Parents Tell Lawmakers How Family Court’s ‘Weapons’ Tear Families Apart as Officials Pledge Reform
By Richard Luthmann
HAYDEN, Idaho – Idaho lawmakers on a special task force heard explosive testimony July 31 about systemic failures in family courts. Formed this year, the Child Custody and Domestic Relations Task Force is charged with reviewing how courts apply custody and domestic relations laws and recommending fixes.
Co-Chair Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton, stressed the group wouldn’t second-guess individual judges or “undermine the integrity of the courts” – but dozens of witnesses insisted the courts themselves are undermining families.
Among those who spoke were Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler, Arizona state Rep. Rachel Keshel, and even an Idaho guardian ad litem named Kacey Wall, whose very role came under scrutiny.
Wheeler urged legislators to add “coercive control” – patterns of intimidation and isolation – to Idaho’s domestic violence laws.
“The victims of coercive control are hidden in plain sight,” Wheeler said, noting such invisible abuse fuels many high-conflict custody battles. “This form of extreme cruelty is not recognized as a crime in Idaho… This must be changed, hopefully this next year.” Wheeler implored.
“Coercive control,” like “parental alienation,” is deeply controversial in family courts because they are often used as competing narratives in custody battles, frequently without clear legal definitions. Critics argue both terms can be misused: coercive control may be amorphous or hard to prove, while parental alienation has been labeled pseudoscience and weaponized to discredit abuse claims.
“One partner withholds sex. Is that coercive control?” journalist Michael Volpe famously questions.
After official presentations in the morning, the afternoon was devoted to public testimony. Parents, grandparents, and advocates from across Idaho (and beyond) lined up to share wrenching personal stories.
Their complaints struck common themes: temporary custody orders that rip away children without due process, court-appointed guardians ad litem (GALs) wielding outsized power with no accountability, and a “cash-for-conflict” courtroom culture that bleeds families dry.
One by one, citizens begged the task force to confront what they called a broken system – and lawmakers indicated that change is on the table.
‘Temporary’ Orders Used as Weapons
Speakers hammered the way temporary custody orders – often issued ex parte, with only one side present – can upend families for months or years. Such orders are meant to be short-term but frequently “become the status quo… [based on] an ex parte order [where] the other side didn’t get to say anything.”
In other words, a parent can lose custody in a brief, one-sided hearing and not get a full trial for a year or more.
“When you strip a parent of their child without due process, you violate their constitutional rights,” Sen. Nichols said in a recent interview.
Nichols and other reformers describe secret, unappealable interim orders as a devastating legal weapon misused in custody wars.
At the hearing, Arizona Rep. Rachel Keshel warned Idaho lawmakers that this problem is a national issue.
“The stories that I’ve heard keep me up at night. I’ve never wanted to fight for something so bad,” Keshel said of the family court nightmares she’s encountered.
In Arizona, Keshel has championed a suite of reforms – one bill would require courts to re-evaluate any temporary custody order after six months, rather than letting them drag on indefinitely. Another measure she sponsored would guarantee parents the right to demand a jury trial in custody cases, a radical step reflecting her belief that some family court judges are too biased.
“It’s about restoring parents’ faith that they’ll get a fair shake,” Keshel told the Idaho panel, noting that an unbiased jury could prevent the rubber-stamping of dubious claims.
Lawmakers here are likewise considering checks on emergency orders, such as requiring a speedy evidentiary hearing within 30 to 60 days, to ensure one-sided rulings don’t become permanent by default.
Nichols agreed that “after the one-year mark” of a temporary order, it’s far harder for the ousted parent to regain custody, so the system must move faster to hear both sides.
The message from both citizens and experts was urgent: no more “secret” custody decrees that linger without a full, fair hearing.
Parents Charge Courts With ‘Cash-for-Conflict’ Culture
Many who testified described the family court system as not only prone to error but rife with financial incentives to prolong conflict. They argue that judges, attorneys, and court-appointed professionals profit while parents and children pay, both emotionally and financially.
Arizona’s Keshel cited one case where a judge ordered costly psychological evaluations and “forensic” experts, saddling parents with $15,000 to $25,000 in fees. She pushed legislation to require courts to cover such investigative costs rather than forcing individual families to pay, saying the current setup encourages overuse of high-priced experts.
Idaho parents echoed similar frustrations. One father, William Cathers, told the panel he felt “tremendous bias” in the process and was overwhelmed by expensive requirements, counseling, and court fees piling up as he fought for his child.
“You just get filled with this fear – like, am I making the right choices?” Cathers said, describing the desperate confusion many unrepresented parents face.
A Department of Health and Welfare briefing provided at the meeting underscored the complexity and opacity of the system: the agency handled roughly 2,500 public records requests related to child welfare in just the past year, suggesting that thousands of Idahoans are seeking information about cases involving their children.
Yet transparency is limited – most family court files are sealed, and an Idaho Judicial Council report noted that the “vast majority of [judicial misconduct] complaints do not survive initial evaluation” if they’re essentially disagreements with a judge’s decision. In short, parents have virtually no recourse when they suspect bias or corruption.
“Family court is also where the money is,” Sen. Nichols observed, pointing to testimony that monetary incentives drive prolonged legal battles.
The longer a custody fight drags on – with repeated evaluations, parenting coordinators, GALs, therapy, supervised visits – the more income for the professionals involved.
Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist who previously addressed the task force, warned that U.S. family courts have turned into a “business model” exported abroad, and even the United Nations now calls this a children’s human rights crisis.
Lee testified that courts sometimes “go looking for experts who will give them whatever theory allows them to give the children to their abusers” – because it keeps the case going. In her view, the oft-cited theory of “parental alienation” is “pseudoscience” used as a pretext to flip custody and “brings in profit” for court players.
These stark accusations of financial motive resonated with lawmakers. Nichols noted that repeatedly hearing the same patterns “means there’s a pattern… and that means change is coming.” The task force’s mandate, she said, is to identify where Idaho law is being misused for profit or advantage, and then “close those [loopholes].”
‘Rogue’ Guardians ad Litem Draw Ire – and Defense
Another lightning rod at the hearing was the role of guardians ad litem (GALs) – the court-appointed advocates who are ostensibly supposed to represent children’s best interests. Witness after witness blasted the GAL system as unaccountable and prone to abuse.
At Nichols’ July 7 task force meeting in Boise, parents “heavily criticized” GALs, describing how these appointees act as extensions of the court but enjoy quasi-immunity. There is no independent board in Idaho to discipline a GAL who oversteps, so families feel powerless to challenge them.
Some reformers even advocate for eliminating GALs, arguing that judges can decide custody without these costly intermediaries, who often escalate the conflict.
Heidi Moreland, a mother from Bonner County, gave emotional testimony on July 7 about what she calls a “family court nightmare.” Moreland said she lost custody of her two children after being accused of “parental alienation” – essentially, being blamed for turning the kids against their father.
She told lawmakers this “pseudo theory” was weaponized to punish her for trying to protect her kids, while actual abuse allegations were ignored. When she spoke out about her judge on a national parents’ forum, she said, it backfired – the court scolded her, portraying her advocacy as further evidence of an uncooperative attitude.
Moreland’s story put a name in the spotlight: Kacey Wall, the Sandpoint attorney who served as GAL in her case. The allegations against Wall – that she sided with an abusive father and helped mislabel a protective mom as an “alienator” – hung in the air as the task force moved north to Hayden.
On July 31, Kacey Wall herself took the microphone, ostensibly to defend the system in which she works. Wall was one of several family law attorneys who attended the Hayden hearing, concerned that only one side of the story was being told. She noted that at both task force meetings so far, lawmakers heard almost exclusively “negative outcomes” from disgruntled parents.
“My concern was with the legislators only hearing these extreme examples of how people feel they got a negative outcome from the trial,” Wall said.
Because case files and GAL reports are confidential, lawyers are limited in what they can publicly say to rebut accusations, she explained. In her view, some testimony had misrepresented the facts.
“Those were not the facts that were presented,” Wall insisted, referring to cases like Moreland’s. “The judge actually made the right decision” in those cases, she said.
Essentially, Wall suggested that the courts did protect the children, contrary to what the parents claim, but attorneys cannot divulge evidence to prove it. Her remarks drew muted nods from a few attorneys in the room, who echoed that the task force should gather input from practitioners to get a “more complete” picture.
The divide was apparent: parents call these court actors “rogue GALs” and worse, while the professionals maintain that most cases are handled justly. Only those with extremely aggrieved stories show up to complain. Sen. Nichols has acknowledged that not every divorce or custody fight ends in disaster, but the litany of horror stories suggests that systemic issues may be at play.
“If we’re hearing the same things over and over, that means there’s a pattern,” she said.
Formulating Reforms
Nichols and her allies are already formulating reforms. They are considering requirements for licensing, training, and independent oversight of GALs, ending the era of court-appointed individuals with unchecked power. They also want to curb the use of ex parte orders, possibly by guaranteeing a prompt follow-up hearing or even creating penalties for those who abuse emergency motions.
Other ideas floated include penalties for making false abuse allegations (to deter tactical accusations) and prioritizing mediation over litigation to resolve custody disputes earlier.
Nichols even discovered a loophole in Idaho law – nothing explicitly bars awarding custody to a convicted pedophile – and vows to outlaw that after one egregious case came to light.
The overarching goal, she says, is a simpler, fairer system that returns the focus to children, not the egos or pocketbooks of adults.
“Whatever we can do to make the process work the way it’s supposed to… and make it better… we need to do,” Nichols said.
The task force has scheduled additional meetings across the state for the coming months. Nichols hinted they may even add an extra hearing to accommodate the flood of people wanting to speak.
The process is far from over, but one thing is clear after the Hayden session: Idaho’s family court establishment is on notice. What was once whispered about courthouse injustices is now being aired in public forums and news reports.
As the co-chair put it, if the same abuses continue to surface, Idaho lawmakers stand ready to “hold bad actors accountable.” After years of pain for parents and children, reformers are determined to strip the system of its secret weapons and put families first.
