Latest / The Stand with Meg Show / Justice Denied: Judge Keven O’Grady, the Sands Case, and the Cost of Procedure

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Justice Denied: Judge Keven O’Grady, the Sands Case, and the Cost of Procedure · The Stand with Meg Show

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the deep dive.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: Today we are opening a file that I'll be honest with you, it kept me up last night.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: It's one of those stories that starts with a tragedy, you know, a young man dying way, way too soon.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: But then it just it spirals into this Kafka-esque legal nightmare that just doesn't seem to end.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: We're looking at a collision between two very different types of reality: what the law says is true and what biology says is true.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell It is a fascinating and uh a pretty disturbing distinction.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Most of us walk around assuming that the truth is just singular.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Either you are someone's father or you aren't.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Your DNA is either a match or it isn't.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: Simple.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Black and white.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: But what we are going to learn today is that in the eyes of the court, truth is often a procedural status.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: It's something that is like constructed by deadlines, by paperwork, and by by default judgments.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: And once that legal truth is built.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: It is incredibly hard to tear down, even if you have the science, the actual DNA, to prove it's wrong.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: And the case we are unpacking today is state of Kansas via state of Nicholas Sands.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, looking at our source stack here, we have some heavy reading.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: We do.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: We've got a memorandum opinion from the Kansas Court of Appeals.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: That's the, you know, the dry legal ruling.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: But we also have an affidavit from the deceased's mother, Cara Sands, which is just it's gut-wrenching to read.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: It really is.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: We have transcripts of personal conversations where the family is processing this whole thing in real time.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: And we have an op-ed piece titled the O'Grady Precedent, which is well, let's just say it doesn't pull any punches.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: It certainly doesn't.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: And what stands out to me in these documents is the sheer number of what-if moments.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, this isn't a case where the system just failed from the start.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: It is a case of missed connections, a missed appointment, a missed filing deadline, a missed opportunity to just speak up.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: It's a tragedy of errors.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell And at the center of it is this concept of ghost fatherhood.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: I want you to just imagine this scenario for a second.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: You die at 24 years old, your life is cut short.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: And then after you are in the ground, the legal system cements your status as the father to a child you claimed wasn't yours.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: It locks your family into a legacy you fought against.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: It creates a grandfather and grandchild relationship that exists only on paper.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: It is.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: It's hunting.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: It is.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And our mission today is to explore exactly how that happens.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how does a default judgment override DNA evidence?
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Why does the legal system value finality, you know, just getting the case over with more than it values genetic certainty?
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell And the human cost of it all.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: What is the heartbreaking human cost when you miss a procedural deadline by a single day?
2:43
SPEAKER_01: That detail is just unbelievable.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: That one day detail is going to blow your mind when we get to it.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: So uh let's start at the beginning.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: The origin story, so to speak.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell Right.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: We have to establish the timeline because in legal cases like this, the calendar is it's maybe the most important piece of evidence there is.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: So where do we begin?
3:00
SPEAKER_01: The story begins with the birth of a child who's referred to in the court documents as RM.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: This child is born in November 2011.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Okay, so 2011.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: Nicholas Sands, our protagonist here, he's just a kid himself at this point.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell He's very young.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: And for the first few years of this child's life, there is no legal paternity established.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, the state hasn't stepped in yet.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Right.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: But you fast forward almost three years to October 2014.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: And the Kansas Department for Children and Families will just call them DCF.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: They file a petition.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: And what are they trying to do?
3:36
SPEAKER_01: They're looking for child support.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: They're looking to establish paternity.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: And they name Nicholas Sands as the father.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell So Nicholas gets served these papers five days later.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: He's what, 21, 22 years old?
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: And I think we need to pause here and really think about the psychology of that moment.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: You're a young guy.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: You get this thick envelope from the government telling you that you owe money and you are a dad.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is terrifying.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: It's paralyzing.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: And often people in that demographic, young, maybe not financially stable, maybe intimidated by authority, their first response is just avoidance.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Sure, you stick your head in the sand.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: But and this is really critical detail from the Cara transcript from his mother.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: Nicholas didn't just ignore it.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: Not at first.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is where we get to the one day late incident.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: When I read this in the source material, I literally put my head in my hands.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Because it changes everything.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: It's the whole hinge point of the story.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: According to Nicholas's mother, Cara, the family actually tried to comply.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: They didn't blow it off.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: They went to get the tests.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: They went to the testing facility to get the DNA test done.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Nicholas went, he sat in the waiting room.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Cara says he sat there for two hours.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Two hours.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Two hours.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: He's ready.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: He's willing.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: He is literally sitting there waiting to offer his cheek for a swab to prove in his mind that he isn't the father.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: He's doing the right thing.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: But then the clinic staff, they check the paperwork and they realized that the window to take the test, the specific number of days granted by the court order had expired.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: By one day.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: Exactly one day.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
5:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really, you're sitting there, you've waited two hours, you've worked up the nerve, and someone behind a glass partition just says, sorry, you're 24 hours too late, we can't test you.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Go back to court.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: It is the ultimate bureaucratic rejection.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: And just think about the ripple effects from that one moment.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: If that receptionist had just said, you know what, I'll call the supervisor, let's just get it done, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: None of this would have happened.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: The test happens.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: If Nicholas was right, the test comes back negative.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: GCF says, okay, not him, and they move on to the next guy.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: The case against Nicholas Sands ends right there in 2014.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: But because of that one day, he's sent away.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: He is told to go back to court to get a new order.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: And for a guy like Nicholas, go back to court might as well be fly to the moon.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: He's defeated.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: He probably feels like the system is rigged against him already, and he doesn't have the money or the know-how to navigate that.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: And that defeat, that feeling of helplessness, it leads to inaction.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: It does.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't go back to court immediately, he doesn't file a formal answer to the lawsuit.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: And all the while the legal machine, it just keeps churning.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: So the court sets a hearing date, December 2014.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: Right.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: And Nicholas doesn't show up.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't show.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: Now the affidavit from Cara gives us a very important piece of context here.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: Nicholas wasn't just, you know, skipping out because he was lazy or didn't care.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: He was actually incarcerated at the time of this hearing.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: He was in jail.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: And according to the affidavit, he didn't even open his mail about the hearing date until after the hearing had already happened.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: So he's sitting in a cell, the court is in session.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: The judge calls the case state of Kansas v.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Nicholas Sands.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: Nicholas isn't there.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: No lawyer is there for him.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: No one.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: And this is where the hammer drops.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: Because he isn't there to deny it, and because he never filed a written denial, the court enters what's called a default judgment.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell We hear that term a lot, but I want to make sure everyone understands the gravity of it.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: A default judgment isn't the court saying, hey, we've looked at all the evidence and determined you are the father.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: It is the court saying, you didn't show up to argue, so you lose.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: It's a procedural victory for the state.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: It's a forfeit.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: It's a forfeit.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: But legally, it has the exact same weight as a positive DNA test.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: On December 4th, 2014, the journal entry is filed.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: Nicholas Sands is now legally the father of RM.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: And at that moment, biology becomes irrelevant.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Totally irrelevant.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: The docket reflects the new truth.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: That is a chilling thought.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: You can be assigned a child by default.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: You can.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: And once that judgment is signed, the cement starts to harden.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: It becomes incredibly difficult to chip away at it.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that brings us to section two of our outline.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: It's now February 2015.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: So a few months after this default judgment, there is a status conference in court.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: And this time, Nicholas actually shows up.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: He does.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: He's out of jail, pr presumably.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: He goes to court.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: And this interaction, which is described in the O'Grady precedent source and the transcripts, it is just it's painful to visualize.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: So what happens?
8:17
SPEAKER_00: He stands in front of Judge Kevin O'Grady.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: And he tells the judge straight up, I don't want parenting time.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Right.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: And to a judge, that sounds like a deadbeat dad, right?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to see my kid.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: That's probably exactly what the judge is thinking.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: But Nicholas explains why.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: He says, it's not mine.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: The transcript from the source actually describes this interaction.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Judge O'Grady asks him, Don't you want a relationship with this child?
8:39
SPEAKER_01: And Nicholas, in that sort of blunt young guy way, replies, Hmm, why?
8:45
SPEAKER_01: It's not mine.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: You can just feel the disconnect.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: It's a collision of two worlds.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: The judge is operating from the legal truth.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: The judgment is already signed.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: You are the father.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: End of story.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And Nicholas is operating from his biological belief.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the dad, so why on earth would I visit this kid?
9:02
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: And the judge tells him, You missed your window.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: The judgment's in.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: If you want to fight this, you need to get a lawyer and file a motion to set it aside.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Which is technically good advice, I guess.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: It is, but it's practically impossible for someone in Nicholas's position.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: To set aside a judgment, you need to file specific motions.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: You need to cite statutes.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: You really do need a lawyer.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: And Nicholas is 22.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: He's broke.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: He just got out of jail.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: The source material mentions he's just completely overwhelmed by it all.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: He hears get a lawyer, and probably hears pay five thousand dollars you absolutely do not have.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: And this is what I'd call the young adult factor in these cases.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: There is a paralysis that sets in.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: You fear the legal system, so you avoid it, hoping that the truth will somehow act as a shield.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: The sort of naive belief that truth will prevail in the end without you having to do all the paperwork.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: But the legal system runs on paperwork, not on abstract truth.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: So what does he do?
9:57
SPEAKER_01: He enters a period of inaction.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: He pays a tiny bit of support over time.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: The sources say about$486 total.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: So basically nothing.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: Pennies.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: But he never meets the child.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: He never interacts with the child.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: And crucially, he never files that motion to set aside the judgment.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: He just exists in this legal limbo.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: For how long?
10:18
SPEAKER_01: For two and a half years.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: And that inaction, that delay, is absolutely fatal to his case later on.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: He knew about the judgment in February 2015.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: He was told exactly what to do.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: And for two and a half years, he did nothing.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And then the tragedy strikes.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: This is section three, August 24, 2017.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Nicholas Sands dies in an automobile accident.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: Gone at just 24 years old.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: It's just devastating.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly the entire legal landscape shifts.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: It shifts dramatically.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: While he was alive, this was a case about maybe a few hundred dollars a month in child support.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: A burden, but manageable.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: But when he dies, it becomes a case about a wrongful death payout and survivor benefits.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: The stakes get much, much higher.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: Infinitely higher.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: The source mentions a wrongful death claim with an$800,000 payout.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: $800,000 plus Social Security survivor benefits for the child.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell That changes the motivation for everyone involved.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: If Nicholas is the legal father, all of that money it goes to the child, R.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: And if Nicholas is not the father.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Then that money goes elsewhere, to his estate, to his parents, maybe other heirs.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And this is where Kara, his mom, really enters the ring.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: She is appointed administrator of his estate.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: She's grieving her son, but she also has to deal with his legal affairs.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: And she sees that the system officially lists Nicholas as the father.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And she knows, or at least she believes with every fiber of her being that this is wrong.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: And she has a very good reason to believe it's wrong.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Which brings us to section four, the lost evidence.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: The 2012 home test.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about this, because according to Kara's affidavit, this wasn't just a hunch she had.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: They had actually done a test.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: This is crucial.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Back in 2012, shortly after the child was born, the family Nicholas, the mother LD, and LD's own mother, all gathered to do a home paternity test.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: The kind you buy at a pharmacy.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: You swab the cheek, you mail it in.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: It was for their own peace of mind.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: And the result.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: Cara swears the result indicated Nicholas was not the father.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: A zero percent match.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: She says she was there when the results came back.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: She was there when Nicholas told LD, the mother.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: But and there's always a but in these stories, isn't there?
12:28
SPEAKER_01: Always.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a court admissible test.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: There was no chain of custody.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: No one from the court was there to verify whose cheek was swabbed.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: So legally, it's almost worthless.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: And now that Nicholas is dead and that default judgment is in place, that home test is just hearsay.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: It's a piece of paper from years ago that wasn't verified by the court system.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell But the story gets even more complicated because there were other potential fathers in the picture.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just Nicholas.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: He had told his mom about another man, a guy named Tyler Meeks.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: And the mother, LD, had apparently named another man Travis Mills.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And here is where it gets another dark twist.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: Another one, Travis Mills, one of the other potential fathers, was murdered in December 2017.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: A few months after Nicholas died.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: It's just a tragic sequence of events all around.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: But before Travis Mills died, or maybe as part of the investigation into his death, DCF had actually gotten his DNA and tested him for paternity of RM.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: And what was the result?
13:26
SPEAKER_01: The result was zero percent probability.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: Travis Mills was not the father.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: So by process of elimination.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: The system looks right back at Nicholas.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: With Mills ruled out and Nicholas dead, and crucially, already legally defaulted.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Nicholas becomes the father of record, almost by gravity.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: He is the one left standing in the legal documents.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: The default option.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: So now we have a dead legal father, a murdered potential father, and a grandmother, Kara, who is screaming from the rooftops.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: But we did a test in 2012 and it was negative.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: It sets the stage for a massive legal battle.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Kara, representing the estate, decides to fight.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: In July of 2018, she files a motion to set aside that 2014 default judgment.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: She wants to clear her son's name.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: And frankly, she wants to ensure his inheritance doesn't go to a child who isn't actually his.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: And this leads to one of the most bizarre turns in the entire case, Section 5, the flip-flop.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: This is truly strange.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you just don't see this happen.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: What happens?
14:25
SPEAKER_01: In October 2018, the estate files this motion.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: And initially, LD, the child's mother, she agrees to it.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: She agrees.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Signs a stipulation.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: A formal legal agreement.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: In it, she admits under oath that Nicholas is not the biological father.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: You're kidding me?
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: She admits the 2012 home test was correct.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: She agrees the judgment should be set aside.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Wait.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: So the mother of the child says, on the record, you're right, he's not the dad.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: You would think, case closed, the estate wins.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: Ball game over.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: You would absolutely think that.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: It's a signed confession, basically.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: So what happened?
15:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, and she gets lawyer.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: And almost immediately she completely retracts her statement.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: She takes it back.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: Completely.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: She files a withdrawal of the stipulation.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: Her new lawyer claims she signed it improvidently, which is basically lawyer speak for I didn't realize what I was doing or I was pressured.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: And her story changes.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: It pivots 180 degrees.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: Her new stance is that no, Nicholas is the father after all.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Why the flip?
15:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she knows the truth about the 2012 test.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: She just admitted it.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Why lie now?
15:29
SPEAKER_01: Well, you have to follow the money.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: We have to be a little cynical here.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: The$800,000.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: And the Social Security.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: If she admits Nicholas isn't the father, the wrongful death payout for the child disappears.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: The Social Security survivor benefits disappear.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Her child is left legally fatherless and financially, well, fundless.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: So she realizes that biological truth means poverty and legal truth, even if it's a lie, means financial security for her child.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: That is the most logical conclusion.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: She likely realized that by admitting the truth, she was acting directly against her child's financial best interests.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us right into section six: the battle for the DNA.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: The estate says, fine, she retracted her statement.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Let's just prove it with science.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: The estate asks for a posthumous paternity test.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Which is possible, right?
16:18
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: They apparently have Nicholas's preserved DNA from an autopsy or something similar.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: And Cara even offers her own DNA for a grandparentage test, which is a very accurate way to determine lineage.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: This seems like a slam dunk.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: We have the technology, we have the samples, we have a major dispute over a huge amount of money.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Just run the test.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: But the district court judge O'Grady, again, says no.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: He denies the testing after all this.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: He denies it.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: And this is where we get to the core of the whole episode: the conflict between truth and legal policy.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: I just don't get it.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: What possible reason could a judge have to deny a DNA test that would settle the argument once and for all?
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Two main legal doctrines: finality and the best interests of the child.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's unpack finality first.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
17:06
SPEAKER_01: The legal system creates chaos if judgments can be reopened forever.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: Imagine if you could come back five, ten, twenty years later and say, oops, wrong dad.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: It would be a mess.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: It would destabilize everything.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: Inheritance that's already been distributed, child support that's been paid for years, emotional bonds that have been formed.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: The courts place a huge, huge premium on a case being over and staying over.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Even if the result is factually wrong.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: In the eyes of the law, a wrong judgment that is final is often considered better than a right judgment that comes years too late and messes everything up.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: That is a really hard pill to swallow.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what about the best interest of the child argument?
17:44
SPEAKER_01: This is the one the judge really leaned on.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: The court looks at the child.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: RM.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: The court says essentially, look, this child has a legal father on paper.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: That legal father comes with an$800,000 insurance payout and monthly social security benefits.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: If we do a DNA test and prove Nicholas isn't the father, we strip this child of all those benefits.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: So the judge is explicitly choosing to protect the payout over the genetic reality.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: The court's logic, and this is quoted in the documents, is striking.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: Judge O'Grady writes, RM's needs and interests must take precedence over those of Mr.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: Sands' surviving family.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: He argues that family bonds won't be impacted because Nicholas is dead anyway, so there's no relationship to preserve, but the financial support is real and tangible.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: That feels, I don't know, manipulated.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: It feels like using a dead man as an ATM machine because he's the only option left on the table.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: That is exactly Carr's view.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: His mother's.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: I can't blame her.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: She feels the system is corrupt.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: She is being forced to be a grandma on paper to a child she doesn't believe is hers.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: And she points out the emotional toll on the child.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: What happens when that child is 18 and finds out they've been raised believing a lie about who their father was?
18:58
SPEAKER_00: That op-ed had that really powerful line, something like truth doesn't need a lawyer, it needs air.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: It's a powerful sentiment.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: But in court, truth absolutely needs a lawyer, and as we're about to see, it needs a timely one who makes the right arguments.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Which leads us to the appeal, Section 7.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: The estate loses with Judge O'Grady, so they take it to the Kansas Court of Appeals.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: And this is where the story becomes a cautionary kale about legal procedure and honestly about legal malpractice, you could argue.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: How so?
19:28
SPEAKER_01: The estate tries to use a specific statute, KSA 60260B6.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: It's a sort of catch-all rule that allows a court to set aside a judgment for any other reason that justifies relief.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: It sounds hopeful.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Any other reason, surely he's not the father, and we have DNA to prove it is a pretty good reason.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: It is a great reason on the merits.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: But the statute has a catch, a big one.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: You must file the motion within a reasonable time.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: And we know there was a big delay.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Nicholas waited two and a half years while he was alive, and the estate waited another year after he died before filing.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: The total delay from when the judgment was entered to when the motion was filed was about three and a half years.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: So the appellate court looks at this delay.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: They do.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: But here's the fatal mistake.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: The lawyer for the estate wrote a brief that focused entirely on genetic evidence, the injustice of it all, the mothers flip-flop.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: They argued the merits of the case.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: They argued why they were right.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: And what did they miss?
20:27
SPEAKER_01: They completely failed to argue why the three and a half year delay was reasonable.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: They didn't offer a legal excuse for why Nicholas waited so long or why the estate waited a whole year after his death.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: They just didn't address the timeliness issue in their legal brief.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: So they argued, we are right, but they didn't argue here is why we aren't too rape.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: Precisely.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: And in appellate law, if you don't brief an issue, if you don't make the argument on paper, it is considered waived or abandoned.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: So the court just ignored it.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: The Court of Appeals basically said, you didn't explain the delay.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: The law says you must file in a reasonable time.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: Since you didn't even try to explain why your delay was reasonable, we're not even going to consider it.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: We affirmed the lower court's decision.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: They didn't even look at the DNA arguments or the mother lying.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: They didn't have to.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: The procedural failure was enough to kill the appeal on the spot.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: They cited other cases as precedent, like a case called Wilson v.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: Wilson, where a man waited six years to challenge paternity, and the court said that was way too long.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Six years is a long time.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: Sure, but then they cited another one, marriage of Larson, where just nine months was considered too long to be reasonable.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Nine months.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: So three and a half years.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: It didn't stand a chance, especially when the lawyer didn't even bother to make an argument for it.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: The law punishes procrastination even from beyond the grave.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: It really, really does.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: The court's view is that Nicholas knew about the judgment in February twenty fifteen.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: He was an adult.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: He chose not to act.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: That choice binds his estate.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: That is just devastating.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: So Because of a missed deadline in a waiting room in 2014 and a missed argument in a legal brief in 2020, the truth is buried.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Legally, it's buried forever.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Legally, yes.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: That is the end of the road.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: So let's just take a moment and look at the human cost in our final section here.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: The legacy of this case.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: The legacy is that Nicholas Sands is legally the father of RM Forever.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: That is the permanent record of the state of Kansas.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: His name is on the birth certificate.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: The child receives the money, the$800,000, the benefits, but the child also lives with what we called a legal fiction.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: The child grows up believing Nicholas is his father, but the grandmother, Cara, knows, or at least firmly believes he isn't.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: She becomes this gatekeeper of a memory that directly contradicts the official court record.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: What a terrible position for her to be in.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: For everyone, really.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: It's so messy.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: A painful reality.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: And you can't help but play the what-if game with this case.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, constantly.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: What if Nicholas had just waited that extra hour at the clinic?
22:59
SPEAKER_00: What if he had sat there and demanded to see a supervisor?
23:02
SPEAKER_01: What if Judge O'Grady had just accepted the grandmother's DNA?
23:05
SPEAKER_01: What if he'd just said, you know what?
23:07
SPEAKER_01: This is messy.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: Let's get to the bottom of this for everyone's sake.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: Or what if the estate had filed the motion immediately after he died instead of waiting a whole year?
23:16
SPEAKER_00: That one year delay by the estate really seems to have hurt them in the reasonable time analysis.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: It's a cascade of errors, a tragedy of errors, each one compounding the last.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: It is, and it leaves us with this heavy realization about the justice system, doesn't it?
23:31
SPEAKER_00: It's not designed to find the truth with a capital T.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: No, it's not.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: It is designed to resolve disputes in an orderly fashion.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: And once a dispute is resolved, even by a forfeit, the system's primary goal is to make sure it stays resolved.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: So wrapping up, what does this all mean for us, for the listener?
23:47
SPEAKER_00: What's the big takeaway?
23:48
SPEAKER_01: I think it highlights this incredible tension between the best interest of the child and the fundamental right to know your own origins.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: The court decided that financial stability was in this child's best interest, more so than genetic accuracy.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: And that?
24:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: That's a policy choice.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: It's a utilitarian choice.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: The greatest good, I guess.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Money beats truth.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: In this specific tragic context, yes, the court decided it did.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot to digest, a really tough case.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna wrap up here, but I want to leave you, the listener, with a provocative thought to chew on.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: If the law officially declares you a parent, but your own DNA says you aren't, which one of those realities is actually real?
24:29
SPEAKER_00: And maybe more importantly, does a child deserve a father who is alive and broke, or a paper father who is dead but provides a life-changing payout?
24:38
SPEAKER_01: That is the question at the heart of it all.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: There's no easy answer.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And on a practical note, read the fine print on any legal document, and for the love of everything, never ever miss a court date.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Even if you think it's a mistake.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: Especially if you think it's a mistake.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: In the eyes of the court, your silence is consent.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: Remember that.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for diving deep with us.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you on the next one.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: Take care.