Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts

and terrible stress and heartache. My ultimate goal is to move
away from New York so that my children and I can start over in
a place where we do not feel scared anymore. But I will be
unable to do this until I can save enough money to move –
something I will never be able to do if I am forced to live the rest
of my life going in circles – appearing before many judges in
many courts and having to start from square one every time.”
* * * *
The following is the testimonial of Dyandria D., a victim
of domestic violence who was further victimized by her batterer
as a consequence of our state’s confusing court structure.
“In 1995, I filed for divorce from my abusive husband on
the grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment in the Queens
County Supreme Court. . . . My husband was infuriated over my
initiating the divorce action and even more outraged over my
seeking meager maintenance and child support payments. In
retaliation, and in order to escape his responsibility to support
our daughter, my husband stooped so low as to go on record in
Supreme Court to deny paternity of our daughter, his only
biological child. . . . After the Queens County judge finally
ordered DNA testing, my husband dropped the issue.
“Next, my husband tried a second scheme to avoid paying
child support – he called the child abuse hotline to report that I
was abusing our daughter. Presumably, my husband figured that
having our daughter placed in state custody would free him of
his child support obligation.
“The indefensible jurisdictional
allocation of authority
over family matters between
Family Court and Supreme
Court can result in . . . [a]
frustrating, confusing and
wasteful process [that] is carried
out in the context of proceedings
which are often
highly emotional and deeply
personal in nature.”
– Action Unit No. 4 of the
State Bar Association
(1979)
. . .
“The resulting abuse/neglect proceedings were heard in
Manhattan Family Court and went on simultaneously with the
divorce proceedings in Queens County Supreme Court. . . . In
Supreme Court, [my husband] convinced the judge to deny me
the meager maintenance I was requesting, on the basis that I was
very intelligent and highly capable of procuring any fine job that
I sought. In Family Court, however, my husband painted a
completely different picture of me for the purpose of preventing
me from regaining custody of my child. In Family Court, my
A Court System for the Future, February 2007 43