Custody trial Levi Johnston vs Bristol Palin, the next round - Levi's lawyer tears Bristol's legal arguments apart and shows that Alaska case law is not in Bristol's favour - "A child is not a chattel to be bargained away for consideration"

Levi with his son Tripp (2009)

By Patrick

UPDATE MAY 2014: Mentioned below are all our posts in which we reported the details of the new custody proceedings between Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin concerning their son Tripp. We published the complete legal exchanges between the parties, including the new affidavits and court orders. Almost all of these documents have never been published elsewhere.

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Tuesday, February 25, 2014

BREAKING - The heat is on: Levi Johnston files for joint custody and asks court to hold Bristol Palin in contempt and return Tripp to Alaska - UPDATE: Read Levi's new court filings! Levi asserts that Bristol took Tripp out of state against a court order, seeks a court ruling about the custody, provides detailed affidavit

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Thursday, March 13, 2014

New filings in the custody case between Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin - Exchanging legal arguments and new affidavits, and Bristol is on the defensive: No sign of necessary "written consent" by Levi to remove Tripp from Alaska, just the opposite

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Saturday, March 22, 2014

Custody trial Levi Johnston vs Bristol Palin, the next round - Levi's lawyer tears Bristol's legal arguments apart and shows that Alaska case law is not in Bristol's favour - "A child is not a chattel to be bargained away for consideration"

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Thursday, April 3, 2014

First court order in new custody case between Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin: None of Levi's motions have been dismissed, trial setting conference scheduled, evidentiary hearing required, court notes that "a best interest finding" in regard to their son Tripp has never been made in the past

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Sunday, May 4, 2014

Levi's and Bristol's custody trial is now scheduled not just for one, but two days!

It's the next round in the newly opened custody trial between Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, a case that the media chooses to ignore - for reasons we can only speculate about.  However, here at Politicalgates we are still more than happy to inform the public about the details of the legal proceedings, and the contents of the exchanged documents. After all, the trial could become far more exciting than some people might expect.

Being challenged with facts and hard-hitting legal arguments in court is obviously not the favourite activity of the Palin-camp, and that's probably why, in a rather bizarre move and apparent "pre-emptive strike", the Palin-camp in January this year leaked the false fact to the media that Levi lost the custody case - at a time when the newly opened case hadn't even begun.

However, now the new case is truly underway, and in two previous posts (here and here), we published the complete legal documents and the affidavits which have been submitted by Levi and Bristol so far. It has become more and more obvious that Bristol is now in a rather unfavourable situation, as Levi finally has excellent representation, a lawyer who really cares for Levi's interests, and who has discovered the weak points of Bristol Palin's legal argumentation.

The latest filing by Levi's lawyer Darryl L. Thompson is the most hard-hitting yet, and he really tears Bristol Palin's legal argumentation apart. The Palin-camp will not like that, as they don't really believe that laws apply to them. So far, Bristol's actions have made it abundantly clear that she regards Tripp as her private property.

But that's not what the law says. Only the "best interests of the child" are what matters.

As Mr. Thompson explains in the last paragraph:

"Equal access to both of his parents in the interim would be practical and not detrimental to his best interests. Both parents are willing and capable of meeting all of Tripp's needs, there is mutual love between the child and both his parents, and he is too young to express a preference. Levi is now married and Tripp has a half sibling, and the case law requires the court to consider the desirability of fostering his relationship with Breeze, and the court by entering an order can cure the problems of lack of stable and consistent contact with his father and opens the door fully to fostering that loving relationship with his father and child."

In the real world, anyone would understand that. In the world of the Palins, such words are treacherous, as there is a world out there which is divided into friends and enemies, and Levi doesn't belong to the first category. But that's what courts are for, after all - bringing the parties back to the realities of the situation.

Here is the latest filing by Levi's lawyer: