Peoria Family Law Blog

If you think that divorce may leave you isolated, emotionally-strained and depressed, without anywhere to turn, think again. Today there is a thriving cottage industry serving Illinois and the rest of the country that proposes to make you feel better after your divorce and as you enter the single world again. This movement consists of an array of products, services and programs designed to take the pain out of the usually-draining transition to another phase of life.

Today, the airwaves are full of reports from people going through divorces who describe the intense pain and suffering of the life-changing transformation. Now people can reverse that experience through services such as career advice, dating assistance and child-rearing advice, to name a few. Family law observers estimate the revenue from these divorce-related offerings to be in the billions. The owner of one company called Divorce Detox says its services helps people set a stage for a new life, get closure from the past and move with support into the transition, while consciously healing the emotions.

Sighs of relief were heard in many quarters recently as people learned that the seemingly unending saga known as the Kardashian-Humphries divorce case was finally ended by mutual settlement. The divorce is not in an Illinois court, but we've not been spared from the same onslaught of news articles, both in the mainstream press and the sensationalist tabloids, flooding the airwaves for the past 536 days. As one report in a major newspaper put it, our national ordeal has ended.

The essential inanity of this prolonged investment by the media, the courts and a portion of the public was indicated by the settlement terms. In essence, Kardashian gets a simple divorce and nothing else; Humphries goes along instead of pushing for an annulment. After the extended public game of maneuvers, accusations and posturing, the agreement contains no elements of property division, alimony or other financial transfers from one party to the other. No one is declared to blame for the divorce, and it will apparently follow standard no-fault procedures.

A police officer of 29 years should probably know better than to get personally involved in a custody dispute between the parents of a 2-year-old child, even if it's his grandson. Perhaps he felt comfortable in using power to mold events his way, or maybe he was not that sinister. In any event, he's now suspended and charged with interfering with an officer and custodial interference. Although the case is not in Illinois, it shows some universal principles and inherent weaknesses in our interstate child custody procedures.

The case received national attention recently regarding the saga of a mother, the custodial parent, with at least two court orders ordering return of her son to her. The twist was that the police department where the grandfather-police officer is stationed was uncooperative. The mother complained publicly to no avail until the county sheriff publicly stated that her complaints were true.

When a father who pays support regularly for his children loses his job or suffers a major illness, the court system may not quickly act to compel him to appear in support court. However, in Illinois and elsewhere, when a father makes zero child support payments over a three-year period while posting photos on a social network showing him with a large number of $20 bills and liquor bottles, then all well-intentioned observers would call for strict enforcement of the criminal laws. That is what happened to a 23-year-old man who is now under arrest for three felony counts of failing to pay child support.

The trigger that got the man brought to the attention of authorities was his postings on Facebook. The photos led the district attorney to get a warrant to subpoena the social network's files on the man. This is only allowed if there is a sufficient level of probable cause that can be established for the court to grant the warrant.