Child Custody

Expressing concern that intense publicity over Marcia Clark's child custody battles might hurt her two young sons, a Superior Court commissioner appears poised to seal much of the record in her divorce case. Commissioner Keith M. Clemens did not issue a ruling Friday.

A man convicted of killing his first wife in 1974 and who won custody of his 11-year-old daughter because his former wife is a lesbian said he can give the girl a better home. John A. Ward, 44, who served eight years in prison for second-degree murder after pleading guilty to killing his first wife, Judy, won custody of his daughter in August from a judge in Pensacola, Fla., who wanted to give the girl a chance to live in "a non-lesbian world."

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens refused Saturday to block an Illinois Supreme Court ruling that gave custody of a boy known as Baby Richard to the biological father he has never met. Stevens issued a two-page ruling denying emergency stay requests by lawyers for the boy, who is almost 4, and for the couple who adopted him. Stevens rejected their claim that they were entitled to a hearing before the full court.

A Thousand Oaks woman on the run with her 5-year-old child in an unusual custody case was arrested Friday in Pittsburgh, Pa., and the legal father was reportedly on his way to retrieve the girl. But fugitive mother Catherine F. Thomas won a stay from a local judge who ordered that Courtney Thomas remain with her until a hearing can be scheduled. Thomas and Courtney were seized at a train station after another traveler recognized them from a TV show about their case.

A lawyer for a lesbian who lost custody of her 2-year-old son pleaded Wednesday with the Virginia Court of Appeals to scrap what he contended was an outdated state Supreme Court precedent. "To take a category of people and say they don't get to keep their own children, that's not what the law of this state is about," said Donald K. Butler, the attorney for Sharon Bottoms. But a lawyer for Kay Bottoms, Sharon' mother, who was awarded custody of the child on Sept.

O.J. Simpson has agreed to transfer temporary legal guardianship of his two children to Louis and Juditha Brown of Dana Point, the parents of his slain ex-wife. Louis Brown said Wednesday that Simpson's agreement formalizes an earlier understanding between the former football star and the Browns about the children.

An appeals court has overturned a Ventura County Superior Court ruling that a divorced Simi Valley woman would lose custody of her son if she took a job in Sacramento because it would have prevented her 4-year-old son from visiting his father. Sandra Nyland, 28, turned to the 2nd District Court of Appeal after Superior Court Judge William Peck ruled that she would lose custody if she accepted a job transfer offered by her employer, Security Pacific Bank.

A Maryland judge's recent decision to grant a woman custody of her toddler even though she murdered another child has cast a spotlight on the key question under debate in child-protection circles: Just how paramount should birth parents' rights be? Montgomery County Circuit Judge Michael D. Mason's strict interpretation of a state law protecting the rights of biological parents assured Latrena Pixley, 23, custody of her 2-year-old son, Cornelius.

Ira Gorman, a forensic psychologist who specialized in child custody matters, has died. He was 59. Gorman died of pancreatic cancer Saturday in Long Beach, said his daughter, Anna Gorman Metcalfe. Testifying in more than 250 criminal, civil, juvenile and family law cases, Gorman helped judges and juries rule on child abuse, spousal battery, custody and other issues.

Congress may soon step into a matter best left to the courts--a child custody fight. Such disputes are often nasty, but few are as bad as the long war between Dr. Elizabeth Morgan and her ex-husband, Dr. Eric A. Foretich. The couple's daughter, now 13, and Morgan want to return to the United States from their self-imposed exile in New Zealand--but without obeying a judge's order granting visitation rights to the father.