The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 55

17 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1983 Atlanta loartml AND CONSTITTriO'N Fulton Tries Child Custody Mediation Managed by Court ByDuaneRiner to reach out-of-court agreements on mediation has been successful in Noting that the intensity of the feelings among the parties' makes custody one of the most difficult areas of family law, Judge Ralph H. Hicks said mediation is carried out in a more relaxed atmosphere than a courtroom. an agreement between the parties that they can live with as distinct from an arbitrator, who makes findings and a decision," Judge Hicks said. The mediators, who will be employed at $100 per day, have been trained by the Justice Center of Atlanta, a 10-year-old private, nonprofit corporation known until last year as the Neighborhood Justice Center. Initiated as one of three experimental facilities across the nation by former U.S.

Attorney General Griffin Bell, the Justice Center no longer receives federal funding but relies on the city of Atlanta, DeKalb and Fulton counties and the United Way for its budget The center trains both mediators and arbitrators, and for the past three years has been involved with mediating child custody cases in DeKalb County, according to its director, Edith B. Primm. She said custody and visitation rights, those terms will be incorporated into the court's final orders, according to Fulton Superior Court Administrator Sanford J. Jones. The pilot program, which will be free to couples agreeing to participate, is being financed with a $10,000 foundation award won last month by Fulton County's new arbitration program.

In that program, some civil suits are sent to three-lawyer panels for hearings and decisions in an effort to reduce the courts' trial calendars. If the custody mediation program is a success, Mr. Jones said he will ask the County Commission to fund it on a permanent basis. Two of Fulton County's 12 Superior Court judges, Don A Langham and Frank M. Eldridge, were chosen by their fellow jurists to send selected cases to mediation for the Staff Writer There's nothing easy about divorce, and the custody of children can be the most emotionally wrenching conflict of all.

In an effort to inject some humanity into the process, Fulton County's Superior Court judges have launched a 90-day pilot program in which trained mediators will try to help parents work out agreements cn child custody. Although custody mediation is not a new concept in the metropolitan Atlanta area DeKalb County judges have sent parties in divorce cases to mediators at the Justice Center of Atlanta for three years the Fulton program will be the first in-house mediation effort managed by the court. In cases where parents, with the aid of a trained mediator, are able achieving agreements in 45 percent of the custody conflicts assigned by DeKalb judges, and the courts in that county now want to expand the use of mediators to all issues in di- V0rC6 C3S6S "What DeKalb does is send the parties to our office, but Fulton is going to have the mediations done at the courthouse on a date certain," Ms. Primm said. "We're going to supply the trained people to do that." The mediators 20 of them who have been given 40 hours of basic training plus specialized instruction in the psychological impacts of divorce on the parents and children "are basically volunteers who do something else for a career," said Ms.

Primm. Both lawyers and non-lawyers, the mediators, according to Ms. Primm, "are some of the best people in the world." intervention. He estimated he would use mediation in about five cases per month during the test period, which began this month. Although Judges Eldridge and Langham both have made limited use of mediation in the past, the Fulton jurist most experienced with the process is Chief Superior Court Judge Ralph H.

Hicks. Noting that "the intensity of the feelings among the parties" makes custody one of the most difficult areas of family law, Judge Hicks said mediation is carried out in a more relaxed atmosphere than a courtroom. "The mediator's goal is to strike trial period. According to Judge Langham, the majority of divorcing parents whose cases are assigned to his court have no difficulty in deciding which parent should keep the children. But there are instances, he said, in which "the children become one of the weapons" in the marital dispute, and it would "work to the benefit of the children" if a neutral third party could negotiate voluntary agreements.

Judge Eldridge said he plans to wait until after the initial court hearing to decide which are the "hard-core" cases needing outside Forest Park Bowlers Aim Strikes at Disease Weekend Event Nets $30,000 to Study Cystic Fibrosis 'St 1 fi er goods store, was vaguely familiar with cystic fibrosis when her second grandson was born four years ago. "By looking at him, you can't tell there's a thing wrong with him," said Mrs. Goodlett, who soon learned the disease chokes the lungs with mucus, killing most victims before they turn 30. The year before Mrs. Goodlett became involved, the Forest Park Lanes in Clayton County raised $2,000 in Bowl for Breath, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's largest fundraiser for-research.

"To me, that was nothing," said Mrs. Goodlett, a former league bowler. In 1986, donations jumped to $20,000, and when Mrs. Goodlett took over as chairwoman of the event last year, the chapter raised $35,338 the most for a single chapter in the state and in the country. "It was a whole lot of hard work," said Mrs.

Goodlett. Lee Hart, a member of the Thursday Morning Men's bowling league in Forest Park, raised $132 for cystic fibrosis after Mrs. Goodlett spoke with him. "She came up to everybody in the league for participants," said Mr. Hart, a night dispatcher for the Fulton County Police Department.

"I put a notice on the board tat work. Payday's the first. I said, 'I'll be around on the second because the money's due on the Some of them even gave a little more than they pledged." ByLoriBoyer Staff Writer Betty Goodlett doesn't know if her Forest Park chapter will once again be the national fund-raising champions of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation she only knows she's helping her 4-year-old grandson and 30,000 youngsters like him. Mrs. Goodlett's group wound up their efforts this weekend, raising more than $30,000 to fund research into the congenital disease.

The disease, which is always fatal, is the nation's No. 1 genetic killer of children and young adults, said Bonnie Bradley, associate executive director of the Georgia chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Mrs. Goodlett and 600 volunteers solicited donations or pledges of a penny a pin in last month's Bowl for Breath fund-raiser, which raised more than $231,000 in Georgia. "We're hoping to raise $250,000," Ms.

Bradley said, as the group waits for all the pledges to come in. "Betty Goodlett and the people that work with her made an all-out effort to talk to each bowler that came to the center," Ms. Bradley said. The group, which raised $35,338 last year, is the state leader again this year and will know by mid-December whether it will repeat as the country's top Mrs. Goodlett, who owns a leath- The Associated Press Shadow Dancing GAINESVILLE, Ga.

Two Brenau College dance students en- rehearsal. The backdrop for their silhouettes is the campus's gage in a little shadow play this weekend during a break in Pearce Auditorium. Lewis Keeps Vow to Stay Night in Drug-Plagued Area Transient Held in Ga. Slaying Calls Victim an Acquaintance w.aiiijLjj.ii,.L.u,j.,jj MM ments within the complex, especially considering the city's growing homeless population. "I believe Atlanta is facing a housing crisis," he said.

"We have more than 7,000 to 10,000 homeless people in the city. We need to make housing affordable to every citizen." Mr. Lewis said he plans to spend the night at every housing project in the city. He also said he intends to emphasize the issue of affordable housing in Washington. Overall, the early part of his stay was serene, Mr.

Lewis said. "People told me it is relatively quiet out here tonight because I'm here," he said. "Some people are afraid. Some people want to move out," Mr. Lewis said.

"But some people are thankful we are here." nearly an hour walking through the different sections of the housing project, talking to residents. During the congressman's conversations with residents, one teenager showed him a bullet wound in his leg, a wound he said he suffered after he was caught in the crossfire during a shoot-out over drugs. In addition to drugs and violence, Mr. Lewis said he was concerned about living conditions within the project. He said he was upset to find an open sewer that was giving off a pungent odor in the middle of the housing project.

"It's really unforgivable," he said. Mr. Lewis said he also spent time talking with his hostess about the importance of adequate housing. He said he was surprised by the number of boarded-up apart ByPatBurson Stuff Writer U.S. Rep.

John Lewis spent Sunday, night in the Bankhead Courts housing project, fulfilling a promise he made last week to residents disturbed by drugs and violence in their neighborhood. Mr. Lewis's promise to stay at. an apartment in the project followed a drug raid by Atlanta police Thursday night at the housing project, as well as several reports of frequent drug-related homicides and shootings at the complex. "These people have a right to live in peace and tranquillity," the congressman said Sunday night.

"They shouldn't have to live in fear." Mr. Lewis arrived at the apartment of Hattie Scales on Maynard Road shortly after 8 p.m. and spent Nevada Trooper Rosell Owens said in a telephone interview Saturday that Mr. Ellis told authorities that he and Mr. Tucker had met five or six times at various Omaha-area fast-food restaurants during the week before Oct 28.

According to Mr. Ellis, the two men met at a restaurant before leaving for Georgia in Mr. Tucker's car Oct. 28, Trooper Owens said. The trooper said the suspect continually changed his story, however, and authorities did not know at which restaurants, if any, the two men dined.

Authorities in Omaha, Georgia and Nevada were trying to determine Saturday whether Mr. Ellis had kidnapped Mr. Tucker or whether Mr. Tucker had gone with him voluntarily. Mr.

Ellis was being held in Las Vegas on suspicion of first-degree murder, armed robbery, auto theft, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Omaha Police Lt. Larry Roberts said that Mr. Ellis probably would be taken to Georgia, where he would be charged with murder. the Associated Press A 40-year-old transient arrested in Nevada for a shooting death in Georgia has told authorities that he and the victim were acquaintances who had traveled south together, police said.

The transient, who identified himself as Walter Gerald Ellis, was arrested late Friday night at a rest area near the California border. Nevada troopers found Mr. Ellis near U.S. Interstate 15 sleeping in a 1986 blue Ford Escort that belonged to Harmon Tucker, 55, the supervisor of vocational education for the Council Bluffs, Iowa, School District who was found shot to death Nov. 1 near Valdosta.

The troopers recognized the car from a nationwide alert issued after Mr. Tucker's body was found. The car was carrying stolen Pensacola, license plates, said Lowndes County, Sheriff G. Robert Carter. Mr.

Ellis apparently drove south from Georgia to Florida and stole the plates in Pensacola, Sheriff Carter said, before driving to Nevada. John Lewis Two Men Found Shot to Death Near 1-75 Exit in Henry County both men were working as extras, he said. Captain Perry said his office is awaiting autopsy results from the State Crime Lab, which they expect will be completed Monday morning. A motive had not been determined and there are no suspects, he said. PatBurson detectives with the Henry County Sheriffs Department.

A motorist walking along 1-75, after his car broke down, discovered the bodies around 11:35 a.m. Sunday in a grassy area north of Exit 70 in McDonough, Captain Perry said. Captain Perry said investigators believe the men were killed else where and their bodies dumped be-, side the road. The men apparently were shot and had been dead at least two days, he said. Jackson police had been searching for the men since Tuesday, when a missing persons report was filed, Captain Perry said.

They were last seen in Jackson Tuesday night on a movie set where The bodies of two men, who were apparently shot to death, were found on Interstate 75 near McDon-ough on Sunday, authorities said. The victims were identified as Bobby Reid Jr. 20, of Jenkinsburg and Ronald Dupree, 26, who had both a residence in Locust Grove and a post office box in Jackson, according to Capt W.K Perry, chief of Man Shot Outside Convenience Store In DeKalb County; Suspect in Custody Know how to make a fashion statement. Mr. McCoy's 1988 silver Lincoln Continental as he was using a pay phone outside Buddy's Convenience Store on Candler Road in Decatur.

When Mr. McCoy confronted the man, he was shot twice with a small-caliber handgun, the officer said. About 20 minutes later, police spotted Mr. Bivens driving the car down Interstate 285, north of Bank-head Highway, Lieutenant Maddox said. The suspect was apprehended and taken tp the DeKalb County Jail, where is being held without bond, police said.

A Decatur man was shot twice outside a convenience store Sunday by a man who stole his car, and a suspect was arrested shortly afterward, police said. The victim, Sanford McCoy, 39, of Wallingford Drive, was wounded in the leg and back and was in satisfactory condition at Grady Memorial Hospital, a hospital spokesman said. DeKalb County police charged Aaron L. Bivens, 28, address unknown, with armed robbery and aggravated assault I According to Detective Lt Rodney Maddox, a man tried to steal Read High Style every Sunday. 4.