Classic Ogden

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ChristineShe should be removed from the bench. Welcome to the Judgmental podcast. Yeah. Do you agree?

HughI don't think there's any, I don't think you could see it any other way. I mean, we are at the point where. It's gotten so bad and you wonder, you know, that this just has to be happening all the time. Right? If you have a judge who will just blatantly ignore the law, ignore the statutes, and who gets rebuked by the court of appeals over and over and over again for violating due process and then continues to do it, I don't think that there is any hope that it gets better. I just don't.

ChristineRight. And I just, at this point, it's hard for me to believe, and we're talking about. Another emergency relief motion was granted by the Kentucky Court of Appeals against Judge Lauren Ogden. This is the second time that's [00:01:00] happened this year within the 12 month period, right?

HughYeah, and I don't, , I know that I had heard of it happening before, but I practiced 20 years and I can't recall. A time where emergency orders were issued like this in family court? During my practice,

Christineyeah. I practiced 15 years. Not all family, and I don't recall it either. This case, if it's possible, and we haven't gotten the video yet, I've requested it, but if it's possible for a case to be worse than the baby case, I think this one is.

HughYeah. So to, to set the stage, there was a dispute between a biological parent, a mother, and a grandparent. Grandma.

ChristineYeah.

HughAnd they were fighting over custody, grandma. Well, they weren't really fighting over custody. , There was parenting time to grandma. Yeah. That had been, granted agreed to, and mom and the child moved to Nevada. Mm-hmm. Grandma files a motion through her attorney files a motion. [00:02:00] Seeking to hold mom in contempt for some alleged violations of the agreement. Yeah. And the prior orders. Mm-hmm. So a hearing is set for that motion. Grandma and her attorney show up. Mom is not there. Mom has no attorney there. The judge asks about service upon mom. It's talked about that mom now lives in Nevada. Yeah. And isn't at the Louisville address anymore. And the attorney assures the court that she emailed mom and instead of looking and saying, well, mom's not here. Maybe we should reach out. Maybe we should get in touch with her. Maybe we should contact any attorney that's represented mom, right. Or anything like that. The judge decides,, we'll just go forward. Not really with a hearing, but with a discussion and make some decisions related to this child.

ChristineAnd so, yeah, I mean, and it's so basic that I would say my, if we taught family law at a high school, you would understand that pursuant to Kentucky law, grandparents' rights, like you cannot, [00:03:00] unless a person waives their superior right. To custody, grandparents don't have anything.

HughNo. And, and in, in Kentucky there is a way, and this is the there's a. Uniform custody law. That's, yeah, there's some version of it in every state, and that's very similar. There is a way for non-parents, third parties to get custody over a child, and apparently

Christinein Lauren Ogden's court, sorry to interrupt, it's just by saying that mom's crazy and not getting someone service.

HughNo, that's true. So it is , very specific because the right to parent your child is a fundamental. Right under the United States Constitution, it is one of the most important rights. It is one of the most protected rights. Mm-hmm. So in order for a third party to get any kind of custodial rights, there has to be an emergency. There's certain ways for there to be emergency jurisdiction. The child has to be within the jurisdiction. The emergency has to be ongoing, and it's very short term. But to get, you know, custody as we generally discuss it. You have to be [00:04:00] what's called it a facto custodian. So you have to prove that you've been the sole caretaker, , sole caretaker for a child, for a requisite period of time, and it's usually, it's either six months for very young children or a year for older children. Now, apparently that was just, that was inconvenient for Judge Ogden, and she just bypassed it ignored, all statute ignored due process, service of emotion on the other party. And granted emergency custody to grandma,

Christineto a child that was living in another jurisdiction. Yeah. Yeah. She entered an emergency custody order. I don't even, for a child that she couldn't even establish, she had jurisdiction over, I mean, there was an ongoing case and the court of appeals, you should read this opinion. And the writ is still pending. Now, a writ is a extraordinary, extraordinary, you're seeking extraordinary relief that's different than emergency relief, and writs are rarely granted. No, I [00:05:00] agree. We've seen Ritz granted against this judge, but at this point, she either knows what she's doing, which is terrifying, or she has literally no idea what she's doing whatsoever. Which is terrifying. Either way, she needs to be removed from the bench. She essentially allowed a third party non custodian to kidnap and traffic this child across state lines. I am not even being facetious or dramatic.

HughNo, I agree. That's actually what happened. So here, grandma came in, said, mom moved out of this. State for some alleged that she might have some mental health stuff and she moved for some guy. And,

Christinehold on one second. Let's read that quote. Grandma went on to testify in relevant part about the day she discovered that mom had left Kentucky. Grandma believed that mom had moved for quote, some guy and her belief that mom had undiagnosed mental health issues. Yeah, that's enough. No service. That's enough.

HughWell, yeah, that was enough for Judge Ogden, but. , We have to discuss that there are also statutes that govern whether or not the court [00:06:00] has continuing jurisdiction over a child once the child's not in the jurisdiction and no parent is within the jurisdiction. The judge, so here the judge is presumably ruling on contempt , and trying to get around the custody laws by granting custody to grandma as a punishment for contempt. Can't do it, instead of establishing that she has custody over the child anymore. And custody over the case because you No, I mean, I don't see anything. The mom is not, in the state. Nothing talks about dad in here and the child's no longer in the state. So instead of looking at whether or not grandma would qualify for custody, mind you that grandma has never filed a motion stating that she has any grounds for custody.

ChristineYeah, I

Hughmean, it sounds, she's even alleged that she's a defacto custodian. The judge just decides. Well, I'm gonna ignore that and not even get into the rules that would allow grandma to have custody. I'm just gonna grant it even though [00:07:00] mom's not here. And it's clearly obvious that she has no idea that the hearing has taken place.

ChristineYeah. I think they even went so far as to conspire to have it done. It says that the family court engaged in what was essentially a brainstorming session with grandma's attorney regarding how they could get the child into grandma's custody. The family court acknowledged that its contempt powers were limited outside of Kentucky. However, if there were a custody petition pending, it could award grandma emergency custody. Yeah, that is a conspiracy to violate. Well established law.

HughYeah, and I mean, the fact that the judge is conspiring , and speaking with counsel and a party on how to take a child from. The mother and doing this without the mother being present and without ensuring that notice was proper. So the assurance that the mother was personally emailed doesn't meet the standard for service unless the mother has elected electronic service. So the judge first should have addressed [00:08:00] whether service was pro proper that was completely missed. And this is not me saying that right. This is the court of appeals saying, failed to exercise due diligence to ensure Bianca had been properly served, an omission that undoubtedly resulted in the unnecessary and disturbing disruption of the stability of the child that could have and should have been avoided if the court had fulfilled this basic duty. So first of all, making sure somebody knows about a hearing was just too much trouble. For Judge Ogden the court went on to say, overlooking and failing, failing to consider any of the relevant statutes concerning its jurisdiction or an award of temporary custody. Yeah, so she gave this child to grandma without looking at any custody statute or whether she even had continuing jurisdiction over this child.

ChristineThe court of appeals even says, she doesn't even mention the verbiage best interest.

HughNo. She makes a custody [00:09:00] order. Ignoring all Kentucky Law on custody. And so here's the result, folks. We've got this hearing took place in April of this year. Grandma went and filed the order from Judge Ogden in Nevada and domesticated it, which means it's in, makes it enforceable in Nevada, which I'm sure there were probably problems with that as well. Yeah. And then went in May and got the kid from school. So the biological mom, mom has no idea that this has even been domesticated. She, in a plea, a follow up pleading. Testified that she didn't realize that any of this had happened or that this hearing had happened until she went to go pick her child up. That's school. And the child wasn't there. And so this was, this order just came out on October 13th, this emergency order. So since the child was picked up from school May in [00:10:00] Nevada, in May, mom has not seen her child.

ChristineNo. And I mean, the reality is like this is one. A little 9-year-old girl went to school one day and Judge Ogden gave an order, and the little girl was picked up. She didn't see her mom. I mean, in the file it says the little girl had younger siblings. Mm-hmm. Like, I, I don't,

Hughit's not like her bags were packed. She had any of her stuff. She, I imagine, had her school completely disrupted.

ChristineYeah. I mean, and then just the notion that like, it gives me chills, like it, you could actually cry, like the trauma that this family experienced. Where it's like, what, what are the siblings being like, well, where did sissy go? Like, , I like what the f Yeah, what is wrong with people? I can't, and what's so crazy about this case too is Ogden had the same thing happened in April, and we posted about it. I posted about it on my social media. It got over a million views. It was so egregious how she made this dad give a baby back in open court [00:11:00] to a mom without proper notice for a hearing. And it obviously went viral and people were saying a lot of stuff to the judge and this decision was made after that.

HughYeah, I mean, it was made after Berton and Adair where the judge sat there and just discussed with the FOC and one side of the case without the other party present. Just discussed what to do and wrote an order before even letting the other side into the hearing. This is essentially the same thing. You're not, you have not made sure that someone had notice or the ability to be in a hearing and you've basically had a powwow with one side and kidnapped a child. Try to figure out how to go take a child from another jurisdiction

Christinefrom her mama, like you're not even, and it even said in there that, well, the mom provided all the transportation to school, but I basically did everything else. So you were the babysitter?

HughYeah, I mean that, I mean there's, there's plenty of case law in Kentucky that says that is not de facto custodianship. [00:12:00] You don't get to do that.

ChristineBut so in Ogden's court, like if a mom works like a lot, like I, and I know Ogden probably didn't work growing up. She grew up at the silver spoon. And I do think that matters for the purpose of this conversation because she has no idea. She just disrupted a family. She tore a. Sibling from their siblings, a child, from their mother

Hughout of school, out away from friends, away from everything stable.

ChristineBecause she wanted to.

HughYeah. 'cause she wanted to.

ChristineAnd you know, she grew up with a silver spoon. Very wealthy, very well to do. And those are just the facts without , the notion that she can affect real people's lives. I mean, it's just enough to make you physically ill. And honestly, I don't, obviously we go on and on and on on this platform. People, you can't take the law into your own hands, but can you imagine the hysteria if you went to pick up your 9-year-old child? No, they were gone. They were thousands of miles away and a court had done it.

HughNo, , and I mean, what we really have, and I [00:13:00] know I'm not the one that usually. You know, goes to extremes here, but we have a judge who doesn't give a shit about the law at all. She doesn't care. The court of appeals keeps saying over and over, she's violating people's due process. She's not following the law. And here, once again, in an emergency order, the court says this court is not often presented with custody disputes in which a family court has blatantly violated a parent's due process rights. Oh, except for. The last couple cases we've discussed on here in front of Judge Ogden, where they've said she's done the exact same thing. Yeah. And this says, without any consideration of or reference to relevant law. In doing so, the family court essentially facilitated the bodacious action of a non-custodial to remove a child from its mother in another state. With no notice to the mother. So this is just, this is not supposed to happen in America. This is what the courts are supposed to prevent. This is what our law is supposed to prevent, and we [00:14:00] have someone who just doesn't care and is gonna do whatever she wants. And it doesn't matter. Take her up to the court of appeals, get her overturned. She didn't care. It clearly is not going to make a difference. So, and how much, how much do we have to sit here? And I mean, , I guarantee you people will be reaching out to us. 'cause this has happened to them in front of this judge because, and, but. People aren't talking about it, but we're talking about this and there will be more and more and more and I don't know how much we have to have to watch happen.

ChristineYeah. How many kids does she have to take from the parent before somebody before there are consequences where she doesn't get to make these decisions anymore? I mean clear. I really think the FBI, that would be who needs to get involved. I'm not even like she that it is crazy if you can. She can't not know. I'm sorry. , I'm at a loss for words. Like

HughYeah.

ChristineIt's one of those where you're like, e she knows

Hughshe has to make a finding of best interest through change custody. She knows that's 1 0 1. That's as basic as it gets. The [00:15:00] fact that she did this either is just because she, I mean, I, I can't explain it. Why, why would you want to do this? That's

Christinewhat I'm saying. Why would you wanna do this? Like. And this is the second time that a grandma has been involved because the grandma was involved in the baby case too.

HughYeah.

ChristineAnd it's like

Hughgrandma was involved in the Adair case.

ChristineYeah. Which I guess that was a different judge, but it's like,

Hughyeah, but what? Yeah, it is a different judge. But this is the same pattern I've seen in multiple. Multiple divisions in the family court. This one is just, is this intentional or is it stupidity? This is just the worst. I don't know because What would be, what would be the rationale for doing it? Intentionally saying, violating the law for these particular parties? Does she know these parties? Does is it for the attorney? I don't know. I don't have any indication that that's the case. Is, I

Christinemean, is there a kickback I can, is there money involved? I

Hughcan't imagine that it's just incompetent. She's been there for years. This is one of the most basic [00:16:00] tenets of family law. Yeah. Unless you have just lost your grip on reality, there's no reason in the world you would grant custody to a non custodian third party without any consideration for the law.

ChristineAnd not even that obviously. For sure. But to go a step further to. Help a non custodian in how to strategize.

HughYeah.

ChristineTo get an emergency order to rip a little girl from her mama and her siblings for five months, and this is five

Hughmonths. This is the kind of thing that you see in family court that you, that I've never seen in other courts, where on the record, judges will sit and think out loud, think through ways to do this, collaborate with the attorneys on how to get a goal. Basically give guidance to one side to get the end that they're seeking. Instead of saying, we're here for a hearing, it's your burden of proof. [00:17:00] Go. Mm-hmm. Convince me.

ChristineYeah.

HughOh, no, no, no. I just, well, let's just talk it through and I'll tell you exactly what you need to do to win and to take this child. How the hell is that a hearing?

ChristineAnd what you said last night when we talked about this case, when we finally got our hands on it. You said verbatim. This is classic Ogden.

HughI mean, if, if you had read me this emergency order and taken the name of the judge out of it, I would've bet you $100,000 that it was one of two judges on there. And she would've been my number one choice. Well, the big, so that means something. It is just, that's the pattern. That's what we've come to expect out of Division four

Christineand how many lives has she destroyed. And then here's the other thing about Judge Ogden, and you know, honestly, I'll be brutally honest. Y'all know that there's a particular judge that I'm not BFFs with, right? If you know, you know

Hughthe Instagram judge, right?

ChristineOh, man. She'd be so excited if you, she thought she could get followers on Instagram. But I digress. So, damn. Ogden has [00:18:00] always been kind to me. Me too. She's always been kind. Dude.

HughI'll get birthday messages on Facebook. She's a, she's a sweet, soft spoken person. I've never gotten across word from her. Ever outside of when we litigated one case against each other?

ChristineNo. And, and this is what's so difficult, but right is right, and this is where like, you know, you don't go to the racist cops fish fry. Right. You know what I mean? The other cops like, Hey, you're, you're an. You can't condone this kind of stuff. And I think the family bar's gotta be like, enough is enough. Like you, I agree, and I don't want anything, quote unquote. She's independently wealthy. She doesn't have to work a day in her life, you know, she'll be fine.

HughI, I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about the fact that we have someone on the bench who doesn't give a crap about the law. Like, oh yeah, yeah. Follow the law. I don't care if you have to live in your car once you lose your job, you shouldn't have your job.

ChristineTotally. No 1000%, but like 1000%. But she doesn't stand to lose anything. And it's like, y'all gotta stop going to her mimosa [00:19:00] brunch. You gotta stop encouraging this bad behavior. You have to say enough, she needs to be removed from the bench. I, I don't even know y'all, the fact that this mother, I mean, she tried to litigate in Nevada and Nevada's like. What's going on apparently, according to this, you know, and again, this is an emergency relief order, so this is done quickly and it's so rare and there are

Hughvery, very specific rules that have to be followed that she is completely ignored.

ChristineYes. Like, I mean, just it's wild to even think that the Court of Appeals is doing that, especially. Too in this climate where there's a lot of call for judicial accountability in Kentucky, the court of appeals is very aware of who we are, what we're doing. And you know, there's a lot of talk that judges protect other judges, and this was just so blatantly egregious that they had to be like, yeah.

HughI, I think they get this

Christinechild back to her mother right now. They

Hughhave had no problem in recent decisions telling Judge Ogden that she needs to follow the law

Christinebecause it's terrifying.

HughYeah. I don't know. I mean, the court of appeals can't do anything [00:20:00] else. But shout from the rooftops that we're gonna keep overturning you and pointing out your deficiencies. They can't, they're not gonna, they can't remove her No. From the bench. So they're doing all that they can and they're pointing out these very obvious things. But , I mean, to your point, the. The family bar and the bench needs to address this. Yeah. And, and I make assumptions that when something. That's this extraordinary happens that everyone over there in court is talking about it. Yeah. I don't know that that's actually the case, but to make it easy, I'm going to send this out to all of you to read this order. I'm going to email a copy out to everyone because this is what is happening with the person that you're going to events with and going to lunches with and doing posts on social media with. This person is stealing kids.

ChristineYeah.

HughThat's what's happening. She's helping people go to other states and take kids without following the law and it's making the entire family court [00:21:00] system look horrible.

ChristineI And, and you And

Hughillegal.

ChristineYeah. And you don't know how this family will recover. Like you don't know the trauma that happened to the siblings. You don't know the trauma or what this little girl was told. You know that the relationship between this mother and grandmother is probably. You know, people have problems amongst families. I've had problems amongst family members. I mean, you're not human if you haven't had fights with family and done things. But to this level, I don't think there's any coming back from it. And just the trauma, the long lasting trauma Yeah. That this woman did to that little girl, her family, that mother. It's just,

Hughwell, and, and one of the other things that, you know, we've not just read this emergency. Order. We've read the pleadings surrounding it. We've read the pleadings that have filed, been filed since mom has asked to appear remotely from Nevada because she has other kids that are there, and it's a hardship. And grandma's [00:22:00] attorney fought hard to either continue the case so that mom didn't get to have a hearing on getting the her child back and or to not allow her to testify remotely and put up a huge fight, and it's just. All of that just, it's it sick looks so bad.

ChristineIt's sick. And let's like, okay, let's set the stage. We'll wrap up after this, but like, this was an emergency motion. So mom loses her kid in May is trying to litigate this according to this order. Somehow in Nevada, right? So then she goes to Kentucky or like goes to Kentucky courts and is like, I never got notice of any of this. Oh my gosh, the email was wrong. I didn't live there and there was everything you sent me was returned undeliverable. And so they have a hearing or they have something and the court appoints an FOC, a third party a person, and mom says, no, we don't need that. They set it for a hearing in September and then grandma's counsel files to continue and the court sets it for February, which [00:23:00] means that this mother and this child would've gone Thanksgiving and Christmas without each other. By the time you had a hearing, it would've been eight months after the child had been kidnapped.

HughYeah, it had been taken completely illegally because, I mean, you're right. I mean, the best case scenario. That we have here is gross incompetence, but I don't think that that's the case. I've known, I've known Judge Ogden for decades now. She's not grossly incompetent in this way. Maybe you can't be

Christinethat dumb.

HughNo, this is, this is, I. This is not just having a bad day at your job. You don't do this. You, you should, if, if this is what having a bad day at your job looks like, then you need a different job. You need to be in a drive you know, a drive through or something like that to where a bad day is not going to ruin a life.

ChristineWell, let's, yeah, but I mean, people that work at a drive through work hard too for a living. No. And they don't make money. And I know, I know exactly what you [00:24:00] meant. No, and I'm not even trying to say that, but

HughNo, but I mean, like the worst that you're going to screw up. He is not going to traumatize a kid.

ChristineLauren should be so lucky to get a job. Most every, she's so lucky to get a job at a drive through. Most

Hughevery job I've ever had outside of representing people in court, my worst day in court is not going to cause trauma to a kid. I don't care. You know, I, I just threw a job out there, but

Christineyeah.

HughNo, you're right. If you. In a position. , It's sort of like if you are having bad days to where you are just so off your game and you're a neurosurgeon, you need to stop doing surgery.

ChristineYeah. It's like Dr. Death, a podcast. If you haven't listened to it, it's fabulous. But she needs to be, if it is intentional, why is it intentional?

HughYeah. Why, why would you do this? And I, and I don't, I, I don't know. They just, it's due process. It's every single one of these notice opportunity to be heard. Yeah. Notice opportunity to be heard. Allowing you to cross examinee [00:25:00] adverse witnesses, basic constitutional due process. It's pointed out in every single one of these decisions that overturns her and it is not. And it's not, well, we think she just, it may have been a violation, blah, blah, blah. We're gonna overturn for this. It's just these are blatant. Mm-hmm. You are not giving people their constitutional rights when they are in your court. Please stop

Christinejudge y.com. We wanna hear all of your Ogden stories. We will post this on all of our socials. Typically speaking, when you get an emergency order, the writ comes back quickly after that. So hopefully next week we'll have the writ result of the writ. Y'all.

HughYeah. Bad. Just bad.

ChristineOh my Lord. Yeah. Yeah. We need some. Justice. [00:26:00] Justin found justice.