Family Court: Commissioner issues protective orders, makes interim decisions

      During a recent hearing in Family Court, a woman's voice quivered as she stood before Clark County's domestic violence commissioner and asked him to extend the temporary protective order he had issued against her husband.
      "This man has drove me to mental breakdown," she told Commissioner Jack Fields.
      The woman's husband then had a chance to respond, telling the commissioner his wife suffers from severe mental disorders.
      "She has harassed me," the man said. "She does not want me to divorce her."
      Fields agreed to extend the protective order, which prohibits the man from coming within 1,000 feet of his wife. The man had no objection.
      "I don't want anything to do with her," he said. "I don't want her to go around me."
      Fields advised the man that he has the right to seek his own protective order. In the meantime, the commissioner said, "If she walks into a restaurant or a bar, and you're there, you need to leave."
      Similar hearings occur hundreds of times each month in Fields' courtroom. Last year, the court's Family Violence Center handled about 6,200 applications for temporary protective orders. Most were granted.
      Although Family Court officials have compiled no statistics regarding the types of cases that result in requests for protective orders, Fields estimates that nearly half of all requests involve couples who have been married or who have had a child together.
      When the parties show up for hearings in Fields' courtroom, he listens to brief statements from the applicant and respondent, then quickly makes a ruling.
      "A lot of what happens down there is kind of a cross between instinct and fact and fiction," he said.
      Fields was hired as a special hearing master in December 1994. He has had the title of domestic violence commissioner since May.
      The commissioner said parties rarely object to having protective orders issued against them.
      "I actually issue a protective order over someone's objection only a few times a day," he said.
      The protective orders can have serious ramifications for the people against whom they are issued. For one man who appeared in Fields' courtroom last month, the order amounted to an eviction from his home.
      The man said he recently returned from a trip to Utah to learn his wife had obtained a temporary protective order against him. He objected to the woman's request for an extension, which keeps him from going near the residence they once shared.
      "I have nowhere to live," the man said. "That's my home."
      His wife claimed he had been verbally and physically abusive, once kicking in a bedroom door. The man admitted he had pulled the phone out of a wall and damaged a bedroom door during what he described as a verbal altercation.
      Fields agreed to extend the protective order for six months but told the couple to settle their financial affairs in a judge's courtroom.
      "At this point, you need to file a divorce action," he said.
      Temporary protective orders last up to 30 days. The applicant then must come to court to seek an extension of up to one year.
      In addition to issuing protective orders, Fields has the authority to make interim orders regarding child support, custody, visitation and spousal support. Although his orders take effect immediately, they must be approved by a Family Court judge.
      "A lot of people that are before me are having problems because they're fighting over the exchanges of children," Fields said. "I need to have the authority to solidify a visitation agreement -- at least a temporary one, and the judges recognize that."
      The commissioner said his orders regarding those issues last for 60 days and give the parties time to go before a judge.
      Attorney Rhonda Mushkin said she has seen litigants use the protective-order process to manipulate decisions in custody cases. She said a party who obtains custody from Fields has a good chance of prevailing before a judge, because judges prefer to maintain the status quo.
      Attorney Ishi Kunin said parents have used protective orders in divorce cases to keep their spouses away from the home and the children, even when no violence has occurred.
      "I think there needs to be a better screening process," Kunin said. "I don't think it should be so automatic."
      Mushkin said judges should give little credence to a protective order in custody cases unless a party has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence.
      Under a 1995 Nevada law, if a judge finds "by clear and convincing evidence" that either parent has engaged in one or more acts of domestic violence, that determination creates a "rebuttable presumption" that it is not in the child's best interest for that parent to have sole or joint custody.
      Family Court has offered a 24-hour program since May 1994 that allows applicants to obtain protective orders shortly after a suspected abuser has been arrested. Fields said the program involves the cooperation of the court's Family Violence Center, the community's police departments and jails, the district attorney's office, and a nonprofit corporation that assists victims of domestic violence.
      The commissioner said police officers carry information cards they hand out to suspected victims of domestic violence after making an arrest. The cards instruct the suspected victims to call a hot line monitored by Temporary Assistance for Domestic Crisis, a nonprofit corporation, if they wish to apply for an emergency temporary protective order.
      Fields said a representative of the nonprofit organization fills out the application and sends it by fax to the judge, special hearing master or commissioner on duty. If granted, the order is then faxed to the jail before the suspect's release.
      Under state law, a suspected abuser must remain in jail for at least 12 hours after being arrested.
      Kathleen Brooks, assistant director of Temporary Assistance for Domestic Crisis, said the court's Family Violence Center has offered victims of domestic violence more assistance than they previously had, but the center is having trouble keeping up with the growing number of applications. The center had about 3,400 requests for temporary protective orders in 1993, its first year of operation, but that number nearly doubled last year.