Introduction
Colorado recently enacted new laws regarding child custody (allocation of parental responsibilities) and divorce cases to better protect children and individuals claiming to be victims of domestic abuse. This article provides details on some of these recent changes.
Children’s Wishes About Parenting Time and Decision Making
Under past and present Colorado law, a child never has the right to choose his or her own parenting time (visitation) schedule until the child is 18 or emancipated (and then the court system no longer can say where the child spends time). But the law in Colorado allows for the judge to talk to a child in the judge’s chambers (office) and consider the child’s wishes in certain situations.
That law was amended in 2024 to require the court to give “paramount consideration to cases involving an allegation made by a child regarding domestic violence, child abuse or neglect, or child sexual abuse in determining whether to grant a request to interview a child in chambers.” The statute number for this new law is C.R.S. 14-10-126(2). So, if a parent says that a child has made an allegation regarding domestic violence, child abuse or neglect, or child sexual abuse, or if a child makes the allegation, the court is likely to interview the child in chambers.
Apparently, all it takes is an allegation for the court to give a strong preference to the child’s parenting wishes. According to a different 2024 new law in Colorado: “If allegations of domestic violence, child abuse or neglect, or child sexual abuse have been made, the court shall give strong consideration to a child’s stated preference made to the court, child and family investigator, evaluator, or the child’s legal advocate, if the stated preference is consistent with the paramount consideration given to the child’s safety and the physical, mental, and emotional conditions and needs of the child.” See C.R.S. Section 14-10-127.5.
Domestic Violence Training for Certain Professionals in the Court System
A new law went into effect in 2024 which requires judges; child and family investigators; parental responsibilities evaluators (custody evaluators) and others to have mandatory training regarding domestic abuse. This sweeping new law lays out a dark view of domestic violence in families and then imposes the mandatory education requirements on certain court personnel. According to the new law:
(I) Approximately fifteen million children are exposed each year to domestic violence or child abuse;
(II) Most child abuse is perpetrated in the family and by a parent;
(III) A child’s risk of abuse increases after a perpetrator of intimate partner violence separates from the perpetrator’s domestic partner, even when the perpetrator had not directly abused the child previously;
(IV) Empirical research indicates that allegations of child physical and sexual abuse are regularly discounted by courts when raised in parental allocation cases. Courts believe fewer than one-fourth of claims that a parent has committed child physical or sexual abuse.
(V) In parental allocation cases in which an alleged or known abusive parent claims alienation from the child, courts are four times more likely to disbelieve the parent who claims child physical or sexual abuse;
(VI) Research shows that courts grant custody or unprotected parenting time to an alleged or known abusive parent;
(VII) Since 2008, nearly eight hundred children have been murdered by a divorcing or separating parent, with more than one hundred murders occurring after a court ordered the child into contact with the alleged or known abusive parent despite objections from the parent who claimed child physical or sexual abuse;
(VIII) Abusive parents frequently claim that abuse allegations are false to minimize or deny reports of abuse. Experts who testify against abuse allegations often lack expertise in the relevant type of alleged abuse, relying on unproven theories.
(IX) Judges presiding over parental allocation cases with allegations of child abuse, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence are rarely required to receive training on these subjects.
Those findings are contained in C.R.S. Section 14-10-127.5.
Based on those findings, the new law then goes into some “declarations”:
(I) A child’s safety is the first priority of the court in a proceeding affecting the child’s care and custody;
(II) Strengthening the ability of the courts to recognize and adjudicate adult and child abuse allegations based on valid, admissible evidence will allow courts to enter orders that protect and minimize risk of harm to the child; and
(III) Court personnel involved in cases containing abuse allegations who receive trauma-informed training on the dynamics, signs, and impacts of child abuse, child sexual abuse, and intimate partner violence will help protect and minimize risk of harm to the child.
Those declarations are also contained in C.R.S. Section 14-10-127.5.
Next, the new law concerning training for certain court personnel contains some definitions:
(a) “Accused party” means a parent in a case to determine parental responsibilities who has been accused of domestic violence or child abuse, including child sexual abuse.
(a.3) “Coercive control” means a pattern of threatening, humiliating, or intimidating actions, including assaults or other abuse, that is used to harm, punish, or frighten an individual. “Coercive control” includes a pattern of behavior that takes away the individual’s liberty or freedom and strips away the individual’s sense of self, including the individual’s bodily integrity and human rights. “Coercive control” includes isolating the individual from support, exploiting the individual, depriving the individual of independence, and regulating the individual’s everyday behavior.
“Coercive control” includes, but is not limited to, any of the following:
(I) Isolating the individual from friends and family;
(II) Monitoring, surveilling, regulating, or controlling the individual’s, or the individual’s child’s or relative’s, finances, economic resources, or access to services;
(III) Monitoring, surveilling, regulating, or controlling the individual’s, or the individual’s child’s or relative’s, activities, communications, or movements, including through technology;
(IV) Name-calling, degrading, or demeaning the individual, or the individual’s child or relative, on a frequent basis;
(V) Threatening to harm or kill the individual or the individual’s child or relative, including wearing, accessing, displaying, using, or cleaning a weapon in an intimidating or threatening manner;
(VI) Threatening to commit suicide or otherwise harm one’s own person, when used as a method of coercion, control, punishment, intimidation, or retaliation against the person;
(VII) Threatening to harm or kill an animal with which the individual or the individual’s child or relative has an emotional bond;
(VIII) Threatening to publish the individual’s, or the individual’s child’s or relative’s, sensitive personal information, including sexually explicit material, or make reports to the police or authorities;
(IX) Damaging the individual’s, or the individual’s child’s or relative’s, property or household goods;
(X) Threatening the individual, or the individual’s child or relative, with deportation or contacting authorities based on perceived or actual immigration status, withholding essential documents required for immigration, or threatening to withdraw or interfere with an active immigration application or process; or
(XI) Forcing the individual, or the individual’s child or relative, to take part in criminal activities or child abuse.
(b) “Protective party” means a parent in a case to determine parental responsibilities who is competent, protective, not sexually or physically abusive, and with whom a child is bonded or attached.
Parents should note that “coercive control” seems to include many things that regularly happen in parenting and marriage relationships and categorizes those things as abuse. For example, something as simple as questioning a spouse about spending and income could be coercive control because the law says that “[m]onitoring, surveilling, regulating, or controlling the individual’s, or the individual’s child’s or relative’s, finances, economic resources, or access to services” is coercive control.
Another example of “coercive control” could be taking away a child’s cell phone (even if the child is not doing homework, not getting ready to go to school or activities due to cell phone time; spending too much screen time, etc.). That’s because coercive control includes:
“[i]solating the individual from friends and family” and “[m]onitoring, surveilling, regulating, or controlling the individual’s, or the individual’s child’s or relative’s, activities, communications, or movements, including through technology” – and that is domestic violence and child abuse according to the new law.
Conclusion
These laws are new and changes to the law may develop over time through cases and amendments to the statutes. It seems that some of the new domestic abuse laws may be in conflict with common sense parenting and normal daily interactions in relationships.
Parents who are raising children together or separately, and anyone in a relationship should familiarize themselves with these new laws to get help if needed or to determine how to protect themselves from becoming a target of domestic abuse claims.
