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VA Woman Accused of Violating Judge's Order Not to Smoke Around Her Kids [08/11-3]
Excerpts from: Children or cigarettes? Woman accused of defying a judge's order that she not smoke around her children
By KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY Richmond Times-Dispatch [08/11/04]
Tamara Silvius is fuming over a judge's ruling that she cannot smoke around her two young children.
The Caroline County woman says she is so addicted to cigarettes that, despite the court order, she duct-taped clear plastic trash bags inside her Chevy Suburban during a trip to South Carolina last Thanksgiving in an attempt to keep smoke from reaching the children, now ages 8 and 10, seated behind her.
For that episode, Caroline Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Judge John H. Thomas fined her $500 in January and issued her a 10-day jail term; he suspended the jail term on condition she not violate the order again.
Tomorrow, Silvius is due back in the family court for allegedly violating the order again in June, though the hearing might be postponed.
In August 2003, Thomas barred Silvius from smoking cigarettes when the children are around as a condition of her visitation.Silvius, 44, had appealed that order to Caroline Circuit Court, where Judge Horace A. Revercomb III upheld Thomas' ruling in January. She and her attorney have filed another appeal with the Virginia Court of Appeals.
Her attorney, Tucker L. Henley, declined public comment but argued in court papers that Revercomb was "without jurisdiction" to order his client not to smoke around her children.
Murphy was out of town, but his law partner, J. Bruce Strickland, said he believes Revercomb was within the law when he upheld Thomas' ruling, which also bars Tamara Silvius or anyone with her from consuming alcohol when the children are with her.
Revercomb cited medical evidence of the effects of secondhand smoke on children.
Tamara Silvius said the issue arose when she petitioned for full custody of the children in 2002 because of a series of 911 calls for domestic disputes at the home of her ex-husband and his third wife. Sheriff's department records show six 911 calls originating from Steve Silvius' house within a three-month period in early 2002.
"The children were not in a good environment," Tamara Silvius said.When the custody matter came to court, she said, Murphy, Steve Silvius' attorney, raised the issue of her alcohol consumption."From there, it went to smoking. The whole 911 thing never came up," she said.A court-appointed guardian concluded that Tamara Silvius' farm home, where she lives with her boyfriend, was not a particularly clean or safe environment.
After an inspection, the guardian wrote she found the home to be "filthy and cluttered, to have many beer cans and bottles strewn about inside, and with such debris as broken glass and jagged metal scraps outside the home as to make entry dangerous."
Tamara Silvius believes the judge's ruling is one-sided because it proscribes her behavior, but not that of her ex-husband."I can't smoke around the kids, but he can," she said of her ex.Does he smoke?
"No, but he can. It's not fair."
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