rprise that it usually takes much less time and effort to prepare for a proffer hearing than preparing for a full evidentiary hearing. In a proffer hearing the client won’t do much, if anything, during the actual hearing, with the exception of perhaps providing the occasional clarifying answer if the court asks them. No witnesses are called to testify in hearing conducted by proffer; instead, their testimony is provided by affidavit or verified declaration.
If you are unsure if your upcoming hearing will be a proffer or evidentiary hearing, ask your attorney. It could be catastrophic for your case if you show up at court believing the hearing is a proffer hearing when it’s a full-blown evidentiary hearing.
GAL recommendations are nowhere close to being the best way to determining the child’s best interest.
This post is the thirteenth in series of 15 posts on the subject of custody evaluations and the appointment of guardians ad litem (“GALs” for short) in Utah child custody cases when the judge could simply interview the children instead. You do not have to read all 16 posts to benefit from this series. Read as many or as few as you wish.
The purpose of this series is to make the case for the proposition that an interview by the judge is a faster, more accurate, more particular, more reliable, and less expensive form of evidence than what a GAL and/or custody evaluator provides.
If a guardian ad litem claims to tell the court what a child said, that violates the rule against hearsay and violates the privilege against disclosure of attorney client communications.
When I point out to the court a guardian ad litem’s attempts to proffer hearsay statements, I am either ignored or told that there is a special exception for guardians ad litem (which is not true). When I try to invoke Utah rule of evidence 806 to cross examine a child on the hearsay statements (to determine whether what the child is alleged to have said is actually what the child said), I’m either giving an emperor’s new clothes kind of denial or just ignored. Now you understand that if the judge would question the child directly, there would be little to no need to cross-examine the child in the first place (if the judge questioned the children well, for example). Likewise, if a judge would question a child directly there would rarely, if ever, be a need to appoint a guardian ad litem or custody evaluator for the child’s benefit either. I do not understand why we have guardians ad litem or custody evaluators serve the purpose of “giving the child a voice” when the child has his or her own voice and is perfectly capable of using it, especially in articulating and attempting to advance the child’s own best interest by speaking directly with the court as to the child’s experiences, observations, ceilings, concerns, opinions and desires, without the child’s words being parsed or filtered or misconstrued by second and third hand intermediaries.