Protection Paper, Not a Parenting Spat

Statutes

• A.R.S. § 25-403.03 — Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

  As rewritten by the Alec and Lydia Act (HB 2995, Laws 2026, ch. 263, approved and operative June 22, 2026 under an emergency clause; the act contains no clause addressing cases already pending), domestic violence for this section means an act under § 13-3601(A), or coercive control (a defined pattern of violent, threatening, coercive or emotionally abusive conduct, such as isolation, financial control, stalking or harassment, threats, and using litigation to force the other parent to defend false claims), committed by one parent against the other parent or against a minor child living in either parent's household, excluding self-defense and defense of another. A domestic-violence claim must be established by a preponderance of the evidence and needs no corroboration, and if the court finds a parent committed domestic violence there is a mandatory rebuttable presumption that awarding that parent legal decision-making or parenting time is contrary to the child's best interests; the victim need not prove the violence was severe or frequent enough to justify restrictions, and the court may not call the violence mutual or apply the presumption to both parents unless both lacked justification to a similar degree and inflicted similar injury, otherwise applying it only to the parent whose conduct was more serious. The court may not grant a parent subject to the presumption sole or joint legal decision-making or unsupervised parenting time unless that parent overcomes the presumption by clear and convincing evidence, or supervised parenting time unless that parent overcomes it by a preponderance of the evidence. On rebuttal the court must consider the severity and frequency of the parent's violence against any person (including injury or trauma, weapons, strangulation and multiple forms of coercive control), denial or minimizing, whether the passage of time mitigates, whether the child has imitated the behavior, and treatment (a completion certificate alone is not proof of rehabilitation), and must disregard the child's absence from or unawareness of the violence and the child's preference for more contact. Before entering a legal decision-making or parenting-time order, including a temporary order under § 25-404(D), the court must resolve any domestic-violence allegation with specific written findings on the evidence admitted, and for a parent who committed domestic violence it shall adopt precautions prioritizing the safety and well-being of the child and other parent (such as protected exchanges, limits including no overnights, supervision by someone other than the victim, suspension of contact, perpetrator treatment, substance testing where substance abuse is found, or a bond), may not order the victim into joint treatment or assessment with that parent, and the presumption continues in later modification proceedings under § 25-411.

• A.R.S. § 25-411(A), (K) - Endangerment Exception to the One-Year Bar; Expedited Hearing and Ex Parte Suspension of Parenting Time

  A parent may not move to modify a legal decision-making or parenting time decree within one year of its date unless the court allows it on affidavits showing reason to believe the child's present environment may seriously endanger the child's physical, mental, moral or emotional health. If, while an order is in effect, one parent is charged with a dangerous crime against children, child molestation, or an act of domestic violence in which the victim is a minor, the other parent may petition for an expedited hearing, and pending that hearing the court may suspend parenting time or change legal decision-making ex parte. The statute does not set a number of days within which the expedited hearing must be held. As amended by Laws 2026, ch. 263 (HB 2995, the Alec and Lydia Act, an emergency measure operative on approval June 22, 2026), a parent who previously failed to rebut the domestic-violence presumption of § 25-403.03(D) remains subject to it in any modification proceeding. Apart from these emergency routes, the court may change parenting time whenever that serves the child's best interests, but it shall not restrict a parent's parenting time unless it finds the parenting time would endanger seriously the child's physical, mental, moral or emotional health (§ 25-411(J)).