What happens if the father does not show up at the court hearing for custody? The father of my two children has warrants out for his arrest and I am sure he will not show, just as he does not show for the child support meetings. If he doesn't show up at court for custody and I am requesting sole custody with no visitation, would that be granted to me.

Also what if they cannot find the father to serve him the papers to appear in court? He has recently been evicted and nobody knows where he is.

If he doesn't show up, more then likely I would think you would get sole custody if he recevied the original potition to appear in court. If he has warrents against him for failure to appear for the support case and what ever other charges he has against him, I believe the judge will see that it is in the best interest of your child not to give him any rights. The judge granted me sole custody because of the babies fathers past history... jail, drugs, etc...
Good Luck

I want to take my ex-husband to court to gain sole custody of our child who is due on July 11, 2005 but I am afraid the judge will give him visitaion rights. He is not on the birth certificate and the child will have my last name. He has a previous prison record for drugs and domestic abuse plus I have an order of protection against him for kicking down the door at my apartment and threatening to kill me and my unborn child. Do you think he has any chance of getting visitaion or will I surely get sole custody. Please help me.

A while back my husband left me for another woman and I filed for an emercency hearing. His parents found out where I was and kidnapped them. I went to see a judge about it and he said hed be glad to get them with kidnapping and assault and battery but when that day came he denied ever having spoke to me and did not punish them at all. When my other hearing came up the female judge kept winking at my husband and blushing at him and gave him temporary custody just because she supposedly saw his girlfriend as a live in daycare. Well I had to deal with that junk for a while and his girlfriend kept telling my girls to call her mama and me by my name. I had to retrain them and she got in my face when I had their hair cut. Well I went to pick my girls up for visitation and they were not there and my mother in law was just blubbering her ugly head off and she finally showed me papers that the children had been taken into dss custody and I had never been contacted. I also discovered that my mother in law had been given custody of them by dss at one point and no one informed me. Just lied to me. All this happened because my husband yanked on his girlfriends sons private and left bruises while he was at my mother in laws house which he wasn't supposed to be around the children at all. SO now I have temporary custody. I am getting a divorce and planning to get custody before that final hearing through dss but recently I received information that my husband and his girl friend are doing all of their rehabs and classes and the judge will probably say they can have all the children back. My daughters are doing so much better since I have them back and I can not have them go back to those people. I have a lawyer but what else can I do to stop this from happening?

If no one knows where he is, the state will have specific laws on the duty of service, normally attempts to notify him at last known address, attempting to discover forwarding address.
And if not found, a legal notice would have to be placed normally in the section of a paper approved for legal notice in your area ( and/or) last known area.

He could do several things, hire an attorney to represent him at the hearing.

If you receive custory at this hearing, he can of course any time over the period the children are minor, go back, and back and back to court to refile for custody rights and the such.

Final is never final in child custody. ( not till they turn 18 anyway) or order if an child support order orders payment to pay for college.