State lawmakers in New York are scheduled to meet this week to consider changes to family court to better address the rights of children, including a review of the judiciary's role in custody, visitation and child support cases.

They're scheduled to hold a public hearing on that issue Thursday in Manhattan, after which legislation will likely be proposed to address what's heard from stakeholders.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, D-Bronx, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said the hearing is expected to focus on systemic changes to the family court system to address various problems experienced by litigants. Dinowitz said no single bill would be the focus.

"We just want to make sure that the courts are doing everything they can to protect children," Dinowitz said. "The Assembly has always strived to protect the rights of children."

His committee is hosting the hearing Thursday at 250 Broadway in Manhattan, along with the Assembly Social Services Committee and the Assembly Committee on Children and Families. A final witness list is still being compiled, Dinowitz said.

Among those scheduled to testify is Jacqueline Franchetti, whose daughter, Kyra, was killed by her ex-husband after he was allowed visitation by a family court judge in Nassau County. He shot Franchetti's daughter before setting his house on fire and committing suicide.

"This was the child that was placed into harm's way because of our very broken, upside-down New York Family Court system," Franchetti said. "Her murder was 100% preventable."

Franchetti said she doesn't blame her daughter's death on one specific part of the custody battle with her ex-husband. She said the state's family courts don't always consider every factor in a case and can sometimes ignore what's in the best interest of a child.

It's not unfamiliar territory for the state Legislature. Lawmakers have moved in recent years to change how children are treated in the state's courts when accused of a crime, for example. The new Raise the Age law now diverts most children from criminal court to family court when they're facing charges.

Before last October, New York was one of only two states in the country that still automatically prosecuted 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system.

Dinowitz said that was a step forward for the rights of children in the state's court system, but that more can be done by lawmakers to address how they're treated in civil matters, like those involving custody disputes.

"There are a lot of issues we have to deal with on the noncriminal side when it comes to custody, visitation, child support and just making sure that we're doing everything in the best interest of children," Dinowitz said.

While the hearing isn't intended to focus on just one issue involving children in the state's court system, Dinowitz said he's particularly interested in how forensic evaluators are used in family matters.

Forensic evaluators are used in a custody case to essentially write an assessment, in their view, of the current status of a dispute between family members and how it could be resolved. Dinowitz said lawmakers plan to review how forensic evaluators are trained and if more stringent requirements should be imposed for those individuals.

"They do their own examinations of the children in these custody cases and then they can make recommendations to the judge and possibly have a significant influence on the outcome," Dinowitz said. "We certainly want to make sure people who perform that role are qualified to do it, and are well trained."

Franchetti said the forensic evaluator in her case ignored several red flags about her ex-husband. She left him while she was pregnant with their daughter because he was physically abusive toward her. He had also been suicidal for a number of years, she said.

But the forensic evaluator in their case did not recommend that the court deny him visitation and declined to perform a mental health evaluation, Franchetti said. That wasn't unlawful.

"The forensic evaluators in New York right now are the Wild, Wild West," Franchetti said. "There's no transparency, there's no accountability, and there's no rhyme or reason for someone to do these reports, and what needs to go into these reports. That desperately needs to change."

The reports that forensic evaluators submit to the court are accepted by the judge as an impartial analysis of the situation, but they're largely free to conduct interviews with the parents and prepare their perspective as they see fit.

It's not as if forensic evaluators are uneducated; the evaluator in Franchetti's case had a doctorate. But she argued that, even with that qualification, those individuals, and others in the family court system, should still receive specialized training for how to evaluate child custody matters.

"The people that were involved in Kyra's case, and those in our family court system, are not well-enough trained," Franchetti said. "We need to make sure everyone is knowledgeable on the specific types of abuse being alleged, and that they understand it."

Franchetti's story is part of what inspired Dinowitz to hold the hearing, though he said the topic is much broader than her experience. He's spoken to her more than once about the issue and plans to introduce legislation tailored toward her case that's intended to prevent another death like Kyra's in the future.

"Everybody but the court seemed to know it was a bad idea to allow the husband any role with that child because of his own past problems and his own behavior," Dinowitz said. "Yet that's exactly what happened."

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Thursday morning in Manhattan at the State Assembly's hearing room in 250 Broadway.

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