By Noah Powelson<\/p>\n
Years of legislative debate over the role state judges should play in granting custody rights during cases of alleged abuse may finally be over after the legislature passed a bill that includes new procedures, evidentiary standards and considerations for those cases. <\/p>\n
The New York state legislature passed Kyra\u2019s Law on June 5, delivering a heavily amended piece of legislation from a Queens lawmaker that promises to both protect children at risk of abuse while simultaneously ensuring both parties have a fair day at court during custody hearings.<\/p>\n
The bill, should it be signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul, will require judges to take into consideration a child\u2019s safety when making decisions about custody and visitation in cases where there is a history of abuse allegations against a parent. <\/p>\n
With that requirement comes new procedures, including reviewing allegations of domestic violence or child abuse prior to issuing a temporary or final custody and visitations rights.<\/p>\n
The bill also expands the evidence courts may review in custody and visitation proceedings to include other known risk factors like stalking, violence during pregnancy, unlawful dissemination of intimate images or threats to harm or kill.<\/p>\n
The bill would also require judges receive domestic violence, child abuse and child sexual abuse training.<\/p>\n
The bill\u2019s primary sponsor was Queens Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi, who recently said he was relieved to finally get Kyra\u2019s Law to the finish line.<\/p>\n
\u201cKyra\u2019s Law is so important for survivors of domestic violence and child abuse,\u201d Hevesi said in a statement. \u201cThis will give the courts and judges the tools and trainings necessary to make sure children do not end up in potentially deadly custody or visitation arrangements. I\u2019m glad we were finally able to get this over the finish line, and that we were also able to pass legislation to establish a statewide supervised visitation initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyra\u2019s Law had received widespread and emotional support from advocates and elected officials alike since first being introduced five years ago. But the bill always struggled to make it out of committee as legislators feared it could conflict with the state\u2019s domestic violence laws or affect a parent\u2019s custodial rights over unfounded allegations.<\/p>\n
The final version of the bill passed earlier this month included a number of changes. <\/p>\n
The bill is named in memory of Kyra Franchetti, a 2-year-old girl from Long Island who was killed by her father in a murder-suicide in 2016. Her mother, Jacqueline Franchetti, said that the court ignored claims that Kyra\u2019 father was abusive and dangerous when they granted him visitation rights. <\/p>\n
During an unsupervised court-ordered visit, Kyra\u2019s father shot her while she was sleeping. He then set the house on fire with himself still inside it, and died soon after.<\/p>\n
Franchetti has spent the last decade advocating for custody reform, and both bill sponsors attribute her story and the tragedy around Kyra in their decision to push the bill forward.<\/p>\n
Hevesi also saw two other bills that issue new regulations and protections for children facing alleged abuse pass the legislature this session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Noah Powelson Years of legislative debate over the role state judges should play in granting custody rights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-272183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}