1976, March, Pg. 400. FAMILY LAW NEWSLETTER.

5 Colo.Law. 400

Colorado Lawyer

1976.

1976, March, Pg. 400.

FAMILY LAW NEWSLETTER

400FAMILY LAW NEWSLETTERBeware the Baby Snatch

Of all the sorrows which husbands and wives can perpetrate upon one another, perhaps the most devastating is the theft of their own children. In most states this is an exception to the felony of kidnaping, and in some states it is not even a crime.

In Colorado, it is a fifth class felony for any person to remove a child from anyone having a valid order of custody. C.R.S. 1973, § 18-3-304. Unfortunately, most jurisdictions in the state read the law narrowly, as being limited to valid Colorado custody orders. Since most baby snatch incidents depend for their effectiveness on the interstate transportation of children, this interpretation is of little assistance to the holder of a valid out-of-state custody order whose missing child and spouse have suddenly appeared in Colorado.

The Uniform Act

The one ray of hope in this morass is the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, C.R.S. 1973, §§ 14-13-101 et seq. Colorado is the first state to pass this uniform law which requires a court of this state to determine the jurisdictional question before addressing the factual issues. The success of the law can be measured by the first cases decided under it.

The first two cases permitted the Colorado court to take jurisdiction to determine a change of custody. Wheeler v. District Court, 186 Colo. 218, 526 P.2d 658 (1974), ruled that where the custodygranting state specifically contemplated an out-of-state move by the custodial parent, jurisdiction to determine a change of custody could attach in the second state (Colorado) upon the establishing of domicile by the custodial parent. Nelson v. District Court, 186 Colo. 381, 527 P.2d 811 (1974), involved the simultaneous consideration of a habeus corpus action filed by the nonparent out-of-state guardian and a change of custody action brought by the in-state parent of the same child. Guardianship had been granted out of state in the former domicile of the parties from which all persons involved had moved---the guardian and child to a second foreign jurisdiction, the parents to Colorado. On remand, the trial court granted custody to the natural mother, a decision upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court in Nelson v. Schweitzer (5 The Colorado Lawyer...