Janae Gossel had been questioning the witness for about 90 seconds when the judge began to show signs of exasperation.
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“If you ask a question, let him answer the question,” said Joseph Goldstein, who hears family-law cases in Yavapai County, Ariz. “I know this seems a little awkward, but this is not a conversation: You’re in a court of law. It’s an examination.”
“OK,” Gossel said. She had spent the last half-hour answering questions from the lawyer representing Joe Roberson, her ex-boyfriend and the father of their 15-year-old daughter. Gossel had recently moved some 200 miles north from Pima County, where they both lived, and they were having trouble agreeing on a new meeting point for pickup and drop-off. Roberson’s lawyer argued it was unfair to make him drive so much to exercise his right to parenting time.
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Now it was Gossel’s turn to ask questions, but she had no lawyer.Gossel and her ex had been haggling over parenting arrangements almost as long as their daughter had been alive. Goldstein was their 10th judge. In the beginning, Gossel said, she paid a lawyer $5,000, only to be told after two court appearances that she would need another $5,000 to continue. More recently, Gossel had found a pro bono lawyer through a program in Pima County, but, she said wistfully, “We don’t have those up here.” She also sought out the local office of the nonprofit Community Legal Services, which helped her with paperwork and arranged a free phone consultation with a lawyer. The availability of this kind of help nationally varies widely, from places that have next to no free assistance to jurisdictions like New York, where indigent parents have a right to court-appointed lawyers in custody disputes.
Gossel had come straight from her job as a surgical tech and was still wearing scrubs. Neat stacks of documents were laid out before her on the defense table.Little of what she wanted to talk about concerned pickup or drop-off. She wanted to discuss Roberson’s drinking, his reluctance to go to therapy, her daughter’s allergy to the two large dogs he kept in his R.V. She brought up Exhibit 5, a printout of text messages during a father-daughter visit a few months earlier, but struggled to explain it in a format where everything she said had to end with a question.
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