“Dogs have more rights than children.”
These are the powerful, haunting words spoken by the aunt of Kayden Mancuso, a 7-year old child who was brutally bludgeoned to death by her Father, Jeffery Mancuso, on August 6, 2018, only a few short months after her Father was awarded partial, unsupervised custody pursuant to a Court Order entered May 21, 2018. Unfortunately, Kayden’s death was not the first, nor the last, to occur at the hands of a parent where warning signs were present. But it was Kayden’s death which spurred the introduction of SB 868, also known as “Kayden’s Law.” In order to understand how we got here, and why changes to our law are necessary, we must review the custody analysis in Pennsylvania and how Kayden’s custody order was a legally-sound result of insufficient legislation.
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