Court rejects Savoie lawsuit against Tennessee Judge Martin

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120307/WILLIAMSON01/303060076/Franklin-man-plans-press-case-against-judge-international-child-custody-dispute

Tennessee judge in Savoie case may have seriously erred

An attorney who works closely with Children’s Rights Council of Japan, and who himself has had his children abducted to Japan, has noted that under Tennessee law parents must agree on a new visitation schedule, costs, and other relevant factors before a party may relocate with children. 

Tennessee statute further states that if the proposed move is to a foreign country whose public policy does not normally enforce visitation rights of non-custodial parents or which otherwise presents a substantial risk of specific and serious harm to a child is involved the relocation would be deemed as not having a reasonable purpose and would be disallowed.  (see Tennessee Code Unannotated 36-6-108)

This second clause as described above is the case we face with Japan.  Japan does not enforce visitation rights and in fact the culture encourages the total separation of parent and child after divorce.

Judge Jim Martin, after presented with OVERWHELMING evidence that Japan would not “participate” in any solution if things went wrong for visits and ignoring the evidence in the case, used his discretion and allowed the visit.  There is a possible conflict-of-interests here since the judge was previously a mediator in the case!  Granted, this was not a relocation case BUT anytime a court considers visits to a Non-Hague country extra caution should be taken.

Texas, California and Utah have enacted similar statutes to protect kids and they go as far to include temporary visits such as was originally proposed in this case.

CNN to discuss Christopher Savoie case tonight on the Campbell Brown show

CNN will be discussing Christopher Savoie’s case tonight on the Campbell Brown show at 8PM Eastern Time.  Left-behind parent Paul Toland,  whose Japanese wife has died and whose child is being retained in Japan by his former mother-in-law, will appear on the program.

Japanese arrest American father, for child abduction?

As non-Japanese left-behind parents with our children kidnapped or illegally retained in Japan, we’ve always been told by the U.S. State Department and Japanese authorities that parental child abduction is not a crime in Japan, and that there is nothing that the Japanese police or other Japanese authorities can do to help us.  Now it seems there is a special treatment of parental child abduction by the Japanese authorities when the abducting parent is not Japanese.  An American father from Tennessee, Christopher Savoie, with U.S. custody orders in hand, whose two U.S. citizen children recently were illegally retained in Japan by his Japanese ex-wife, is now sitting in a Japanese prison for trying to recover his children.   Here is the link to the CNN story with the full details of Christopher Savoie’s attempt to reunite with his children:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/29/japan.father.abduction/index.html

And here is our backup link to the story:

American jailed in Japan fo…

Two more American children abducted to Japan

With all the publicity and countless cases of child abductions to Japan, there is absolutely no excuse for the Tennessee judge in this case, Jim Martin, to have allowed the Japanese mother to travel to Japan with these two American children and enable another international child abduction to Japan.  Shame on you, Judge Martin.  Something needs to be done to make you take responsibility for the suffering and life altering tragedies you have caused.

http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=11171461

Back-up PDF link:
Ex-Wife Abducts Two Children, Disappears to Japan – NewsChannel 5.com