Voiland returns to courtroom to find legal dispute waiting

Returning to his courtroom after a three-month absence, Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Joseph Voiland stepped into a legal dispute Tuesday that began when he suddenly vacated the order of another court official in a child custody case. 

Voiland’s March 19 decision to void the order of Circuit Court Commissioner Barry Boline, which allowed a woman and her 11-year-old son to start a new life in Texas, as well as Voiland’s order that a custody and placement study be conducted in a case that had been resolved, has left the family in “legal limbo,” Karl Schefft, the attorney appointed by the court to represent the interests of the child, or guardian ad litem, wrote in a motion asking Voiland to reverse his decision.

In an affidavit supporting his motion, Schefft wrote that Voiland’s order “is improper, is unfair and contrary to the law.”

“This puts ... the minor child whose best interest I have been representing in an untenable position,” Schefft wrote in his affidavit. “This leaves (the boy), his mother, his father and his grandmother in legal limbo.

“This also vacates the final order of Commissioner Boline that had resolved all of these matters and creates further litigation in this case that no party or attorney in this case ever requested.”

In an affidavit supporting Schefft’s motion, the mother’s attorney, Geraldine Johnson-Coy, wrote, “(The child) is adapting well to living in Texas with his mother,” and “as a child of 11 years old (he) deserves to have certainty and structure and to be shielded from further unnecessary and duplicitous investigations and legal proceedings.”

Voiland’s order was unexpected in part because at the time he filed it on March 19 he had not been seen in the courthouse for nearly two months.

According to Clerk of Courts Mary Lou Mueller, Voiland, who returned to the Branch II bench Monday, April 22, was last in his courtroom on Jan. 23. Five reserve judges have presided over Voiland’s cases in his absence, she said.

Local court officials said they have no idea why Voiland has been absent.

On Tuesday, however, Voiland was in his courtroom to preside over a hearing on Schefft’s motion, which he postponed over Schefft’s objections until June 13 to allow the child’s father time to hire a lawyer. When asked by Voiland, the father said he opposes Boline’s order that his son move to Texas with his mother. 

The custody case dates to 2008, and in March of that year then-Court Commissioner Darcy McManus granted the boy’s mother and father joint custody and ordered that the child’s primary placement be with his mother.  

The case was assigned to Voiland in 2014, but as court commissioner, Boline handled much of the work, which over the years involved multiple issues ranging from  support payments to visitation rights.

The latest development in the case came last year when the child’s mother, who lived in Grafton and Port Washington before moving to Texas, petitioned the court for an order allowing her to move her son to Texas to live with her, her husband and the boy’s half-sister.

Schefft supported the mother’s request. The child’s father, who lives in Wisconsin, opposed it. 

Boline held a Jan. 10, 2019, hearing at which several witnesses testified. Boline ordered that the boy move to Texas with his mother but live with his father during spring and winter breaks from school, for a month during summer and on specified weekends.

A subsequent agreement gave the child’s maternal grandmother visitation rights.

Voiland’s March 19 order vacating Boline’s ruling and ordering a custody and placement study conducted by the Ozaukee County Human Services Department stunned people involved in the case.

In his affidavit, Schefft noted that no one involved in the case petitioned Voiland to review Boline’s decision. 

Schefft wrote that Voiland issued his order “with no notice to the parties or their counsel and no notice to me as (the boy’s) guardian ad litem, with no hearing, with no request from any party or any party’s attorney and without any input from me as (the boy’s) guardian ad litem.”

Although absent from his courtroom for much of the year, Voiland had obviously been working on some cases. In addition to his order for the custody and placement study, he filed a supplemental order last week setting May 1 as the deadline for the report to be filed. The order also reiterates that lawyers involved in the case are required to update him on the study’s progress and warns that anyone who fails to comply with the terms of his order is “subject to sanctions according to Wisconsin law for ‘disobedience, resistance or obstruction of the authority, process or order of a court.’”

A custody and placement study Voiland ordered in a different case was at the heart of accusations he made against Boline and Circuit Court Judge Paul Malloy during a 16-month investigation of the Ozaukee County court system prompted by Voiland’s claims that Boline, Malloy and Mueller had committed criminal misconduct in office in an effort to undermine him. An administrative probe ordered by the Wisconsin Court System found no basis for Voiland’s accusations of criminal misconduct. 

In December, months after that finding, Voiland announced he would not seek a second term in office. A Dec. 26 statement attributed to his campaign stated that Voiland, a disabled Gulf War veteran, would be taking medical leave to complete treatment at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center.

His term expires July 31.

Mid-Moraine Municipal Court Judge and lawyer Steve Cain was elected earlier this month to succeed Voiland.