I received a ruling against NCP for Criminal Contempt for nonpayment of child support in the form of a 30 day suspended sentence. Opposing Counsel agreed to type up the Order. The order was submitted to the Judge the Same day that it was given to me so I did not get a opportunity to review it prior to submission. Their were some innacuracies in the findings of fact, etc that needed to be addressed as well as other issues that were addressed in court but weren’t included in the rulling as presented as clarification was needed from the judge. Opposing counsel had stated after court that he would contact the judge for these clarifications prior to preparing the ruling but neglected to do so. As a result I called the court house and asked what to do. I was told to type up a letter and to submit it to opposing counsel and to the judge explaining that there were innacuracies and respectfully asking that the order presented not be signed as I did not get to review it prior to submission and as such it contained innacuracies (there no mention of the nature of the innacuracies, no arguments presented, etc). I included the opposing counsel as cc:d on the letter, as well as offering a fax confirmation and a signed certificate of service to prove that opposing counsel was in fact sent the letter being submitted to the judge asking to hold off on signing the order until opposing counsel and I could straighten things out. More than ten days after sending this I recieve a letter from the judges clerk of court stating that my communication was an exparte communication, (which I had evidence that it was not.) therefore it would not be addressed. In response to my letter to the judge I also received a letter, addressed to the Judge, from Opposing Counsel basically agreeing that he had forgotten to ask for the clarifications, that he was in receipt of the letter that I had sent him concerning my communication to the judge, as well as stating that he had intended to hold the ruling for a reasonable period of time before presentation (which based on the dates on the various communications he didn’t do…it was sent out/mailed to the judge the same day I recieving my first copy of it via email). Given the time frame involved and attempting to get things resolved and the ruling signed in a timely manner, upon reciept of the ‘ex-parte’ letter from the clerk I again called the court house, this time making sure I got the Judicial Administrator for the Judge and explained the situation to her. She asked me to type up another letter, again stating the situation I just described, and to send it to her and apposing counsel, just as before. She stated she would personally take it all to the Judge. That was toward the end of last week. Today I find all of my efforts to insure the facts in the ruling, etc were accurate as well as insuring that the unincluded items got included were for nothing as I have received a copy of the innacurate, incomplete order signed by the judge within days of it origionally being sent by opposing counsel.
To sum this up, opposing Counsel prepared the Findings of Fact using an incorrect income for his client as well as other things, there were items that needed clarification before being included as part of the rulingso lacking that clarification weren’t included, etc, etc. This all happened because I was not given adequate time to review the prepared ruling and respond before it was presented to the judge. When I found out it had been presented I did everything promptly and correctly in order to make things right but my efforts were basically pushed to the side and ignored. My question is what, if anything, can I do about this now to insure the correct information gets on record, not to mention how can I get the issues that needed clarification, and weren’t included, clarified and included? Thank you.