Playground ‘Divorce’ Settled by Mutual Restraining Order

FARMINGTON, N.M. — With their pretend marriage in shambles, fifth-graders Cody Finch and Katie Rose Sawyer faced each other in domestic-violence court Monday, their legs too short to reach the floor, and swore they would never, ever speak to each other again.

In return, Hearing Commissioner John Dean agreed to dismiss their case, which landed in court after their make-believe wedding on a school playground fell apart with a real punch.

Did he ever really love her?

“Yeah, hmm hmm, I did,” 10-year-old Cody said outside court.

Before he and 11-year-old Katie were called to testify Monday, their lawyers struck an agreement to dismiss the case in exchange for a restraining order keeping the children apart. Their parents can be fined $500 and attorneys’ fees if either child contacts the other.

The case went before Dean after Katie’s family filed a complaint against Cody and his two teenage brothers, alleging that Cody had punched Katie and made a threatening call to her, and that her home had been vandalized during the last two months.

New Mexico’s Family Violence Protection Act applies to anyone with a “continuing personal relationship.”

After their playground wedding, at which another girl acted as minister, Cody “was very much in love, for a while anyway,” his mother, Jinx Finch, said last week. But later, “the little girl who performed the marriage decided she liked Cody and wrote up divores--that’s d-i-v-o-r-e-s--papers.”

The papers said Cody and Katie Rose were “sick and tired” of each other, Jinx Finch said.

Cody said Monday he didn’t think they should have gotten into court.

“Her parents should have contacted my mom or dad. I think my mom could have taken care of this,” he said.