Rep. Again Targets Deployment in Child Custody

An Ohio congressman is once more pushing legislation intended to keep single-parent servicemembers from having their child custody arrangements changed because they are deployed.

The latest bill represents the fourth time in four years that Rep. Michael Turner, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, has filed such a bill. In 2008 he successfully got through a law requiring at least a 90-day stay on cases when the deployed parent disputes a change in child custody.

He's now out to strengthen that law with a provision that failed to pass before – barring judges from using a troop's deployment as the sole reason for changing custody.

"There are judges that will use a servicemember's time away against them, as if they had hopped on a Harley and went away to California to find themselves," Turner said. "[They are] comparing an absence to serve your county to an abandonment action on the part of a parent is just not justice."

Turner said it's impossible to even guess how many Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen who have had their custodial parent role overturned while deployed, or have been able to successfully fight it out. Cases are handled at local jurisdictions all across the country and are not tracked, he said.

Turner learned of the problem in 2007 when he read about a Kentucky Army National Guard officer who lost custody of her daughter to her ex-husband while she was deployed to Iraq. It took two years before Capt. Eva Slusher regained custody. She fought to change Kentucky law so that judges could not use military deployments as grounds for changing child custody. Meanwhile, Turner framed his original legislation to bar modification of child custody of deployed troops until they return home, and to bar deployment as a reason for changing custody.

The final version that became part of the Defense Authorization Bill signed by President Obama in January 2008 included the provision for a staying court action for at least 90 days but did not specifically bar deployment as a sole factor in changing custody. Turner said he hopes to remedy that with the current bill.

In the past opposition to the legislation has mostly come from the Senate, where John McCain, R-Ariz., reportedly has argued against it on the grounds that states should set their own laws in this area.

Judge Michael Key, president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, told Military.com his organization is aware of Turner's legislation and is currently collecting input from its members on it. Once this is done, he said, the council will take a position on the bill.

"I can also say that, generally speaking, most judges I talk to don't have a problem conceptually with the contents of that legislation," he said. "Deployment in and of itself should not be grounds for modification of custody.'

Key said judges have to weigh any number of things but in the end should rule in favor of what's in the best interest of the child.

Turner agrees, pointing out that his bill does not prevent a judge from considering other factors.

"It just says the servicemembers' time serving their country does not go in the scales of justice weighted against them," he said.