Attorney Rui P. Alves

Child custody issues are among the most difficult and heart-rending aspects of the Family Court process. Most parents are sensitive to the needs of their children during divorce proceedings, and yet being emotionally involved in the situation very often make errors in judgement that can negatively effect their children, as well as the outcome of their custody case.

In the determination of child custody in Rhode Island, the court may order a custody evaluation. In this evaluation, your child will be expected to answer the questions of the interviewer. The interview alone would be a stressful situation for any child, but when coupled with the divorce process and parents who may not agree over custody issues, it can be overwhelming.

Your child is already under a great deal of stress. In order to support your child through this process, you need to focus on guiding them rather than giving them exact responses to the questions that will be asked. By being a source of strength and assuring your child that as long as he or she is honest they will be giving the right answers, you provide your child with the confidence to overcome their discomfort to some degree. If they feel that you don’t expect them to say specific things, or that they don’t have to remember special answers, they are much more likely to come through the process without trauma. In fact, comparing the interview to a visit with any other counselor will go a long way toward instilling the idea that they need only be themselves and have a normal conversation.

Reinforce that they need only be honest and that they cannot give a right or a wrong answer. That no matter what they say to the interviewer, nothing bad will happen to themselves, their parents, or other siblings. Under no circumstances should you coach your child with responses and guidelines for what they may and may not say in the interview. If there is any issue of abuse, or your child would rather not be with one parent or the other, the interviewer will best be able to determine this through honest answers from your child.

If you are considering a divorce in RI and you have minor children contact me at (401) 942-3100 for a free consultation.

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From the Providence Journal Newspaper

   PROVIDENCE — Nancy Ramos was a happy 15-year-old when she left her family’s apartment in the Codding Court public housing to meet a new friend on Columbus Day weekend in 2009.

   About two hours later she was fighting for her life at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, where she was taken after having been run down by a Jeep operated by a hit-and-run driver on Narragansett Boulevard in the Washington Park neighborhood. She was hospitalized for seven months.

   Having suffered a broken left leg and a brain injury, a 17-year-old Nancy now spends her days in a wheelchair, partially paralyzed, in a long-term-care facility.    “Her reaction is, ‘Why me,’ ” a sister, Damaris Martinez, said recently.

   The driver was Jose M. Cordeiro, an auto-body repairman nicknamed “Joe Maaco,” for the Maaco chain of auto-paint shops, who was at the wheel of a customer’s vehicle. He had picked up the Jeep about one hour before the accident. Afterward, he left it at the customer’s house with more damage, according to court evidence.

   Thursday was Cordeiro’s day of reckoning, in Superior Court. Cordeiro, with a crumpled tissue in his hand, and Nancy’s family began crying midway through a sentencing hearing.

   He pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident, with serious bodily injury resulting. Judge Netti C. Vogel imposed a prison sentence of 10 years, with 5 to serve at the Adult Correctional Institutions and the rest suspended with probation.

   She ordered that his driver’s license be suspended for two years and that if it is reinstated, his car for two years must have an ignition interlock device that prevents him from turning on the engine until he has breathed into the device to prove that he has not consumed alcohol.

   Vogel recited the facts of the case, including Cordeiro’s admission that he stopped the vehicle, opened the driver’s side door, looked back, and then took off after the impact, which the police said threw Nancy 71 feet.

   Cordeiro left her in the street “like road kill,” Vogel said.

   “You made a choice. … You had to know that she was suffering.”

   Cordeiro, 57, of 11 Paula Lane, Johnston, and a citizen of the Azores, faces possible deportation as a result of the conviction, Vogel pointed out.

   John E. MacDonald, one of Cordeiro’s lawyers, told the judge that his client is the father of a 25-year-old son who is housebound in a wheelchair and for whom Cordeiro is the sole financial support. He asked Vogel to see that Cordeiro have work release while at the ACI so Cordeiro could continue to earn money. But she left that decision to the Department of Corrections.

   Yadira Martinez, another of Nancy’s sisters, gave a victim-impact statement on behalf of Nancy, who relatives said could not be brought to court.

   “You took something very special from us. … ,” Martinez said. “I want you to look at me. You made us suffer. …”

   In Portuguese translated to English, Cordeiro said later, “I am very, very, very sorry for what happened to their little girl.”

   “Every day in the evening, I pray for that young lady. …”

   Said Vogel, “I think that the family must have taken some solace from your tears.”

   Some of the common reasons for hit-and-run accidents, according to the police, is that the driver has been drinking alcohol and fears the consequences of that, has an outstanding arrest warrant, and/or is driving without a license.

   Vogel referred to Cordeiro’s two previous convictions for driving while intoxicated and said she does not know if he was drunk in this case because he fled the scene.

   “You were an accident waiting to happen,” she declared.

   Court evidence shows that Cordeiro admitted that he had been drinking before the accident. In a statement to the police, Cordeiro said he remembers nothing between 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on the night of the accident, Oct. 10, 2009. Nancy was struck at 7:58 p.m.

   “Cordeiro was highly intoxicated when his wife, Nellie, arrived to pick him up” on Park Avenue, Cranston, later that night, a police report states.

   Cordeiro was not charged with drunken driving. If he had been, he would have faced a more severe sentence, according to Sgt. Paul F. Zienowicz, commander of the Providence police traffic-services unit.

   Detectives did not identify Cordeiro as the driver and locate him until the day after the accident. So too much time had passed, the police noted, to get a usable test of his blood alcohol content. Even if they could, he mighthave been drinking after the accident as well, spoiling any potential link that might have been made between the accident and the alcohol.

   Cordeiro’s case was resolved as the General Assembly considers proposals to beef up the laws on hit-and-run accidents and drunken driving, among other motor-vehicle legislation.

   In 2011, there were about 20 serious hit-and-run accidents statewide, of which 3 were fatalities, according to Sen. Edward J. O’Neill, an independent who represents a district in Lincoln, Pawtucket and North Providence, and sponsor of a bill that would stiffen the penalties for hit-and-runs.

   In Providence alone, there are about 2,600 hit-and-run accidents annually, most of which involve only property damage. gsmith@providencejournal.com  

   (401) 277-7334

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / KATHY BORCHERS

   Jose M. Cordeiro appears in court Thursday with defense attorney John MacDonald, left, and interpreter Dalila Ferreira.

Nancy Ramos, shown in a family photo, was 15 when she was run down by a hit-and-run driver on Narragansett Boulevard, Providence, on Oct. 10, 2009. The accident left her partially paralyzed and confined to an undisclosed rehabilitation facility.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / CONNIE GROSCH———————————————————————————-
If you have questions about this posting or are interested in Divorce, Immigration, or Estate Law in RI or MA contact Massachusetts and Rhode Island Divorce Lawyer Rui P. Alves at 401-942-3100 or CONTACT him via email.

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If you have questions about this posting or are interested in Divorce, Immigration, or Estate Law in RI or MA contact Massachusetts and Rhode Island Divorce Lawyer Rui P. Alves at 401-942-3100 or CONTACT him via email.

PROVIDENCE — It was day three of the federal trial of some police officers accused in a lawsuit, and the lawyers were at odds. It was time, on the issue of how to pose a question to a witness, to face the music. And hear some, too. As the lawyers approached the bench, orchestral music wafted through courtroom speakers and, not unlike a conductor striding from the stage, Judge William E. Smith walked out to meet the lawyers in sidebar, trying to get everyone in tune. At least five times that day, the music sounded as judge and legal teams shuffled back and forth in U.S. District Court. Instruments performed sweeping, lush harmonies. The judge and lawyers talked, hand motions in abundance, but to the observer theirs was a silent film with only a soundtrack.

Every time they headed back to the defense and plaintiff tables, the music stopped and questioning resumed.

The music is there to shield the sidebar discussion from the ears of jurors and witnesses, Smith said in an interview.

Anyone who’s sat in at a state District Court hearing or Superior Court trial has heard whispers or more as legal teams and judge strategize in not-quite dulcet tones. In federal courtrooms, besides music, the options can include white noise, a sound played to mask other sounds in a space, during the sidebars, or bench conferences . In some federal courtrooms, in which sidebar conversations are deemed not audible, no sound is played.

Smith had served a year or so in the other federal court building across the street.

“I couldn’t stand that white noise,” he said, and wondered if it might bother jurors.

So about eight years ago, Smith said, he decided to opt for playing music, typically classical. “It’s just a little more pleasant.”

While he prefers to keep sidebars to a minimum for the jury’s sake, Smith said, he has never had one of the conferences run so long that music ran out. He recalled a longer trial where the music — “I think it was Vivaldi” — had become repetitive, so some Van Morrison and a little Bob Dylan filled in during sidebars.

To shroud the conversation, he said, “Van Morrison was better than Dylan because Van Morrison has some orchestra in it.”

But instrumental music is the norm.

“Classical is probably the best choice,” Smith said, “because it fills the space better than almost any other kind of music you could find.” Other music, he said, may have gaps where nothing is being played, allowing some sidebar conversation to be heard. And, he said, given differing tastes, he felt people would largely be amenable to classical.

Classical is a catch-all term for music including several eras: 17th-century baroque pieces, such as those written by J.S. Bach; 18th-century music by composers including Mozart; 19th-century romantic works by the likes of Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin; and 20th-century music by composers such as Shostakovich and Britten.

Outside of work, Smith said, he likes music of his generation and some that his children have introduced him to, bands such as Wilco and The Decemberists. Growing up, he tried his hand at the guitar but said he didn’t think he was so good at it; he had friends who played better.

In Smith’s courtroom, a clerk uses a high-tech console to activate everything from case exhibits on video screens to audio for testimony. She also cues up the music selection.

Smith said the court building had its sound system redone in the last year. Speakers are embedded in wood in various locations.

Don’t expect a television legal-drama moment where an ominous soundtrack accompanies a perfectly scripted prosecutor delivering a speech which, in a real courtroom, might not get past the word “objection.” And there’s no way to make a bootleg recording; cell phones and recording devices are not allowed in federal courtrooms. The music lasts for what’s far from concert length.

But Smith said he’s heard enough of the current choices, so the soundtrack will change again soon. A clerk is bringing in new music. mmckinne@providencejournal.com  

(401) 277-7447

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / MARY MURPHY

Judge William Smith prefers to keep private sidebar conferences with lawyers to a minimum, but when they’re needed, he prefers to play classical music so jurors don’t hear.

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If you have questions about this posting or are interested in Divorce, Immigration, or Estate Law in RI or MA contact Massachusetts and Rhode Island Divorce Lawyer Rui P. Alves at 401-942-3100 or CONTACT him via email.

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