By Judi Atwood

I know what a family-court snafu looks like because I lived one.

In military slang, a snafu is a breakdown so confused and badly managed the people trapped inside it pay the price. In my own case, the court adopted and preserved findings about my conduct even though I was never served, never joined as a party, and never consented to the court’s jurisdiction. My pending Rule 60(b)(4) motion argues those findings are void because a court cannot adjudicate a nonparty without personal jurisdiction. 

That experience is why HB26-1309 alarms me.

This bill is being presented as a safety measure for children and survivors in family court. But the real question is not whether domestic violence should matter in custody cases. It already does. The real question is whether Colorado should expand the consequences of family-court domestic-violence findings faster than the state has built the safeguards, provider capacity and implementation structure needed to support those consequences fairly. As introduced, HB26-1309 requires courts to decide whether domestic violence occurred before the ordinary best-interests analysis. If the court finds domestic violence by a preponderance of the evidence, the bill creates a rebuttable presumption against allocating parental responsibilities to that parent. It also requires specific written findings and protective conditions if parental responsibilities are still awarded, and it changes the treatment framework in these cases.

The first problem is procedural. HB26-1309 asks family-court judges to make high-stakes domestic-violence findings at the front end of custody litigation in a forum where, by the bill’s own legislative declaration, many parties appear without counsel. The bill also says the absence of a conviction, dismissal of a charge, dismissal of a previous protection order, or an inconclusive or unfounded agency finding is insufficient for a court to determine domestic violence did not occur. At the same time, it directs courts to consider any relevant and admissible evidence of domestic violence and specifically lists police reports, medical records, records from licensed mental-health professionals or victim advocates, prior court or administrative findings, and records tied to VAWA status, U visa status and victim-benefit or assistance programs. That is not a small evidentiary tweak. It materially expands the practical importance of collateral records and protected-status material in family-court adjudication. Family court is not a criminal court, and when the system gets the facts wrong, the consequences do not stay on paper.

The second problem is implementation spillover. On paper, HB26-1309 is directed at judges and family-court orders. In practice, those consequences will not stay in the courtroom. Once family court makes an early abuse finding and gives it legal force, that finding can affect treatment expectations, service referrals, provider communications, records disputes and decisions involving children and families long after the hearing ends. This is not just a judicial question. It is a systems question. The bill assumes the rest of the system can absorb those downstream effects. That assumption has not been proved.

The third problem is capacity. HB26-1309 ties continued parenting-time access in certain cases to individual therapeutic treatment with a licensed mental-health professional who has specified credentials, specialized domestic-violence expertise, and completion of a 52-week domestic violence abuser intervention program. That may sound rigorous, but policy is not judged by aspiration alone. It must also be judged by whether those resources actually exist in enough places, at a cost families can bear, and with enough consistency for judges to rely on them statewide. If providers are scarce, unevenly distributed, backlogged, or unaffordable, then the bill risks creating court orders families cannot realistically satisfy. The fourth problem is judicial workload and decision quality. HB26-1309 requires threshold findings, specific written findings stating the evidence relied on, explanations of how the order protects the child and abused party and detailed conditions when parental responsibilities are still awarded. Those requirements may sound careful, but they also make already difficult family cases more document-intensive, more adversarial and more time-consuming. More complexity does not automatically produce better justice. In an overloaded system, it can just as easily produce delay, inconsistency and error. 

The technical bottom line is simple: HB26-1309 is not just a custody-safety bill. It is a systems-allocation bill. It reallocates decision-making weight, evidentiary significance and remedial obligations inside family court, but the burdens will not remain there. They will be carried by courts, providers, agencies and families. Colorado should not expand the consequences of family-court domestic-violence findings faster than it has built the procedural safeguards, provider capacity and implementation infrastructure needed to carry those consequences fairly and consistently.

Judi Atwood is a Longmont resident, CDHS Family Voice Council alumna and participant in the CDHS mentorship program. She has also authored appellate briefs and policy analyses on Colorado family-court and child-safety issues. Currently she is the Policy Director for SAFE – Stop the Abuse for Everyone National Nonprofit and Advocacy Organization. The views expressed her are her own.