Judge Clara Willis Byrd A Piece of the Broken Family Court System Who Needs to Go Lebanon, Tennessee

I see that Judge Byrd has maintained her status quo of being a truly reprehensible family court judge and disgracing the judicial profession not only in Wilson County, but in the state of Tennessee.  It's not good to be tied as the second most overturned judge in the state and her lack of concern over holding that distinction should be cause for voters to sit up, pay attention, and  take the appropriate action to fix what's wrong.

I can only echo similar experiences of other family court litigants who have posted their reviews on websites besides this one.  Judge Byrd removed my three young sons from my custody after I turned to TN DCS and the Wilson County family courts when my sons began to report that their father was sexually abusing them during his unsupervised visitation weekends during our divorce.  Judge Byrd is one of the many judges who believe the myths that mothers who report sexual abuse while going through a divorce are making false allegations as a custody tactic (as if the timing of the sexual abuse happening was in any way under my control).  She has also clearly not been educated about the research that shows a correlation between domestic violence and child abuse/child sexual abuse.  She considers them to be two separate issues that have nothing to do with one another -- ie. a man can beat his wife every day and even do it in front of the children, but because he's not hitting the children he's still considered a good father.  Judge Byrd is so very wrong and her ignorance is putting countless numbers of children in danger.

From the beginning she minimized or ignored the nature of the physical and sexual abuse that my sons disclosed to me and to three licensed child therapists. She completely disregarded the recommendation of a counselor with the Sexual Assault Center that the boys' father have no contact with the children whatsoever or at the very minimum strictly supervised visitation.  She refused to factor past domestic violence and substance abuse issues by my estranged husband into her decisions regarding visitation arrangements.  She also refused to consider my estranged husband's behavior of having multiple sex partners of both sexes staying overnight on the weekends when the boys were court-ordered to visit, even though the boys witnessed seeing their father engaging in sexual activity that they then acted out after returning home to me.

Judge Byrd is clearly part of the broken family courts that punish mothers who report abuse and hand the children over to the very people who are abusing the children.  It's time to bring Clara Byrd's time on the court bench to an end. Let's make a real difference with our votes in 2014.