"It was a nonhearing hearing," Ross says.
Katz reappointed Dr. Yee as an outside expert for "the purpose of investigating and monitoring Mother's mental-health status, and to make prompt recommendations to the court."
Until those recommendations were made, Katz ordered the restrictions on Ross' custody rights to remain in place--except for one two-hour, supervised visit per week.
Finally, Katz admonished Ross for failing to schedule an appointment earlier with Yee, so that his report could be prepared. Ross "would already have had her initial day in court if she had promptly scheduled an appointment and made her mental-health records available to Dr. Yee for evaluation and recommendation to the court," Katz said in his ruling.
The court appearance concluded at 5:40 p.m.
One week later, Ross was back before the Court of Appeals, and it responded immediately to Katz's surprising failure to hold a proper hearing:
"Although this Court on September 14, 1994, ordered and directed the trial court to conduct a hearing . . . the trial court has not afforded [Ross] due process, since the trial court has failed to conduct an evidentiary hearing as contemplated by this Court in its September 12, 1994, order."
The appeals court then overturned Katz's July 18 custody order, replacing it with an earlier agreement that provided for Ross to have the children for unsupervised custody every other weekend. Appellate courts typically avoid decisions directly affecting child custody unless it appears that the trial court has ignored or mistaken the evidence.
Here, however, the appeals court clearly chastised Katz for failing to hold the hearing. It again ordered him to hold an evidentiary hearing. That meeting was finally scheduled for last Friday, nearly three months after Katz initially ordered a change in Ross' child custody arrangements.
Although he emphasized he wasn't talking about the Woods case, Katz says appeals courts' orders can sometimes be difficult to understand.
"The Court of Appeals sometimes drafts easy-to-understand orders and oftentimes drafts orders that are difficult for the trial judges or the litigants to understand," he says.
One of the appellate court judges also offered Katz some cover, saying he doesn't believe the trial judge purposely ignored the appeals court order.
Appeals court Judge Toci says Katz held a hearing, but not the type the appeals court had in mind--that is, a hearing in which evidence from both sides could be heard.
McCarthy, the Arizona State Bar Association's family law expert, scoffs at such a notion, saying there should never have been a doubt in anyone's mind what the appeals court wanted Katz to do.
"It would mean nothing to have anything but an evidentiary hearing," she says.
Barbara Ross arrives at the Southeast Judicial Courthouse about 1:30 p.m. last Friday and heads for Katz's courtroom for the long-delayed evidentiary hearing on custody arrangements for her children. She's stylishly dressed, with a couple of small medals pinned to her white blouse.
The courtroom doors are locked.
Inside, attorneys are hammering out details of an agreement she reached with Woods moments earlier. The agreement allows her unsupervised custody of the children on alternating weekends, as long as her psychiatrist, Dr. Cohen, gives her a clean bill of health.
It's a win, and Ross is clearly delighted. But it's not the victory she's seeking. She wants joint, week-to-week, unsupervised custody.
The last-minute agreement eliminates the need for an evidentiary hearing, at least for now. The terms of the arrangement will be reviewed in 60 days.
Ross wants to get into the courtroom to examine documents relating to the agreement. She says Woods should show up at any time, but he never does.
Ross knocks on a couple of doors, then starts answering a reporter's question.
"What's next?"
"It's not over. We're just in a . . . we're just in a . . ."
A clerk opens the door and motions Ross to enter.
She drops the conversation in midsentence and heads into the courtroom.
