On June 22, 2026, Governor Katie Hobbs signed House Bill 2995 — the Alec and Lydia Act — into law. Because the bill carried an emergency clause, it took effect immediately. If domestic violence or coercive control has played any role in your family law matter, this law changes things for you right now.
Why this law exists
Alec and Lydia Mater were six and seven years old when their father killed them during court-ordered parenting time in May 2024. Their father had a documented history of concerning behavior — suicidal threats, threatening conduct toward others — but had been granted unsupervised parenting time regardless. Their mother, Hope Hooton, responded to an unimaginable loss by working with Arizona lawmakers to identify what the legal system had missed and how to fix it. The result is a statute that now carries her children’s names into every Arizona family courtroom where domestic violence is at issue.
What the old law actually said
Before HB 2995, Arizona’s domestic violence custody statute operated on two tracks. The first applied when a court found either “significant domestic violence” or a “significant history of domestic violence” and it’s worth being precise here, because this is widely misunderstood. These were not two different tiers based on different severity levels. They were two descriptions of the same high-severity category, and together they triggered an outright bar on awarding joint legal decision-making to the abusive parent.
The second track covered any domestic violence that didn’t rise to that high threshold. That category created only a rebuttable presumption against awarding custody. This was something the abusive parent could overcome with sufficient evidence.
The new law eliminates the outright bar entirely. Under the Alec and Lydia Act, any domestic violence finding now triggers a mandatory rebuttable presumption that awarding the abusive parent any legal decision-making or parenting time is contrary to the child’s best interests. The categorical bar is gone. The presumption is universal. But the law simultaneously makes that presumption significantly harder to overcome, and gives courts much stronger tools to restrict access while the case plays out.
Coercive control is now domestic violence
The most consequential definitional change in the new law is the formal inclusion of coercive control as domestic violence. Under the prior statute, domestic violence in a custody context generally required evidence of physical harm or a credible threat of it. Patterns of behavior that abusers use to systematically dominate a partner’s life without leaving visible marks had no clear statutory home.
The Alec and Lydia Act defines coercive control as a pattern of threatening, humiliating, or intimidating conduct used to harm, punish, or frighten — and provides a detailed, non-exhaustive list of what that includes: financial surveillance and control; monitoring or restricting communications, movements, and daily activities through technology; isolating a partner from family and friends; recurring name-calling and degradation; threatening to harm or kill the other parent, a child, or an animal the victim cares about; threatening to publish intimate images; using immigration consequences as leverage; and using the threat of self-harm as a tool of control and intimidation.
These behaviors, documented as a pattern, now qualify as domestic violence under Arizona law regardless of whether a police report was ever filed or a protective order was ever sought. A victim’s own testimony can be sufficient evidence; corroboration from exhibits or witnesses is not required.
The presumption — and what it takes to overcome it
Once a court finds that a parent committed domestic violence, the Alec and Lydia Act requires the court to presume that awarding that parent any custody or significant parenting time is against the child’s best interests. This presumption is mandatory so the court cannot choose to skip it. The burden then shifts to the abusive parent to overcome it.
Three things that cannot be used to rebut the presumption: the fact that the child was not present when the domestic violence occurred; the fact that the child was unaware of the conduct; and the child’s stated preference to spend more time with the abusive parent.
Where the presumption is not overcome, the court must restrict that parent’s contact with the child. Those restrictions can include eliminating overnight parenting time, requiring professional supervision at all exchanges, keeping the addresses of the child and victim parent confidential, and requiring the abusive parent to bear the costs of any supervised access.
An abusive parent who completes a domestic violence treatment program cannot simply present that certificate as proof the presumption is overcome. The law requires the abusive parent to waive confidentiality so treatment records can be reviewed, demonstrate that the program was proportionate to their specific conduct, and show genuine accountability — not minimization or rationalization. A certificate alone is not enough.
Detailed written findings are now required
Under the old law, judicial findings in domestic violence custody matters were inconsistent — sometimes cursory, sometimes detailed, varying widely by judge. The Alec and Lydia Act standardizes this. In any custody matter where domestic violence is alleged — including temporary orders — the court must now make specific, detailed findings on the record addressing the evidence considered, why the rebuttable presumption was or was not overcome, and why the parenting time restrictions ordered serve the child’s best interests.
The mutual domestic violence defense is now narrowly defined
Previously, the rebuttable presumption did not apply when both parents were found to have committed domestic violence. Some abusive parents exploited this by characterizing a victim’s defensive or protective actions as mutual violence. The Alec and Lydia Act closes that gap. For a mutual finding to apply, a court must determine that both parents acted with the same motive, lacked justification to similar degrees, and caused comparable harm. Acts of self-defense that were proportionate and not provoked by the defending parent are explicitly excluded from the definition of domestic violence under the act.
Prior domestic violence can be raised in modification proceedings
This provision has significant practical reach. If a parent alleges domestic violence in a modification proceeding, the court must treat it as a primary factor in the analysis and must allow evidence of domestic violence that predates the existing custody order — even if that evidence was available during earlier proceedings and theoretically could have been raised then. A parent cannot be shut out of raising prior conduct on the grounds that it should have been litigated sooner.
What this means for your existing parenting plan
Your current order stays in place unless and until a court modifies it. But the Alec and Lydia Act changes what happens in any modification proceeding going forward, and those changes are significant. If domestic violence or coercive control occurred in your relationship and was never formally addressed in your existing order, you may now have grounds to seek modification. If you are the parent against whom a domestic violence finding was made, that finding follows you into future proceedings under the new standards.
Whether this law opens a path forward in your specific situation is worth discussing with an experienced family law attorney. Novo Law represents clients in custody cases and protective order matters involving domestic violence throughout Arizona, and offers free consultations.
