Establishes "Kyra's Law"

Showing the cosponsors who are on Agora, A to Z. The official record may list more.

• Democratic92
• Republican50

This bill has cosponsors from more than one party.

Shown in neutral colors by design; Agora is non-partisan.

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why James Skoufis says this is needed

This legislation, known as "Kyra's Law," recognizes that the safety of children is an integral element of their best interests. The bill retains "the best interests of the child" standard while directing that judicial decisions regarding custody of and access to children promote the safety of children as a threshold matter. Kyra Franchetti, a toddler, was ordered by the court to have unsuper- vised visits with her father, despite repeated reports and eyewitness accounts of his anger and rage issues, suicidal ideation, stalking and history of coercive tactics and abuse. During two years of child custody hearings, Kyra Franchetti's mother repeatedly pleaded with the court to acknowledge the risk of harm to Kyra. In July, 2016, Kyra was on an unsupervised, court-ordered visit with her abusive father in Virginia when he shot Kyra to death while she slept. He then set his house on fire and killed himself. Kyra was only 2 years old. Too often, courts throughout the United States discount or minimize the risks posed in cases where domestic violence is present, dismissing allegations of domestic violence or child abuse as an attempt by one parent to win custody from the other. Too many abusers who used coercive power and control tactics against their intimate partners go so far as to use their children as pawns, even harming or murdering them, to try to maintain control over or devastate their former partners. Tragically, numerous children in New York have been injured or murdered at the hands of a parent seeking to cause pain and trauma to their intimate partner. This bill would require Family and Supreme Courts to review allegations of domestic violence or child abuse prior to issuing temporary or final orders of custody of visitation Such assessment would include, but not be limited to, considering a party's history of domestic violence, child abuse, incidents involving harm; police reports, including domestic incident reports, and other known risk factors. The bill also requires the court to consider several factors, including a party's history of domestic violence, child abuse, or incidents involving harm to a child; police reports, uch as domestic incident reports or orders of protection; commission of family offenses; whether either party has used or threatened to use a weapon or dangerous instru- ment; threats to harm or kill the child, the other parent, others or companion animals; whether either party is using coercive control to limit the other party's autonomy; sexual abuse or other sexual offenses against the child or other parent; and other factors. Research finds that courts have often erred in awarding child custody or visitation to abusers due to the debunked theory that when parents allege that a child is not safe with the offending parent, they are doing so illegitimately to alienate the child from such parent. In fact, cross-claims of such alienation virtually double the courts' rejection of parents' abuse claims, causing non-offending parents to lose custody to the parent accused of abuse. When a party alleges the presence of domestic violence or child abuse, this bill would prohibit the court from finding that protective behaviors to safeguard the child that were engaged in by the party making such allegations constitute failure to support the child's relationship with the offending party. To ensure courts are well-equipped to conduct reviews of allegations of domestic violence or child abuse, this bill would expand current judi- cial training requirements to include referees and other hearing offi- cers, as well as judges, and would require such individuals to obtain comprehensive training on topics necessary to conduct a review of alle- gations of domestic violence and child abuse, followed by supplemental training every two years. The chief administrator of the courts would promulgate such training, which would be developed and offered by the Office of Court Administration. Such training would be part of the a

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.