State Supreme Court dumps Judge Christopher from child custody case
In a 5-0 opinion, the Montana Supreme Court took what justices describe as “an extraordinary remedy” of asserting “supervisory control” over a Lake County child-custody case. The decision, issued Jan. 2, returned a 5-year-old child to the custody of his mother, Shanna Spring ManyWounds of Elmo, and reassigned the case from District Court Judge Deborah “Kim” Christopher to Judge Molly Owen.
In the High Court ruling, justices write that Christopher “erred as a matter of law” and caused a “gross injustice” by abruptly removing the child from his mother’s custody, giving full custody to the father for the next five years and barring the mother from all contact with her son.
The case first entered the District Court system last April, when the little boy’s father, Jonathan Whyte, who lives in Oregon, petitioned the court for a formal parenting plan. According to court documents, Whyte typically visited the boy at his mother’s home in Elmo for four or five days a year, under the supervision of either ManyWounds or her mother.
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