Proposed bill AB 1877 in California - BIG PROBLEM

Dear Friends,

AB 1877 (Adams) is being heard on by the CA Assembly Judiciary Committee Tuesday March 25. This bill would make disclosing a custody evaluation report an act that would potentially allow the court to sanction you and remove your child. This is a report you paid a great deal of money for. This would mean that you could not show the report to an oversight agency, your therapist, law enforcement, or any organization trying to bring sunlight into the dark family court system.

This email is of interest to professionals also.

Please let the following Assembly Members and staff know your thoughts on this matter ASAP.

You can also contact the Chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee:
Dave Jones at (916) 324-4676 or fax (916) 327-3338.

If you want more information on the Assembly Members, please go to

ACS Frameset7

Assemblymember.jones@assembly.ca.gov,

Assemblymember.Adams@assembly.ca.gov,

Assemblymember.tran@assembly.ca.gov,

Assemblymember.Feuer@assembly.ca.gov,

Assemblymember.keene@assembly.ca.gov,

Noreen.Evans@asm.ca.gov,

John.Laird@asm.ca.gov,

Assemblymember.Krekorian@assembly.ca.gov,

Assemblymember.levine@assembly.ca.gov,

Assemblywoman.lieber@assembly.ca.gov,

Drew.Liebert@asm.ca.gov

COMM. LOCATION :

ASM JUDICIARYHEARING DATE : 03/25/2008

AB 1877, as amended, Adams.

Child custody evaluations:confidentiality.

Existing law provides that in any contested proceeding involvingchild custody or visitation rights, the court may appoint a childcustody evaluator to conduct a child custody evaluation in caseswhere the court determines it is in the best interests of the child.If directed by the court, the court-appointed child custody evaluatorshall file a written confidential report on his or her evaluation,which report shall not be made available other than as specified. Inaddition, any information obtained from access to a juvenile courtcase file is confidential and shall only be disseminated asspecified.

This bill would provide that the unwarranted disclosure of thereport may result in the imposition by the court of specifiedsanctions. Furthermore, when making orders regarding the physical orlegal custody of the child, the court shall consider the unwarranteddisclosure of the report in determining the best interests of thechild. The bill would require that the Judicial Council, by January1, 2010, adopt a form that informs the report recipient of theconfidentiality of the report and the potential consequences for theunwarranted disclosure of the report; and adopt a rule to requirethat, when a court-ordered child custody evaluation report is servedon the parties, the form shall be included with the report.