Comment #: IA77
Rating:1.6
Comments:
This is another apparatchik who is beholding to the legislature's current fad of protecting victims and diminishing abusers. Chappell's problem is he cannot tell the difference between the victim and the abuser.

Chappell defers to litigant identity, the male father and the female mother. In Chappell's court, the mother who is the first to strike walks off with the spoils and the father is burdened with an expensive and lengthy litigation process leading to further losses.

Young and inexperienced, anyone watching any case in Chappell's courtroom is immediately stricken with the perception that the young father will lose. Loss means children will be whisked away, child support will be imposed, marital property will be split such that mother gets stability and the young father gets instability.

Chappell uses the complexity of the law to give the impression that due process is taking place, but the results are always the same for any young mother and any young father especially for young mothers who are first to strike with domestic violence claims.

However, it is unfair to label Chappell as a cog in the gearbox without pointing out the state's hunger for domestic violence matching funds paid by the Fed. Iowa has Chapter 236 which is the state's domestic violence law that clamps down on young fathers and results in orders giving everything to young mothers. Chappell is prohibited by judicial canons from interfering in the settlement of these cases, but without settlement, the young father is left homeless and penniless. Chappell's hands are always tied.

To fault Chappell is to accuse him of blindly applying Chapter 236 and other mother-favoring laws without ever looking into any facts of the case. Chappell has an easy out by enforcing the statute blindly as the statute allows him to do. Chappell cannot be counted on to realize that a savvy mother can lie on a 236 petition and win everything in a follow-on divorce action. Chappell cannot realize the totality of facts involving a family that can identify the lying mother. He does not have to. The statute makes it simple, and that is the problem men face in Chappell's courtroom.