Custody & Kidnapping

Generally, when a respondent fails to show up for court, often times the judge will grant the petitioner the relief that s/he asked for in the petition. In a custody case, the judge may also have to be sure that the requested arrangement would be in the child’s best interest. Depending on the procedure in your state (I can’t speak to how STATE handles this), it may be possible that the judge might do what is sometimes called an inquest (a one-sided hearing where only the petitioner testifies) to establish best interests of the child or the judge may just grant the petition based on the fact that the respondent didn’t show up. Another possibility is the judge could adjourn (postpone the case) to give the respondent another opportunity to appear and even possibly issue a warrant for the respondent to appear on the next date - again, I can’t say which if any of these possibilities will happen in your case but these are general possibilities.

You may want to talk to a lawyer to get specific advice for your case to see how this is usually handled in your state/county. Here is a link for lawyers:LINK and here is some more information on custody in case that is useful LINK