Babich Sarcone Attorneys at Law Babich Sarcone Attorneys at Law2026-05-15T14:15:16Zhttps://www.desmoinesattorneys.com/feed/atom/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/sites/1604862/2023/01/cropped-scales-navy-32x32.pngOn Behalf of Babich Sarcone Attorneys at Law<![CDATA[Understanding custody and placement in Iowa]]>https://www.desmoinesattorneys.com/?p=472112023-09-06T09:52:49Z2023-09-06T09:52:49Zcustody and placement and the factors a court uses when making decisions.
Legal custody
Legal custody refers to which parent makes major decisions for the child. Major decisions usually include decisions on topics such as education, healthcare and religion.
Courts generally award joint legal custody, which means that both you and your co-parent have an equal say in these decisions. You can request sole legal custody if you feel that you are the better parent to make these decisions, but you must be prepared to prove why.
Sole legal custody is usually given to a parent when extreme circumstances exist that show the other parent should not be able to make decisions for the child. Evidence of domestic violence, an untreated drug or alcohol addiction or long-term incarceration might be reasons a court grants one parent sole legal custody.
Physical placement
Physical placement refers to who the child lives with and when. A court can award joint physical placement or primary physical placement to one parent, with the other parent having partial physical placement.
Iowa law makes custody and placement decisions based on a “best interest of the child” standard, attempting to fashion an overall arrangement that is in your child’s best interest.
There is an assumption that it is in a child’s best interest to have meaningful and continuing contact with each parent, unless this causes the child physical or significant emotional harm. A court reviews several different factors when making these decisions.
Custody and placement factors
Some of these include which parent has actively cared for the child before the divorce or separation, how the parents communicate with each other and if each parent supports the other parent’s relationship with the child. Other factors involve practical matters, such as how close the parents live to each other.
Before heading into court, you might be required to attend custody mediation. This is a meeting between you, your co-parent and a mediator.
A mediator acts as a neutral third-party. Their goal is to help you and your co-parent listen to each other’s positions and try to reach a resolution. They do not take sides and do not have power to make custody orders like a judge does.
Mediation can be effective
There are many benefits to mediation. It is cheaper and quicker than traditional courtroom litigation and parents are usually happier with the outcome. It is usually best to try it.
If your mediation is unsuccessful, the next step is custody court. This is where you will present witnesses and evidence to a court about why the custody and placement schedule you want is in your child’s best interest.
]]>On Behalf of Babich Sarcone Attorneys at Law<![CDATA[Can you block the prosecution’s evidence in your case?]]>https://www.desmoinesattorneys.com/?p=471902026-05-08T11:20:48Z2023-06-05T18:21:28Zaggressive criminal defense necessary to protect your interests. You might be thinking that the evidence against you is insurmountable, but that may not be the case.
Can you suppress evidence in your drug case?
One powerful defense strategy that you might be able to implement in your drug offense case, even if the evidence is stacked against you, is the suppression of evidence. Generally, the police are supposed to have a warrant before they search you, your car, or your home, and that warrant must be supported by probable cause.
But there are a number of exceptions to the warrant requirement. While these exceptions are meant to provide law enforcement officers with some flexibility in their investigations, police officers often misapply them in violation of Constitutional rights. When this happens, you might be able to demonstrate that the search was illegal, and any subsequently seized evidence is thereby tainted by that illegality.
However, there are a number of situations where a violation of your Constitutional rights can occur, too. This includes:
Illegal traffic stops: The police aren’t allowed to initiate a traffic stop unless they have reasonable suspicion that you’ve committed a crime or a traffic offense. If the stop lacks that requisite suspicion, it’s illegal, and any evidence that is gathered through a search incident to that stop will be considered fruit of the poisonous tree, meaning that you’ll have the ability to try to suppress it.
Chain of custody errors: If the prosecution wants to present physical evidence against you in your case, they’re going to have to provide reasonable assurances that the evidence is what they purport it to be. But if there were errors in the collection, storage, or testing of this physical evidence, you might be able to raise enough doubt about the evidence’s validity to warrant suppression of it.
Deposition issues: One of the best ways to figure out what evidence the prosecution intends to present against you is to depose their witnesses. But if these witnesses don’t show up despite being subpoenaed for a deposition, you might be able to block them from testifying against you.
Violation of your rights: We mentioned issues pertaining to warrantless searches, but even searches conducted with a warrant may prove to be illegal if they were secured on false information provided to the judge who approved the warrant. Your rights might also be violated in instances where the police interrogate you without informing you of your Miranda rights, and when you’re denied the ability to contact your attorney.
Take an aggressive line on your criminal defense
The outcome of your criminal case can define your future. With so much at stake, you owe it to yourself to put forth the strongest criminal defense arguments possible. That’s why now is the time to start thinking through your options so that you can educate yourself and make the decisions that position you as strongly as possible as you gear up to go up against the prosecution.]]>On Behalf of Babich Sarcone Attorneys at Law<![CDATA[Pay attention to these key issues in your gray divorce]]>https://www.desmoinesattorneys.com/?p=471862023-03-01T07:10:30Z2023-03-01T07:10:30Zfacing gray divorce, you have to be prepared to confront the realities that face you. This requires preparation, knowledge of the law, and aggressive advocacy. After all, if you enter the divorce process without an understanding of what it entails and what’s at stake, you could be setting yourself up for a terrible outcome.
The gray divorce issues that you need to pay attention to
As with any divorce, a gray divorce is going to have a number of legal issues that you’ll want to pay attention to. Yet, these later in life divorces highlight the importance of some key divorce issues. Let’s look at them here:
Property division: Although under our state laws the marital estate is supposed to be fairly divided through divorce proceedings, what one defines as “fair” is rather subjective. This gives a lot of wiggle room for argument, and you need to make sure that you’re ready to fight for what you deserve. After all, given the age at which you’re divorcing, you won’t have much time to rebuild the wealth that you’d accumulated with your spouse. This can threaten not only your retirement, but also your immediate financial well-being.
Spousal support: If you’ve been out of work for a significant period of time to take care of your children, run the household, or support your spouse, then you might be at a financial disadvantage once your divorce is finalized. As an older worker with less experience, it might be hard if not impossible for you to find a job that allows you to maintain your marital standard of living. This is where spousal support might be able to assist and why you need to make sure that you have strong legal arguments to support your request for such support.
Health insurance: If you were insured through your spouse’s coverage, then divorce can leave you without the protection that you need, especially as you’re moving into later stages of life that may require more extensive medical treatment. Therefore, as you’re negotiating or litigating your divorce, you’ll want to pay close attention to how you’re going to ensure that you’re medically protected.
There are a lot of other issues that may be key to your divorce. For example, if you’ve inherited a significant amount from a loved one, then you’ll want to determine if that’s separate property that you can keep for yourself post-divorce, or if it has been comingled with the marital estate to such an extent that it’ll now be subjected to division. You’ll also want to pay particularly close attention to retirement accounts, Social Security benefits, and life insurance coverage as you move forward with your divorce.
Do you need a legal ally on your side?
As you can see, there’s a lot to navigate as you proceed through your gray divorce. If you want to be as successful as possible in this process, then you need to be diligent, thorough, and aggressive. That may not be easy to do given your emotional attachments to these issues, but that’s where a legal professional can step in to help.
Therefore, if you’re ready to find the support that you need as you navigate your marriage dissolution, then please consider researching and reaching out to those firms that you think will give you the advocacy that you deserve.
]]>On Behalf of Babich Sarcone Attorneys at Law<![CDATA[Five ways the police try to get you to talk in an investigation]]>https://www.desmoinesattorneys.com/?p=471462022-12-19T15:39:04Z2022-12-19T15:39:04ZStrategies the police use to get you to talk
There are a lot of tactics that the police implement to try to get you talking. Their hope, of course, is to get you to say something incriminating so that you can be charged. To protect yourself, you should be on the lookout for these often-used strategies:
Acting friendly: The police aren’t required to inform you of your right to remain silent and your right to an attorney if you’re questioned outside of custodial interrogation. Therefore, you’ll want to be leery of law enforcement officers who try to buddy up to you to try to get you to talk. Remember, they’re just trying to get you to say something that they can use against you.
Making promises: When the police talk to you, they might make promises to try to lure you into talking. This might include lessening the charges filed against you, lightening the penalties you’ll face, or even saying that you’ll get off without facing any criminal charges. However, only the prosecutor can make those promises and adhere to them. So, don’t take the police at their word when they start making you promises.
Threatening you: The police can get aggressive when they don’t get what they want. As a result, you may be subjected to threats, whether they pertain to prosecution or even physical harm. These tactics are extremely coercive and likely illegal. So, don’t let the police frighten you into saying something that you shouldn’t say.
Lying to you: The police are allowed to lie to you when they’re questioning you. This can be an effective way to get you to talk, as you may feel compelled to try to explain away whatever it is that the police are presenting to you. Law enforcement might claim that they have evidence against you or that someone has implicated you in the crime, but don’t trust what the police are saying to you.
Using leading questions: The way that the police ask you questions can put you at risk, too. This is because they tend to use leading questions that are easy to agree with. But if you do end up talking to the police, make sure that you’re not just agreeing with whatever they say.
Know how to protect your interests during a police investigation
There’s certainly a lot on the line when you’re under investigation for criminal wrongdoing. To protect yourself as fully as possible in these matters, you need to know how to defend yourself against aggressive and tricky police investigatory tactics. If you think that you could use some help in that regard, you might want to think about reaching out to an experienced criminal defense attorney for assistance.]]>