Good, bad, ugly

The good guy loses and the bad guy wins again. Here are the facts. A couple gets a divorce and custody of the child is given to the mother. The father kidnaps the child by refusing to return him from a foreign country after scheduled visitation. The mother attempts all legal means, both national and international to retrieve the child. After several years of unsuccessful attempts, the mother agrees to give the father custody in exchange for visitation rights. The father never follows the custody agreement, with visitation between mother and child being spaced out by years. After two and a half years since the last visit the child is in the country again. The child, now a teen, desires more contact with his family and so the mother goes to court to seek redress.

The judge, without looking at the evidence or even leaving her chambers to see the mother, decides not to make any changes and sends the child back to his father. The mother and child will probably not see one another again until the teen is an adult.

Justice is not blind. It is just lazy, arrogant, and self-satisfied. Is it any wonder that law-abiding people have lost faith in the justice system and lawbreakers view it with contempt?

— Trudy Fuhriman