The Elizabeth Morgan Act is an act of the 104th United States Congress that was declared

unconstitutional Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...

in 2003 by the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate co ...

as being a

bill of attainder A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of people, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attai ...

, because it was written to deny rights to a specific father based on his child's own assertion. It was originally introduced as , by Rep.

Thomas M. Davis Thomas Milburn Davis III (born January 5, 1949) is an American lobbyist and former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives who represented Virginia's 11th congressional district in Northern Virginia. Davis was considerin ...

. It was passed as a rider of the Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1997 (, ).

Background

In 1989, Representative Frank Wolf of Virginia introduced the bill that became the District of Columbia Civil Contempt Imprisonment Limitation Act (, ). That legislation changed a feature of District of Columbia law that permitted indefinite detention for

civil contempt Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...

, such as in the case of Dr. Elizabeth Morgan, who was in contempt for refusing to allow her daughter unsupervised visitation with the child's father. Morgan had stayed jailed for two years rather than allowing access to the father. After the change in law caused her release, Morgan moved to New Zealand, where her parents and her daughter were already living. Wolf again involved himself in the case when he co-sponsored the 1996 rider bill that became the Elizabeth Morgan Act. The new law was narrowly worded to apply to the circumstances of Morgan's daughter, allowing the child in those circumstances to refuse consent to custody or visitation by her father, and preventing the District of Columbia courts from issuing custody or visitation orders or sanctions against Morgan. Having the protection of the 1996 Congressional act, Morgan and her daughter then returned to the United States. The father, Dr. Eric Foretich, sued against the effect of the act in 1997. On December 16, 2003, the act was overturned by the

, who ruled that the law was so narrowly written that it targeted Foretich and treated him as a danger to his child without formal charges, illegally punishing him. The law was

moot Moot may refer to: * Mootness, in American law: a point where further proceedings have lost practical significance; whereas in British law: the issue remains debatable * Moot court, an activity in many law schools where participants take part in s ...

and had no practical effect on the daughter, who was by then 21 and could choose for herself whether or not to see her father.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, Elizabeth, Act Acts of the 104th United States Congress Child custody United States federal child welfare legislation United States federal immigration and nationality legislation United States federal legislation articles without infoboxes Riders to United States federal appropriations legislation

Background

See also

References