Threat to Recall Simpson Custody Case Judge

Re “Controversial Custody Cases Make Judge a Recall Target,” Feb. 18: My opinion on whether Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Wieben Stock was right or wrong is not relevant. What is relevant is that her detractors are not “politicizing” her office, it has always been a political office. Judi A. Curtin of the Orange County Bar Assn. says that for a jurist to be recalled “just because a particular groups thinks one of their decisions is wrong” is wrong in itself. That particular group is the same group that elected the jurist. Judge William McDonald says “a better way for the recall forces to go about it is to change the law.” We’ve seen how “nonpolitical” judges feel about the people changing the law. How about Props. 209 and 187?

As Tammy Bruce said, it is time to stop looking at judges as untouchable gods. They have the same capacity for mistakes as the rest of us. When these mistakes begin to look like a pattern, we have the right to question them.

TOM G. MOORE, Temple City

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Your Feb. 19 editorial tells us that in California, “judges have wide discretion in determining the best interests of children,” then goes on to endorse the narrowly based decision rendered in the O.J. Simpson custody case. Judges should lose their jobs if they lack common sense and the courage to use it.

ROD ROESCH, Huntington Beach

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Re “ ‘Natural Law,’ Uneasy Rulings,” Feb. 17: The legal and moral issues in recent controversial custody cases do not turn on whether society overvalues the biological connection between parents and their children, but rather, on when it is permissible for the government to separate parents from their children. The law does not require that children be returned to abusive biological parents or to homes where they are at risk of harm. Nor does the law give a merely biological parent, who has never tried to assume responsibility as a real parent, rights superior to caretakers who have established a parent/ child bond.

What the law does say is that the government may not deprive a parent of custody unless that parent is unfit. This is indeed a stricter standard than allowing the government to act in the “best interests” of the child. We would be outraged if the custody of children was taken from a poor family and given to a rich family because the state believed that it was in their “best interest.” We would also be alarmed if the courts gave the children of capable parents to grandparents because they could be “better” parents.

It is wrong to suppose that hard custody cases turn on biological considerations. Resolving difficult custody cases involves sifting through conflicting evidence and competing interests concerning the fitness of a parent and the emotional needs of the child. It is unrealistic to expect that justice in these complex cases can be made by simple changes in the current law. And no one wants to give the government unbridled authority to remove children from parents.

ROBERT LEVENTER, Superior Court Commissioner, Juvenile Division, Monterey Park