Should Britney Lose Custody?
The February 2006 photo of Britney Spears steering her SUV out of a Starbucks parking lot in Malibu, Calif., with her infant son, Sean Preston, slumped on her lap was the first sign for many of us that the young mom might not be ready for parenthood. By the time a Los Angeles judge temporarily stripped the pop singer of custody of Sean, now 2, and Jayden James, 1, on Monday, Spears had provided dozens more images that suggest she is unable to care for two young children. From her impromptu head-shaving to her trips to rehab to her recent listless shuffle around the MTV Video Music Awards stage, Spears, 26, seems incapable of taking care of herself. Today she and her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, will face a judge to determine the next step in this increasingly ugly custody battle.
The judge, L.A. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon, didn't make public his reasons for separating Spears from her sons Monday, but family law experts say such a dramatic move is rare. "A change of custody is very difficult," says Muriel Savikas, a divorce mediator and child psychologist in Manhattan Beach, Calif. "The courts don't normally do that without some real concerns about safety."
The judge had ordered Spears to submit to twice-weekly drug and alcohol testing, undergo co-counseling with Federline and receive parent coaching. Spears' lawyer, Sorrell Trope, told People magazine the judge revoked custody after Spears failed to take a random drug test and provide a valid California driver's license. "That might do it, but probably not," says Orange County divorce attorney Jeffrey Lalloway. "California policy is to have frequent and continuing contact with both parents." (Trope was unavailable for comment). The ruling came after Spears' former bodyguard told the court and the Today show that he had seen her doing drugs, and it also followed Spears being charged with a hit-and-run and driving without a valid license for allegedly crashing into a parked car in August.
Celebrities enjoy — and sometimes suffer — their own unique version of justice. The press and public intensely scrutinize their cases and the best attorneys money can buy litigate them. Judges, meanwhile, may see an opportunity to make an example of a celebrity in trouble, as L.A. Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer apparently did in ensuring that Paris Hilton serve an atypical 23-day jail sentence for driving with a suspended a license. So is Spears and Federline's judge looking to make a statement about neglectful parenting? Odds are he's just being exceedingly cautious, says Joanna Grossman, a law professor at Hofstra University.
The worst-case scenario for this judge is that Federline says his children are being harmed while in Spears' custody, the judge ignores the allegations and something happens to the kids, Grossman says. "Then everyone's going look to the judge and say why didn't you do something? We all knew she was on this downward spiral. We saw the pictures, we saw her performance on the VMAs, we all knew she was a terrible mother."
Spears is certainly not the first celebrity to be captured in a subpar performance as a parent. Alec Baldwin recently called his 11-year-old daughter a "thoughtless little pig" in a voice mail; David Hasselhoff's 17-year-old daughter videotaped him lounging drunk on the floor of his Las Vegas hotel room, rambling and trying to eat a hamburger; and Michael Jackson dangled his child out a window to show off to fans. Baldwin's custody case is still pending, but the other two men have retained custody of their children.
Spears, ultimately, may do the same. The fact that the judge took away custody as of 12 noon today, and scheduled a hearing for 1:30pm the same day suggests he isn't trying to separate this family permanently. "This is just a wake-up call for Britney," says Grossman, "to send a message to her that this is real, that you could really lose your kids because of the way you're behaving." Whether the wake-up call will be effective isn't certain. Spears' first stop after turning over her sons two days early on Monday was to a Bel-Air tanning salon.
Thanks to Rebecca Winters Keegan. Read it all at Time.
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Posted by: sw | September 25, 2008 at 11:59 PM