Friday, March 21, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Clark County Family Court officials have limited the powers of the temporary protective order, criticized for serving as a "poor man's divorce" that violated couples' constitutional rights.
The eight judges agreed last month to restrict the restraining order's authority over temporary alimony and child support, custody and visitation. The orders, once good for a year, now expire after 60 days.
TPOs forbid one person from contacting another, providing a boundary in emotionally charged domestic abuse cases. It can apply to spouses, relatives, friends or even friends of friends.
But officials have issued TPOs for more than just physical protection based on the belief that the temporary resolution of child custody and family finances has a calming influence on violent situations.
And it is relatively common for defendants to lose freedoms without notice. Domestic Violence Master Jack Fields estimated that 75 percent of 30-day orders and 25 percent of year-long orders are issued without notice.
The TPOs' broad scope and defendant's inability to contest allegations of abuse have prompted criticism by lawyers since 1995. Their complaints were first aired publicly in the Las Vegas SUN's investigative series on Family Court.
"They're walking a real tightrope as far as doing things to protect a victim of abuse on the one hand and not stomping the due process rights of an alleged batterer," attorney Rhonda Mushkin said. "You must have notice and an opportunity to be heard ... the cornerstone of due process."
Court officials now agree that the TPO has been used "to beat the system," Family Court Administrator Christina Chandler said.
"If I were to take away your child or your home, you should have a way of getting those things back," she said.
Another problem caused by the lack of notification is enforcement of the order. Without notice, a defendant's violation of a TPO becomes difficult to prosecute and the order's strength becomes as flimsy as the paper it is written on.
"If you don't know about an extended order and the police pick you up and you say, 'Hey, I wasn't notified,' they really couldn't arrest you," Fields said.
Family Court is addressing the issue of due process and notification on two levels.
First it is requiring the TPO to expire after 60 days for temporary alimony, child custody and support. Once the two months are up, litigants must ask a judge for an extension rather than ask Fields, who is only a lawyer.
"A protective order court is really a domestic violence court," Fields said. "That's what it was really meant to do. They gave me the authority of long-term orders (and) I'm really not designed to do that."
Secondly, Fields is trying to raise the notification rate. Currently, Metro Police serve the court orders free of charge, but Fields would like to give litigants the option of paying a private company to serve the paper. Fields believes that the private server may have a greater incentive to make sure the defendant is notified.
The TPO office receives about 2,500 telephone calls a month and processes 400 applications, 80 percent of them filed by women.
Clark County's Family Court judges are among the busiest in Southern Nevada, juggling 2,500 new cases a year while other Clark County judges handled about 1,200 new cases, court statistics showed.
The changes made to TPOs are expected to speed up divorces by forcing litigants to seek a judge's decision after 60 days instead of one year, the court administrator said.
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