Update (4/3/24): The bill known as Kayden’s Law is poised to become a Pennsylvania statute.
The legislation altering child custody case handling to increase the weight given to the child’s safety passed the Senate unanimously in December, and on March 25 cleared the House in a 119-82 vote.
“Once it does reach the governor’s desk, the governor does intend to sign it,” said Will Simons, a spokesperson for Gov. Josh Shapiro, in an interview with PublicSource.
The new law would then take effect after 120 days.
Reported 2/6/24:
A Pa. bill aimed at protecting children involved in custody battles awaits House action
A bill aimed at curbing child custody decisions made amid allegations of “parental alienation” appears to have enough support to become state law, its sponsor said in the wake of passage in the Senate.
“The fact that it passed unanimously in the Senate, both in committee and and ultimately on the floor, is, I think, a pretty significant statement that there is broad support for this,” said Sen. Steve Santarsiero, D-Bucks County, who is co-sponsoring the bill, known as Kayden’s Law, with Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne County. While he said he tries not to speculate on voting that is yet to come, he feels optimistic. “It’s a both reasonable and important child safety proposal that should have broad bipartisan support, and it did in the Senate.”
The legislation, formally Senate Bill 55, would require courts to:
- Look more closely at each custody situation where there are allegations of violence or abuse
- Presume supervised physical custody in cases with proven ongoing abuse
- Provide training for family court judges about abuse and parental alienation.
Parental alienation refers to situations in which one parent in a custody proceeding denigrates the other parent, sometimes by making abuse allegations, to the point where the child or children are turned against the alienated parent. Widely cited research has shown that the parent alleging abuse, called the “protective parent,” is more likely to lose some custody.
PublicSource first reported on Kayden’s Law in December, highlighting local parents who have lost some custody of their children despite allegations that the other parent was abusive. Following the publication of the story, around a dozen Pennsylvania parents reached out to PublicSource to share similar experiences.
After the Dec. 13 passage in the Senate, the bill was referred on Dec. 28 to the House Judiciary Committee. That committee has not yet scheduled a hearing or vote.
Updated: Kayden’s Law passes Pa. Senate, would change family court handling of child abuse allegations
From a Pa. murder to a national campaign
“The Kayden’s Law effort began in Pennsylvania and has spread across the country,” said Danielle Pollack, policy manager at the National Family Violence Law Center. Its shorthand name refers to the 2018 murder of Kayden Mancuso by her father on an unsupervised visit — despite her mother’s repeated assertions that he was a danger to their child.
Pollack noted that Colorado, California, Tennessee and Maryland have already enacted Kayden’s Law provisions. In 2022, federal reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act included incentives for states to adopt such provisions. “Colorado was the first to do so since federal enactment, and while it’s new there, several litigants with active cases have reported improvements in how their cases are being handled by courts,” said Pollack.
“No one can disagree that protecting children is important.” Veronica Miller, Senior Policy Counsel at ACLU
The Kayden’s Law approach has drawn some criticism.
The Pennsylvania branch of the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] was initially opposed to a 2021 version of Kayden’s Law, finding it too broad. Once changes were made to the bill, the ACLU changed its position to neutral.
The ACLU’s main concern with the initial bill was that it told courts to take into account all of a parent’s previous criminal charges rather than looking at each case in the present day, said Veronica Miller, the civil rights group’s senior policy counsel for criminal legal reform.
“No one can disagree that protecting children is important, absolutely,” she said, adding that needs to be balanced against the rights of the parents — many of whom may have criminal records related to poverty and racism.
She said the ACLU is “deeply in tune with the reality of what happens to Black and brown mothers who are over-surveilled.” For example, Miller said, a biased caseworker may file child endangerment charges against a family with food insecurity rather than connect them to a food bank. A past child endangerment charge, she said, should not carry the same weight as a current neglect or abuse charge. Under the current bill, it doesn’t.
Miller, who said she worked closely with Santarsiero’s team to revise the bill, has more confidence in the current version.
Alienation research draws dispute
While the ACLU is now neutral, there is organized opposition to Kayden’s Law and support for the concept of parental alienation.
One group, Parental Alienation UK, has criticized the National Family Violence Law Center, and in particular the work of George Washington University Law Professor Joan Meier, which undergirds the push for Kayden’s Law.
“At the end of the day, the whole purpose of Kayden’s Law, the whole reason for modifying the existing statute, is to get away from the focus on the dispute between the parents and put the focus more on maintaining the health and safety of the child.”
PA. Sen. Steve Santarsiero, D-Bucks County
Meier’s team developed data from more than 4,000 cases involving parental alienation claims that went to appellate courts nationwide, finding that when mothers claim physical and sexual abuse, and fathers respond by claiming alienation, the mothers face increased risk of losing custody time.
Parental Alienation UK has countered that some mothers will falsify abuse claims to gain custody of their children. In a 2020 study, a Colorado State University-based team looked at nearly 1,000 cases and stated they found no correlation between parents who made claims of abuse against the opposing parent and any loss of custody.
Asked to respond to criticism of her work, Meier told PublicSource in an email, “The remarkable — or perhaps unsurprising but notable — thing is that they keep attacking my work on specious grounds which we rebutted.”
Meier’s research found that when mothers claim abuse by a father, and the father in return claims alienation, courts are more than twice as likely to disbelieve the mother’s claim.
When a mother claims child abuse, and the father claims alienation, Meier’s study found that courts are almost four times more likely to dismiss the mother’s claim than if he did not claim alienation.
Innamorato pledges $500k to alleviate child care ‘crisis’
Santarsiero is aware of conflicting opinions on Kayden’s Law and parental alienation as a whole, but said most detractors are what he considers “fringe voices.”
He said legislators are interested in looking at child custody cases in a comprehensive and effective manner, not in blanket judgment on mothers versus fathers. “At the end of the day, the whole purpose of Kayden’s Law, the whole reason for modifying the existing statute, is to get away from the focus on the dispute between the parents and put the focus more on maintaining the health and safety of the child,” he said.
Should the bill pass the state House of Representatives, changes to supervision procedures in family court would take place within 120 days. Santarsiero said training provisions in the bill may take some time to implement, noting that the judiciary is a separate but equal branch of government and the legislative branch can only make proposals for them.
“But we can, as we do in the legislation proposed, [suggest] that it do so and that [training] includes certain things that we’ve laid out in the bill.”
Meg St-Esprit is a freelance journalist based in Bellevue. She can be reached at megstesprit@gmail.com or on Instagram and Twitter.
This story was fact-checked by Delaney Rauscher Adams.
