With a felony, can someone still be given visitation rights to children?

Question

My ex and I had a child together and we have to go to court on friday, do you think he will be given any visitation rights since he has a felony on papers for 5 years? He does drugs and he may still sell them (thats what his felony was for, and the reason why he went to jail. I dont think my child is safe near him. what should i do?

Also, he has never made any effort to see the child since she was four months, and now she is 2yrs

Answer 1

Yes he can still get visitations.

From my own experience as my ex husband was a convicted drug dealer & we shared 2 children (by blood) but parents to 3 (as he became dad to my first born when she was 4 (now she's 20). You will have to provide documentation for EVERY incident that involved him & danger to the child while in his care. You may be able to get supervised visits declared if you can indeed prove that he was endangering the child while in his care. Other wise you can request that the child NEVER be taken out of the county or state while with him. After 6 months of visitations (depending on your state) you can provide the courts with you notebook (you should always keep of daily noting contact, no-shows, late returns - EVERYTHING) to prove he is not abiding to the court order. Then after review from the courts you may be able to have it revoked. It is hard & can be time consuming along with monetarily set you back but it can be done. Mine was a little more involved since my ex kept his dealings away from me & the home & towards the end I was piecing things together & brought up my suspicions to the local authority (which put custody more in my favor). My kids are the #1 priority in my life.

Keep in mind though. You may be angry at the father (which would be normal & expected) but what you think is harmful to the kids may not been seen that way logically or by the courts. My ex did a 360 turn around and found the right path by having to have supervised visits with his kids before I took them away all together because his actions spoke louder than his scheming. Now we share custody & both of us are active in our kids lives and also remain friends.

Answer 2

I would insist on supervised visitation only. The court would appoint a person to be present during all visitation - usually from 1 to 2 hours. This is probably what the judge will order under the circumstances. In the meantime - you need to try to gather evidence of the continued drug use to support your claims. When the case comes up again - you will have some basis to ask that even supervised visits be discontinued.

Answer 3

Unless a judge feels he is a threat to the safety of your children then he can have visitation. Supervised visitation is also possible. As long as he isn't mean to the child then I'm sure the child still loves him.