People v. State

Child custody determinations can mean as much if not more to the parties involved as criminal proceedings, and yet they’re made not by a jury but by a single judge, who may or may not be “Honorable.” This mere man — no better on average than other men — sits in judgment over a broken family and by his decree parses out the parents’ rights to their children — rights which are natural and fundamental and more real than the fictional authority which an unthinking and complacent populace concedes to the government and its functionaries. In some counties, it’s commonly known, at least among attorneys, that child custody decisions in contested divorces have as much or more to do with who knows who as they do with the best interests of the children. With the stakes (including the financial stakes) so high and the results so amenable to influence and manipulation, is it any wonder that corruption, either the conscious and active kind or the more subtle and winking kind, seeps in? Yet these decisions are accorded an unwarranted amount of deference by appellate courts. The injustice sticks, and stinks, and there is no recourse.

I was deeply saddened to read this story in the Elkhart Truth about Amir Sanjari, a nuclear physicist and a citizen of the UK and Iran. Last week he was convicted of four felony counts of failing to pay child support, and faces up to ten years in prison at his sentencing. He represents himself, but didn’t attend his trial. He’s been on a hunger strike and hasn’t eaten normal food since his arrest in May. According to court documents, he’s been “in and out of consciousness” at the Elkhart County jail. I don’t expect he will be shown any mercy at sentencing, and I get the sense that Mr. Sanjari is far beyond asking a court for leniency.

I didn’t know until I read this story that Mr. Sanjari had been arrested or charged with felony non-support of a child. But when I read the story, I recognized Mr. Sanjari’s name, because several months back I’d come across his website, here, while searching for confirmation of what I’d heard about the disciplinary history and connections of a certain prominent Elkhart divorce attorney and former prosecutor who figures prominently in Mr. Sanjari’s saga.

It appears from reading Mr. Sanjari’s website that he’s a little out of his mind. What’s unknown is whether his apparent madness preceded and contributed to the court’s custody decision in his bitter divorce case or was caused by it. But I will say this about the lengthy and well-documented ravings on Mr. Sanjari’s website: Just because it’s crazy doesn’t mean it’s not true.

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