestyle for themselves, I readily took in one of my children who was unable to live under this same self-service. And yes, I paid my child support, on time, and to the family court for even the child living with me. Yet, they, the ex and her husband, would not work with me and do anything about reducing the amount of child support being paid also on this child. I couldn’t afford the exuberate luxury of an attorney, so I continued to pay, and on time. I finally decided to initiate a pleading to reduce the child support, but in representing myself in the Family Court of Kershaw County, SC, I was regarded by the judge with disdain and received meager crumbs in regards to any credit for the child living with me which I had paid on for almost a year. And as well, the judge in ruling figured incorrectly the amount of child support to be paid monthly which caused an amount to be too low for the next judge’s computations, resulting in an arrears nightmare. Yet, I paid my child support and on time.
    Then there was the matter of another child who turned eighteen and because it was not spelled out in the divorce decree that the children, one by one since there was five, should come off at eighteen, initiated another court visit. And at this I found out that the previous judge figured the amount wrong from the above hearing and I had thousands of dollars in arrears. Not to mention that he did emancipate the child who turned 18, but did not adjust the amount because my ex asked him not to because she had not discussed it with her husband. I pleaded with the judge concerning this since it seemed unfair in her having to ask her husband. But as always with the Family Court of Kershaw County, SC, my request was overruled and I left court still paying on this child, and on time.
    Fast forward two years and two more children forced out of the house by my ex and her husband and I am still paying on four children when I should only be paying on one. And during this time, my 16 year old daughter comes to life with me, being abandoned by the ex, given over to one of my older children for a period of months. Since I have consistently been treated with disdain and disregard by the judges and the Family court of Kershaw county SC, I decide to take money from an income tax return and retain the services of an attorney. Now I was under the impression that for the $1500.00 you pay an attorney that they would work for and with you, not the case at all. I have spent almost the last year with no response to phone calls or e-mails and an attorney that when the glorious day of a hearing to have my child support properly modified, did not have the time of the hearing correct or the fact that I did not have to be there because she had reached an agreement with my ex-wife’s attorney prior. And in that, for all the money I have paid in child support over the last two and half years, I come to find out that there is no credit due me because I did not file for a hearing to reduce child support at the time it was necessary. Again, what man can afford the luxury of an attorney while paying child support and seeking to be responsible for his bills, as well, what intelligent law abiding man cannot represent him in a court of law, didn’t they do that in the past? What changed? Of course the judge, the family court, and the legal system have no desire in having him to do so since it denies one of their own to miss a house payment or a trip to the beach.
    And now here’s the final offer, since the ex-wife has one child living with her and I have one child living with me that there is for no other term a wash – no child support to be paid by me at this time. But, in two years the child who lives with me will be 18 and the child who lives with the ex will only be 16 which then leaves the probability by law of having to pay child support for two years until that child turns 18. What about the money I already paid for two and a half years on three children? Sorry, the judge won’t consider that since you did not file in a timely manner or is it; play the child support modification game correctly. This is ridiculous, what a hoax. Who really does care about the responsible father who pays the child support, on time, and is there to pick up the pieces of the child’s life when the custodial parent dumps them off at their door like trash? Not the judge, nor the legal system or even Family Court which placates themselves to be always so concerned about the wellbeing of the child. Can we once and for all be concerned about the wellbeing of the father that has to deal with a system that has a closed eye to proper responsibility and an open, accepting one to irresponsible irresponsibility? Yet I paid my child support, and on time.
    But now, I sit and wait and hope that in two years I can find someone to help me get credit for the blood, sweat, and tears as well as money I have paid in past child support, and always, on time. I am certain that if an attorney reads this, they will chuckle with laughter. But, put yourself in my shoes or the shoes of numerous other fathers I have spoken with. We are fed up with being treated like vicious criminals only out for ourselves. Come down from your judicial bench, family court judge, and view life from our level. Stop messing with our heads and our wallets Mr. / Ms. Attorney and be the advocate you should be for “us”, not for your own self-serving system. I challenge any of you, Judge, Attorney, or person within the family court, especially Kershaw County to explain why the Child support System reeks in inequity and holds responsible fathers in disdain and disregard. If it wasn’t for us, you could forget all about the Mercedes you drive or the lake house you live for. Yes, I am sour about all of this. But I am one of the numerous responsible fathers who feel the same and someone needs to speak. We pay our child support and on time.
    With The Utmost of Disdain & Disregard,
    Vernon R. Cubbler