Requires the court to consider a child's health and safety when making a decision regarding child custody and visitation; directs the court to review certain information as it relates to allegations of child abuse, domestic violence and child safety.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A6194C Revised 5/28/2026
SPONSOR: Hevesi TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the domestic relations law and the family court act, in
relation to establishing "Kyra's Law"
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
To protect children by ensuring courts promote the safety of children in
child custody and visitation proceedings,
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 would name the act "Kyra's Law."
Section 2 would declare the legislative intent.
Section 3 would require courts to conduct a review In custody and visi-
tation proceedings involving allegations of domestic violence, child
abuse, or substantial risks of harm to a child warranting the court's
immediate attention; and would expand the evidence a court considers to
include risk factors, such as threats to harm or kill, stalking,
violence during pregnancy, unlawful dissemination of intimate images,
coercive control, and a recent pattern of substance abuse, The section
would also permit review of certain uncertified records in proceedings
for temporary visitation and custody; allow waiver of notice in emergen-
cy ex parte applications; and make substantial risk findings a signif-
icant factor in custody and visitation determinations. This section
would also expand custody and visitation procedures in Supreme Court by
requiring courts to advise parties of counsel rights; require courts to
explain on the record the basis for custody and visitation determi-
nations; prohibit adverse inferences against protective parents or
assumptions regarding a child's reluctance to interact with a parent;
and require recurring judicial training on child safety and domestic
violence' issues,
Section 4 would apply the new custody review, findings, and training
requirements to habeas corpus custody proceedings in Supreme Court.
Section 5 would require the Family Court to update its custody and visi-
tation petitions to allow petitioners to identify allegations of domes-
tic violence, child abuse, or other substantial risks to a child.
Section 6 would apply the bill's expanded custody review procedures,
evidentiary standards, counsel advisements, and child safety consider-
ations to Family Court custody and visitation proceedings,
Section 7 would establish the effective date.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORIGINAL AND AMENDED VERSION (IF APPLICABLE):
The amended version would restructure and expand upon the original by
replacing the B print's narrower custody-review framework with a broad-
er, more detailed system governing temporary, successive temporary, and
final custody orders, expanding the categories of evidence and risk
factors the courts must review, adding explicit standards for findings
and conditions on custody/visitation orders, broadening protections for
protective parents and reluctant children, and revising judicial train-
ing requirements. It would also remove the standalone new Domestic
Relations Law 240-e created in the B print and instead incorporate most
of those provisions directly into existing Domestic Relations Law 240
and Family Court Act 651.
JUSTIFICATION:
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 and access to children promote the
safety of children as a threshold matter.
Kyra's Law is named in memory of two-year-old Kyra Franchetti, a toddler
who was ordered by the court to have unsupervised visits with her
father, despite repeated reports and eyewitness accounts of his anger
and rage issues, suicidal ideation, stalking, and a 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 and order protective measures. 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.(1)
Too many perpetrators of coercive power and control tactics against
their current or former intimate partners use their children as pawns,
even harming or murdering them, to try to maintain control over or
devastate their former partners. Courts throughout the United States
often discount or minimize the risks posed to children in these cases,
dismissing allegations of domestic violence or child abuse as an attempt
by one parent to win custody from the other, As a result, dozens of
children in New York have been injured or murdered at the hands of a
parent seeking to cause pain and trauma to their current or former inti-
mate partner.
Thirty years ago, Judge Linda Dakis identified the need for courts to
conduct lethality assessments in cases involving domestic violence. She
found that courts cannot fully predict when a homicide or future assault
may occur, but there are certain Warnings that a domestic violence
victim may be at risk for serious injury or death, and, if courts an
focus on certain risk factors, they can make more appropriate decisions
that proactively protect the victim(s).(2) First developed by Jacquelyn
Campbell,(3) lethality assessments are now widely accepted and utilized
among law enforcement, courts and leading domestic violence organiza-
tions.(4)
Kyra's Law aims to equip courts with a clearer legal framework to
promote the safety of children in child custody and visitation deci-
sions. Specifically, this bill would require Family and Supreme courts
to review allegations of domestic violence, child abuse, or substantial
risks of harm to a child warranting the court's immediate attention
prior to issuing temporary or final orders of custody or visitation, and
to consider a party's history of domestic violence, child abuse, inci-
dents involving harm that pose a substantial risk of harm to a child,
and risk factors, such as threats to harm or kill, stalking, violence
during pregnancy, unlawful dissemination of intimate images, and a
recent pattern of substance abuse.
By incorporating a review of child safety risk factors, Kyra's Law will
enable courts to leverage an existing lethality assessment framework
that has been proven effective and to better consider the potential
future harm the child(ren) may suffer from an abusive parent.
Coercive control is another important factor that Kyra's Law would
require courts to consider, Like lethality factors, coercive control is
predictive of future domestic violence and abuse. Extensively researched
by Evan Stark, a sociologist and child abuse expert, coercive control
involves the imposition of systematic restrictions on an individual's
freedom and independence, isolating victims from friends, family, and
other support systems. As a result, victims feel trapped in their
relationships "due to financial, logistical, social or emotional barri-
ers to escaping."(5) Abusers who exercised control over a partner's
daily activities were found to be "more than 5 times more likely to kill
them than other domestic abusers," and 20% of domestic violence homi-
cides were preceded by coercive and controlling behavior.(6)
The review required by Kyra's Law will enable courts to identify risks
to child(ren) and include protective conditions. when issuing temporary
or final orders of custody or visitation. Such conditions, for example,
could include not awarding sole or joint custody to an abusive parent,
not permitting an abusive parent to have unsupervised visitation with a
child, or requiring safeguards such as exchanges of children for visita-
tion at safe locations.
In order to address certain debunked theories and misconceptions, Kyra's
Law provides that in cases where a party makes facially credible allega-
tions of domestic violence, child abuse, or other acts that also pose a
substantial risk of harm to the child, the court cannot find that
reasonable protective behaviors to safeguard the child that were engaged
in by that party constitute failure to support the child's relationship
with the offending parent. In addition, Kyra's Law would prohibit the
court from presuming that a child's reluctance to interact with an
abusive parent was caused by the protective parent. And, Kyra's Law
would prohibit courts from granting custody to a parent for the sole
purpose either of improving a relationship between the child and such
parent or in an attempt to address the child's reluctance to interact
with such parent.
To ensure courts are well-equipped to carry out the provisions of Kyra's
Law, this bill would expand current judicial training requirements to
include referees and other hearing officers, as well as judges, and
would require such individuals to obtain comprehensive training on
topics necessary to conduct a review of allegations of domestic
violence, child abuse, and other acts posing a substantial risk to a
child's safety, The chief administrator of the courts would present or
arrange access to such initial training and subsequent training on such
topics every two years thereafter.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
Senate
2021-2022: S07425A, Recommitted to Rules
2023: S3170C, Reported and Committed to Codes
2024: S3170C, Amended and Recommitted to Judiciary
2025: S59988, Passed Senate
Assembly
2021-2022: A5398A, Amended and Recommitted to Judiciary
2023-2024: A3346C, Amended and Recommitted to Judiciary
2025: A61948, Amended and Recommitted to Judiciary
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
To be determined,
EFFECTIVE DATE:
The 270th day after it shall have become law; effective immediately, the
addition, amendment and/or repeal of any rule or regulation necessary
for the implementation of this act on its effective date are authorized
to be made and completed on or before such effective date.
1 Bragg, C. "Grieving parents look to Albany for Family Court reform,"
Albany Times Union, June 14, 2020, retrieved on May 26, 2026 from
https://www.timesunion,com/news/article/Part-4-When-children-die-what-sN
ew-York-s-15156241,php
2 Judge Linda Dakis, Injunctions for Protection, 68 FLA. B.J. 48, 50
(Oct. 1994) ("A critical component of the court's intervention in domes-
tic violence cases is an assessment for lethality....Judges should focus
attention on whether the perpetrator has threatened suicide, has weap-
ons, has threatened or fantasized homicide, begun hostage-taking or
extreme risk taking, is preoccupied with the partner (including stalk-
ing), has been on medication or hospitalized for mental illness, has
isolated family or friends, has a strong belief or obsession about
losing the partner, and abuses alcohol or drugs."); see also Domestic
Violence, The Family, and the Lawyering Process: Lessons from Studies on
Gender Bias in the Courts, 27 Fam. L,Q, 247 (1993).
3 Campbell, Jacquelyn; Webster, Daniel; Glass, Nancy, "The Danger
Assessment: Validation of a Lethality Risk Assessment Instrument for
Intimate Partner Femicide," J Interpers Violence. Author manuscript;
available in PMC: 2021 Feb 11.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.goviarticles/PMC7878014/.
4 See e,q., Federal Bureau of Investigation,
https://leb.fbi.gov/file-repository/screen-for-fIrst-responders,pdf;
Office of Justice Programs, "Police Departments Use of the Lethality
Assessment Program: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation,"
https://www.oip.gov/pdffiles1/niUgrants/247456.pdf; National Resource on
Domestic Violence, https:llvawnet.oramaterial/lethality-assessment-
tools-criticalanalysistf
:-:text=A%201ethality%20assessment%20is%20a%20tool%20that,*%20Batterer's%
20suicidal%20ideation s%20*%20Relationship%20status; Pillars of Peace.
haps://www.pillarsofpeace,orgiresources/lethality-factors/.
5 See Stark, Evan. "Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal
Life," Oxford University Press, 2007; see also Dichter ME, Thomas KA,
Crits-Christoph P, Ogden SN, Rhodes KV. Coercive Control in Intimate
Partner Violence: Relationship with Women's Experience of Violence, Use
of Violence, and Danger. Psychol Violence. 2018 Sep.
https://pmc.nchi.nlm,nih.gov/articles/PMC6291212/.
6 See "Coercive Control Laws in the US Should Cover These 10 Areas,"
Domestic Shelters, Aug, 2022,
https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/legal/USA-coercive- control-
laws,
