Motion by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky

March 21, 2000

MOTION BY SUPERVISOR ZEV YAROSLAVSKY

(Relates to S-2)

Divorced parents who maintain joint custody of their children must "exchange" or turn them over to the other parent on a regular basis. Unfortunately, many of these exchanges cannot be peacefully accomplished, and these parents are compelled by the Court to conduct their exchanges in the lobbies of police facilities. Thousands of such exchanges occur each weekend throughout the County. The Courts require that children be exchanged in this fashion in order to guard against spousal intimidation and to protect children from situations that can and do turn violent.

Unfortunately, the Sheriff or Police personnel who are called upon to "supervise" these exchanges are not provided with copies of the relevant child custody court orders and are thus not equipped to effectively enforce them. Parents may misrepresent the situation and may dispute what court orders require, forcing the police officers to make an uninformed judgment. Often, the result is that not only are court orders misconstrued and incorrectly enforced; but that children are exposed to tense and even dangerous circumstances between their parents.

In another manifestation of this problem, law enforcement officers are often called while on patrol to intervene in child custody disputes. Here again, there is no way for them to know the current status of a court order and considerable errors, argumentation and even violence may result.

It is time for this County and the Courts to work diligently to improve the safety and effectiveness of the child custody exchange process. We must devise a system that provides our law enforcement personnel with the information they need to oversee the enforcement of child custody orders in a safe and effective manner.

I, THEREFORE, MOVE that the Judicial Procedures Commission, in cooperation with the Courts, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council, be instructed to study, develop and propose a pilot project for direct involvement of the Courts and/or the Sheriff's Department in supervising and monitoring child custody orders and exchanges; and

I FURTHER MOVE that the Judicial Procedures Commission be instructed to report back to the Board with its proposal within ninety days.