Test the proposed safeguards against real failures.

What the official record establishes

“The system is corrupt” is often an accusation. Here, it became a federal conviction.

Former Luzerne County judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan were convicted or pleaded guilty in a federal racketeering case connected to payments surrounding privately owned juvenile detention facilities. Ciavarella received a 28-year sentence; Conahan received 17 years. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court voided and erased thousands of juvenile case outcomes from 2003 through 2008. An official commission described children as young as 11 being detained for failing to pay fines and identified money, silence, fear, weak oversight, and failures by multiple institutions. S38 S39

What the court held

The state called a family permanently neglectful. The Constitution required more than “fairly probable.”

New York allowed permanent termination of parental rights when the state showed its claim was more likely true than not. The U.S. Supreme Court held that due process required a stronger level—clear and convincing evidence—before the state could permanently end those rights. Compare the proof standards. S36

What the court held

The state tried to protect children from violence by separating them from the parent who had been assaulted.

In certified questions arising from a federal class action, New York’s highest court held that exposure to domestic violence is not presumptively neglect and not presumptively grounds for removal. Courts must assess actual or imminent impairment, whether the parent failed a minimum standard of care in context, reasonable efforts to avoid removal, and the harm removal itself may cause. The opinion recounts lower-court findings that New York City’s child-welfare agency had routinely removed children from nonviolent victim mothers when less harmful alternatives existed. S37

What the court found

The order required protection. The meetings did not provide it.

The European Court of Human Rights found an Article 8 violation. Its legal summary states that for three years the children were compelled to meet their father—who had been convicted of ill-treatment—under conditions that did not provide the protective environment the domestic order required. Reports described aggressive conduct and the absence of the ordered psychologist; the mother’s parental responsibility was suspended after she resisted contact. Contact was not suspended until November 2018, one year and nine months after the first report. S10

What the court found

Four years is a procedural timeline. It is also most of a childhood.

The case concerned custody proceedings and allegations that a father had physically abused his daughter. More than four years after the mother sought a residence change, proceedings were still pending. The child remained with the father, had not been heard in the custody case, and did not receive a special representative until roughly a year and a half after the court recognized the conflict of interest. The judgment records serious distress, including self-harm. The ECHR found violations concerning the child’s treatment and the authorities’ failure to secure effective respect for family life. S11

What the court held

The question that could take away his liberty was the question the hearing never answered: could he pay?

A South Carolina family court sentenced Michael Turner to 12 months’ imprisonment for civil contempt over child-support nonpayment. He had no lawyer, and the court made no express finding that he could pay. The Supreme Court did not create an automatic right to counsel in every such case, but held that Turner's incarceration violated due process because the proceeding lacked adequate alternative safeguards. S12

What the court held

Her parental rights were gone. The price of asking a higher court to review that decision was $2,352.36.

After a Mississippi court terminated a mother’s parental rights, the state supreme court dismissed her appeal because she could not prepay the record-preparation fees. The U.S. Supreme Court held that Mississippi could not condition her appeal from a parental-status termination on ability to pay. S13

What the official legislative account says

A Pennsylvania Senate co-sponsorship memorandum states that seven-year-old Kayden Mancuso was killed by her father during court-ordered visitation in August 2018. The memorandum says a psychological evaluation described suicidal, depressed, and violent tendencies; it also cites past assault convictions and a protection-from-abuse order. Congress later used “Kayden’s Law” for state-incentive provisions in the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, now reflected in 34 U.S.C. §10446. S14 S25

What the official legislative account says

The sponsor memorandum for New York’s 2025–2026 Kyra’s Law bill states that two-year-old Kyra Franchetti was killed by her father during a court-ordered unsupervised visit in July 2016, after reports concerning rage, suicidal ideation, stalking, and coercive abuse. A June 2026 New York Assembly release says the bill passed both legislative chambers and would require a pre-visitation safety review. This page does not characterize it as enacted law without a later official enactment record. S15