Louisiana Legislature Prioritizing Parental Rights

Louisiana legislators have recognized the many structural failures within the family court system. In a rare display of bipartisanship and mutual agreement, both chambers of the Louisiana Legislature adopted, identical in intention, resolutions pledging their commitment to protecting the parent-child bond and constitutional right to parent. 

Senate Resolution 186 (SR186) and the House Resolution 228 (HR228), both “urge and request the Louisiana State Law Institute (LSLI) to review (state) laws, rules, regulations, policies, and procedures related to mental health evaluations used in child custody and visitation proceedings.“ LSLI is a legislative advisory body, housed at LSU, that researches questions of law and then makes recommendations to legislators. This joint resolution crucially expands the scope of inquiry beyond specific credentials for mental health evaluations to the application of legal standards and the parental protections afforded by the constitution. 

Notably, these resolutions illuminate the importance of establishing an equitable co-parenting relationship and the role of the child custody evaluation in establishing the co-parenting power dynamics. These resolutions outline that the child custody evaluation should encourage collaborative co-parenting while discouraging approaches that strip parental and custodial rights unless doing so complies with enacted domestic violence laws. Louisiana legislators seem to understand that the relationship between the parents is the primary factor that truly frames childhood experiences and memories.

In a historically bold move, the joint resolution suggests that the child custody evaluator consider all forms of domestic abuse including coercive control, when establishing the co-parenting relationship. All abuse is about power and control, but what makes coercive control different is that it uses strategic trauma to gain an advantage — such as primary physical custody and domiciliary (decision-making) rights in a child custody dispute. 

Once empowered by the Court, a malicious co-parent can convert access to the children into a form of cruel currency: denying access as punishment for grievances or granting access as a reward for demonstrating desired behaviors. For the non-designated parent, this power imbalance can perpetuate an abuse cycle, and negatively impact their ability to properly parent their children.  The malicious co-parent can then return to that same family court judge requesting more control strategies, such as required mental health therapy with court reports, monitored and limited visitation with their children, drug/alcohol testing based on unsubstantiated claims, and many other conditional and controlling requirements. The Judge often honors such requests from the now designated parent under the “best interest of the child standard.” For the non-designated parent, this constant cycle of hustling for their worth as a person and living in constant judgment of their parental fitness can feel unbearable. For Louisianans, co-parenting dynamics are not easily changed due to the Bergeron standard. Bergeron is the high bar required to change child custody judgments. 

These malicious parental behaviors are considered the weaponization of the family court system; it is the cultivation of judicial power to either control or remove a co-parent from the lives of their children. 

Thank you, Senator Barrow Peacock (SR186) and Representatives Gregory Miller and Patrick Jefferson (HR228).