Barbara Sullivan wrote: What about a judge that found a way to dispose of a case without even hearing the merits of the petition?

On April 10, 2008, I witnessed a terrible bias against a plaintiff in a termination of parental rights/adoption case in Judge Robert (Bob) Jones’ court in Maury County TN Chancery Court. The grandparents have had a child in their custody for almost three years. They are truly trying to save this child’s life. They rescued this child from an abusive and neglectful parent, who has never paid a penny towards the child’s care, and have spent almost $9,000 of their retirement money on litigation. They have spent even more on medical, psychological, and educational teatment for this child. Judge Jones showed immediate bias to the plaintiff just prior to the hearing in the hallway outside his office. Although he could have gone around her, he stared her down and ordered her to move out of his way. The plaintiff had never seen the judge before in her life. Despite over 600 pages of documents and seven witnesses consisting of 3-therapists, 3- teachers, and the defendants own brother, Judge Jones admonished the plaintiff for “hiring the law firm with the largest advertisement in the book and you are back to square one.” He refused to reset the case for trial and declared the defendant indigent although she has a job and just purchased a $21K car from an infinity dealer. Although the plaintiff’s attorney erred in his quest to locate one of the parents, Judge Jones failed in that he failed to appoint a guardian ad litem in this case, which had been on the calendar for several months. He was also way out of line to show bias towards the plaintiffs’ attorney. Judge Jones job was to give these plaintiffs (and the defendant) the right to have their evidence heard and to make a fair judgment based on that evidence. He has no right to decide, before listening to one shred of evidence, that the case has no merit and that the abusive mother should be allowed to seek remedy through juvenile court. He certainly has no right to criticize a litigant for their choice of attorney and penalize them for this.