ALBANY – A Family Court judge’s blanket policy of not allowing parties to testify by telephone if they cannot be present in court violated the due process rights of an incarcerated father in a proceeding in which he lost parental rights over his four children, an upstate appeals court has held.
The Appellate Division, Third Department, also determined that the inmate’s assigned counsel compounded his client’s problems by not vigorously objecting to Broome County Family Court Judge Peter P. Charnetsky’s (See Profile) policy, or exploring alternatives that would have allowed his client to participate in a “meaningful way” in the case.
