Matthew operates the Thompson Law Firm, pllc, a Mississippi based Family Law firm emphasizing; Divorce, Child Custody, Child Support, Modification, Contempt and Appeals, handling family law cases throughout Mississippi.
(601) 850-8000 Matthew@bowtielawyer.ms www.BowTieLawyer.ms
If you find yourself going through a divorce or about to, identify a good lawyer that can represent you, get a recommendation of a good counselor that can help deal with the emotions and drama, and strive to maintain your support system.
Matthew Thompson is a divorce and civil defense attorney and encourages you to have a support system when going through a divorce.
This is said shortly after one party disclosed the dirty details to the child regarding the other parent. Followed by the statement, “they have the right to know.”
They do not have the Right nor the need to know.
This is never appropriate.
But what about that parent, with their righteous indignation, who says, “I do NOT lie to my child?” My response? “What about the Tooth Fairy?
I get a blank stare.
We lie to our children all the time A LiveScience.com article stated it better, “Parents Lie to Children Surprisingly Often.” This article concluded that parent’s lie to protect their child and lie to preserve some semblance of innocence and childhood for their children. These are all good things.
The Tooth Fairy question gets that indignant parent every time. There is no good reason to “tell all” about the other parent’s misdeeds. You should be telling them that the other parents loves them very much. When the kids are older they will realize the truth and appreciate you all the more for allowing them to have a childhood and to love their other parent, even if the other parent did not deserve it.
Matthew Thompson is a Child Custody Attorney in Mississippi and believes sometimes lying to your children is in their best interests.
Memorial Day is a day to remember and honor those who have died in service to this Country.
On Memorial Day, the flag of the United States is raised briskly to the top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position, where it remains only until noon. It is then raised to full-staff for the remainder of the day.
The half-staff position remembers the more than one million men and women who gave their lives in service of their country. At noon, their memory is raised by the living, who resolve not to let their sacrifice be in vain, but to rise up in their stead and continue the fight for liberty and justice for all.
A recent decision ended the litigation between the Estate of Mark Mayfield vs. The City of Madison. It was a sordid affair involving the Cochran nursing home scandal, a hotly contested U.S. Senate race, a tragic death and multiple twists that prove time and again that truth is stranger than fiction.
You can read the full Order here and see a myriad of comments from legal scholars that post to the Blog; Jackson Jambalaya…
Today’s post just focuses on one quote from Federal Judge, Carlton Reeves’s Opinion.
“At the third and final step, the Mayfields must come forward with evidence that a jury could use to conclude that the City’s probable cause was, for lack of a better term, bullshit. See generally HARRYG. FRANKFURT, ON BULLSHIT (2005) (attempting to define the term). The questions at step three are supposed to be tailored to the particular circumstances of the case…”
“…In this case, the framework suggests that we should ask a series of questions. Did the investigation follow the evidence to its targets, or did the police “round up the usual suspects? ”Was there anything unusual about the timing or the manner of the City’s investigation? Is there any other case where the City Attorney met with the District Attorney and the investigators everyday to discuss charges and be involved in how those charges would proceed? Were persons who engaged in similar conduct also arrested, or were they let off the hook because of more agreeable political beliefs? See Nieves, 139 S. Ct. at 1727.An examination of the evidence adduced in this case satisfactorily answers these questions. Instead of rounding up the most vocal McDaniel supporters, City investigators followed the evidence from Kelly to Mary to Mayfield. The police were given free rein to conduct their investigation as they saw fit, without direction from the Mayor, a Cochran supporter. There is no evidence that before the Rose Cochran incident, the City of Madison was itching for an excuse to go after McDaniel supporters. And there is no evidence of differential treatment of McDaniel and Cochran supporters. As an example, there is no evidence that Cochran supporters entered a McDaniel relative’s home in Madison, after which the City refused to prosecute them.”
It’s not often you see Bullsh*t attempt to be defined in a judicial opinion.
Matthew Thompson is a civil litigation/family law attorney and “LOL-ed” when reading this Opinion.
The Mississippi Supreme Court said because Mississippi has 4 congressional districts instead of the 5- when the ballot initiative process was approved, it makes the legal requirements impossible to comply with…so no medical marijuana.
“The court majority ruled that the provision plainly says signatures are to be gathered equally between five districts, one of which no longer exists.
The court said: “Unlike the other two branches of government, the courts may not act proactively to address problems such as the one here … It is our duty to interpret our Constitution when its meaning is put at issue … The Court does not have jurisdiction to review, affirm, or overturn the ‘will of the people’ … The November 2020 results are not before us … The reduction in Mississippi’s congressional representation renders (the ballot initiative provision) unworkable and inoperable on its face.” https://mississippitoday.org/2021/05/14/mississippi-supreme-court-overturns-medical-marijuana-initiative-65/
The Court did not address the merits of medical marijuana, but focused on the process of how the matter was put on the ballot. It concluded “you can’t do that.”
It also left a void, no citizen can ever have any issue put on the ballot – without legislative intervention.
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision determined there was a problem and only the legislature could fix it, that it was not the Court’s role to mend a broken process.
Prior to medical marijuana being approved by the voters, I predicted (at the time wrongly) that it would not pass. It was passed by an overwhelmingly large percentage, north of 70%. I also predicted (now wrongly) that the initiative process would be upheld by the Court.
Why? Because of the Doctrine of Absurdity.
“In law, strictly literal interpretations of statutes can lead to seemingly absurd results. The doctrine of absurdity holds that commonsense interpretations should be preferred in such cases, rather than literal readings. Under the absurdity doctrine, American courts have interpreted statutes contrary to their plain meaning in order to avoid absurd legal conclusions.
The common sense of man approves the judgment mentioned by Pufendorf [sic. Puffendorf], that the Bolognian law which enacted “that whoever drew blood in the streets should be punished with the utmost severity”, did not extend to the surgeon who opened the vein of a person that fell down in the street in a fit. The same common sense accepts the ruling, cited by Plowden, that the statute of 1st Edward II, which enacts that a prisoner who breaks prison shall be guilty of a felony, does not extend to a prisoner who breaks out when the prison is on fire – “for he is not to be hanged because he would not stay to be burnt”
Wikipedia.
This Supreme Court ruling, a literal interpretation of the ballot initiative law, creates an absurd result. You can never have 20% from 5 districts, because there are now 4 districts. The Court could have said follow the spirit of the law.
Footnote 8 of Justice Chamberlain’s dissent stated;
“The majority’s interpretation is like a well-manicured lawn whose caretaker focuses on one isolated blade of grass—here, the term “congressional district”—while ignoring the weed that is context. Interpretation should involve a joint effort between reading the actual words and the context in which they are found. The majority’s reading thrusts a constitutional provision into chronic limbo, creating a transient or temporary constitutional right. To be blunt, it effectively slams the lid on the initiative process. This surely cannot be the intent of the Legislature and the people. As a court, we should nip this interpretation in the bud.”
Matthew Thompson is a civil defense/family law attorney in Mississippi and reminds you that elections matter.
The Mississippi Constitution of 1817, Article VI, Section 17 , provided that “Divorces from the bonds of matrimony, shall not be granted but in cases provided for by law, by suit in Chancery; provided that no decree for divorce shall have effect until the same shall be sanctioned by two-thirds of both branches of the General Assembly.”
At the time Mississippi became a state it took a vote by 2/3 of the legislature to get a divorce, after a Judge determined you had grounds for divorce.
This requirement for legislative approval was removed in 1869 and likewise did not reappear in the 1890 Mississippi, the state’s current Constitution.
So, no, it does not take an act of the legislature to get a divorce…anymore, but it can still be difficult and possibly impossible in Mississippi without provable fault grounds.
Matthew Thompson is a divorce and civil litigation attorney in Mississippi.
(601) 850-8000 - - BowTieLawyer.MS 