It’s hard to imagine a judge granting joint custody to a man serving a prison term for murdering his wife, but a Texas judge recently approvd a custody arrangement that grants convicted husband killer Clara Harris custody of her twin sons.
Harris is serving a 20 year sentence in the murder of her husband, David Harris. Clara ran over her husband with her Mercedes Benz outside a hotel after finding him their with a woman he was having an affair with.
As Glenn Sacks noted, this sort of absurd decision simply highlights how stacked family courts are in favor of mothers over fathers. As Sacks writes,
While both the judge and the attorney appointed by the court to represent Harris’ two sons saw value in preserving the bond between the children and a mohter who is a convicted murderer, many courts are unable to see the value of the bonds between children and decent, law-abiding fathers.
. . .
While in the Harris case a mother was able to win joint custody from a prison cell, decent fathers who have never had any brush with the law beyond a traffic ticket often cannot. Studies show that in contested cases mothers are granted sole custody over fathers by a margin of eight to one. . . .
. . .
The “woman good/man bad” mentality of our family courts often hurts children by blindly favoring mtohers and placing barriers between fathers and the children who love them. The Harris ruling — where even a mother who is a convicted murderer is still not seen as being an unfit parent — demonstrates just how deep-seated and destructive this mentality is.
That a convicted murder can be granted joint custody of her children is downright bizarre.
Source:
Convicted murderess can get custody but decent fathers can’t. Glenn Sacks, GlennSacks.Com, September 30, 2003.
Clara Harris to share in twin son’s custody. Kristan Thorne, News-24 (Houston, Texas), September 16, 2003.
Custody decided for Clara Harris’ children. Click2Houston.Com, September 15, 2003.