A package of bills introduced by Democrats in the Michigan state legislature months ago is finally gaining steam. The Michigan Senate has, by an overwhelming majority approved a package of bills that will overhaul the state’s domestic violence laws, providing key protections for victims and impacting decisions in family courts – particularly concerning custody and parenting time. The proposed legislation still has to pass the senate House and be signed into law by Governor Rick Snyder.
Provisions of the new law that will directly impact family court cases would, if enacted, include the following:
- Allow courts discretion to exempt divorce cases involving domestic violence from mediation if one party has a personal protection order (PPO) against the other, or if one party has been charged with child abuse or neglect;
- Allow for the modification of the judicial standard for determining a child’s best interests in cases involving custody disputes where there is domestic violence involved; and
- Prohibit the award of custody and/or parenting time for certain parents of children who were conceived as a result of a sexual assault against the mother.
Other provisions of the proposed legislation would include the following:
- Create an alternative form of summons so that serving legal papers would not require disclosure of the domestic violence victim’s location;
- Modify our state’s current personal protection order to prohibit injury to any animal owned by a domestic violence victim; and
- Increase penalties for domestic violence against a pregnant victim by a former or current spouse/partner, and provide that a second offense would be classified as a felony with a sentence of up to five years in prison.
I hope to report in the near future that these proposed bills have been enacted into law. The proposed changes in the law are long overdue. With statistics revealing that domestic violence occurs in as much as one out of every three romantic relationships in Michigan, toughening up penalties and expanding the discretion of our family courts in both procedure and in custody/parenting time decision-making will help to “level the playing field” between the violent partner and the victim in litigation. Stay tuned. . .