On June 22, 2026, Governor Hobbs signed HB 2995, the Alec and Lydia Act, with an emergency clause attached. There was no transition period, no grace period for courts to adjust. If your divorce or custody case was active in Maricopa County Superior Court that morning, the rules governing it changed by that afternoon. Arizona’s coercive control law isn’t coming. It’s here, and it’s already shaping how family court judges evaluate parenting arrangements across Phoenix.
Understanding what the law actually does requires more than reading a headline. Our firm has represented parents in Maricopa County family court for decades, and William D. Bishop, a Board-Certified Family Law Specialist by the State Bar of Arizona and Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is a past chair of the Maricopa County Bar Association Family Law Section. The analysis below reflects how this law lands in the courtrooms where these cases are actually decided.
Why Arizona’s Family Court Rules Changed Overnight
The Alec and Lydia Act is named for Alec, age 7, and Lydia, age 6, who were killed by their father during court-ordered parenting time in May 2024 in Surprise, Arizona. Their mother, Hope Hooton, had repeatedly warned the court about documented threatening behavior before the tragedy. Working with Representative Lisa Fink, she helped sponsor HB 2995, which passed the Arizona House 51 to 4.
The law rewrites A.R.S. 25-403.03, the statute governing domestic violence in custody proceedings, in its entirety. It also amends A.R.S. 25-404, which covers temporary orders, and A.R.S. 25-411, the modification statute. Every stage of a custody case is affected: the initial temporary order hearing, the final parenting plan, and any future request to change an existing arrangement.
Coercive Control Is Now Legally Domestic Violence
For two decades, A.R.S. 25-403.03 contained no definition of coercive control. Domestic violence in a custody context required evidence of physical harm or conduct rising to the level of a criminal offense. Patterns of psychological domination, financial control, and systematic isolation had no clear statutory home, which meant they were frequently minimized or excluded from the court’s analysis entirely.
The Alec and Lydia Act defines coercive control as a pattern of threatening, humiliating, or intimidating conduct used to harm, punish, or frighten a person. The statute enumerates 15 categories of qualifying conduct, including:
- Financial surveillance and control over a partner’s access to money, employment, or economic resources
- Isolation from family and friends through monitoring, threats, or manipulation
- Technology-based surveillance of movements, communications, or devices
- Immigration threats used to create fear or compliance
- Threats of self-harm deployed as a coercion tool
- Using family court proceedings as a vehicle for ongoing harassment or control
That last category (sometimes called litigation abuse or weaponized litigation) is significant. Filing repetitive motions, demanding unnecessary depositions, or manufacturing procedural delays to exhaust a partner financially and emotionally can now constitute domestic violence under Arizona law. A criminal charge or conviction isn’t required. The evidentiary standard in family court is preponderance of the evidence, and the new statute expressly doesn’t require corroboration from independent witnesses or documentary exhibits. A party’s credible testimony alone can support a finding.
What the Mandatory Presumption Means for Your Case
Under prior law, A.R.S. 25-403.03 sorted domestic violence into two tiers, and the tier dictated the outcome. That two-tier framework is gone. Under the new law, any domestic violence finding, regardless of severity or frequency, triggers a single mandatory rebuttable presumption: awarding the abusive parent any legal decision-making authority or parenting time is contrary to the child’s best interests.
Legal decision-making is Arizona’s term for what other states call custody. It covers the authority to make major decisions about a child’s education, healthcare, and religious upbringing. A domestic violence finding under the new law puts both legal decision-making and parenting time at risk for the offending parent.
The statute also forecloses three arguments that were sometimes used to minimize abuse in prior proceedings. A court can’t use any of the following to overcome the presumption:
- The child wasn’t present during the abuse
- The child was unaware that it occurred
- The child prefers to spend time with the parent found to have committed domestic violence
Rebutting the presumption requires clear and convincing evidence, a higher standard than the preponderance threshold used to establish the finding in the first place. That applies to sole or joint legal decision-making and to unsupervised parenting time. A parent seeking only supervised parenting time faces the lower preponderance standard. Completing a batterer’s intervention program isn’t sufficient on its own; the parent must waive confidentiality over treatment records and demonstrate genuine accountability to the court’s satisfaction.
How This Affects Existing Orders & Modification Proceedings
A parenting plan or custody order that is already final doesn’t disappear because the Alec and Lydia Act passed. Courts don’t automatically reopen settled matters, and the new law alone isn’t a standalone basis to vacate an existing order.
What changes is what happens the next time the existing arrangement is reviewed. Under amended A.R.S. 25-411, domestic violence and coercive control are now primary factors in any modification proceeding. Courts must allow evidence of prior domestic violence even if that evidence predates the current order, was previously presented to a court, or could have been raised at an earlier hearing. A pattern of coercive control that was dismissed or overlooked in a 2023 parenting plan can now be central to a 2026 modification request.
The retroactivity question is more complicated for cases that were still pending when the law took effect. At least one Maricopa County Superior Court judicial officer has ruled that HB 2995 doesn’t apply retroactively to cases that were already open before June 22, 2026, citing A.R.S. 1-244, the general rule against retroactive application of new statutes. That ruling doesn’t bind other judges in Maricopa County, and courts elsewhere in Arizona aren’t obligated to follow it. This is a live, unsettled issue. If you have an active case in Phoenix, which version of the law governs your proceeding is a question that needs to be raised and litigated directly.
New Accountability Requirements for Judges & What That Means for Appeals
The Alec and Lydia Act imposes new obligations on judges, not just parties. In both temporary and final orders, a court that hears any allegation of domestic violence or coercive control must now issue specific written findings documenting what evidence was considered, whether the mandatory presumption was triggered, and how any parenting time restriction serves the child’s best interests. Conclusory orders that simply award parenting time without addressing a domestic violence allegation are no longer sufficient.
The appellate standard for reviewing those findings has also changed. The new law establishes de novo review of the legal sufficiency of each finding, meaning an appellate court independently examines whether the trial court’s written findings satisfy the statute’s requirements. Under the prior standard, appellate courts gave substantial deference to the trial judge’s factual findings, making reversals difficult. De novo review materially strengthens the appellate options available to a parent who received an order based on inadequate findings or a misapplication of the presumption.
The statute also addresses situations where both parents are found to have engaged in domestic violence. Courts must determine whose conduct was more serious and proportion the presumption accordingly. Proportionate defensive conduct is expressly excluded from the definition of domestic violence, which means it can’t be used to establish a mutual-violence finding against a parent who responded defensively to an attack.
What Phoenix Parents Should Do Right Now
The practical steps depend on where you stand in your case, but the new law changes the evidentiary calculus for everyone.
If You Have Experienced Coercive Control
Document patterns, not just incidents. The statute’s 15 categories provide a roadmap for what evidence now carries legal weight. Financial records showing controlled access to accounts, screenshots demonstrating monitoring technology, communications revealing isolation tactics, and records of repetitive filings all have a clear statutory home under HB 2995. An order of protection, while helpful, isn’t required to establish a coercive control finding in family court.
If You Have an Existing Parenting Order
An upcoming modification hearing, a new incident, or an opposing party’s motion to modify can open the door for the new evidentiary standards to apply to your case. Prior abuse that was never formally addressed in the existing order may now be raisable as a primary factor in any modification proceeding. Whether HB 2995 governs your specific proceeding depends on the filing date and how the assigned judge resolves the retroactivity question.
If You Are Facing an Allegation
The presumption under the new law is harder to overcome than anything in the prior statute. The mutual-violence defense is narrower. The rebuttal standard is higher. The written findings requirement means the record of what a judge concluded and why is now more detailed and more susceptible to appellate challenge from both directions. Preparation before the initial hearing matters more than it ever has.
Navigating a Law Still Being Interpreted
The Alec and Lydia Act is weeks old. Courts across Arizona are still working out how it applies: what constitutes a sufficient pattern of coercive control, how the retroactivity question will be resolved across different judicial officers, and what evidentiary record is necessary to rebut the presumption with clear and convincing evidence. These questions will be answered through litigation, one case at a time, in Maricopa County Superior Court and beyond.
That uncertainty makes who handles your case matter more than usual. An attorney who holds board certification in family law and has deep Maricopa County family court experience can ground the arguments made on your behalf in both the statute and the courtroom reality of how these cases are being decided right now. If you have questions about how the Alec and Lydia Act affects your divorce or custody case, BDB Law can be reached at (602) 878-3133.