Meeting the Standards
Colorado’s Domestic Violence Laws and the IPV Research
In June 2024, Colorado passed HB 24-1350, which marked a clear evolution of the state's domestic violence framework from an incident-based pattern to one involving coercive control. In 2026, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed House Bill 26-1309, "concerning measures related to forms of abuse in cases regarding a separation of a relationship." The law explicitly defines coercive control, which includes a "pattern of behavior that takes away the individual's liberty or freedom." In the words of Dr. Evan Stark, a "liberty crime." It goes on to define domestic violence in family court in a way that can exist independent of whether the underlying conduct would be criminal. Legal analysts spent the following weeks working through what it changes and what it does not.
Criminal domestic violence cases in Colorado are defined separately, under C.R.S. § 18-6-800.3, as "an act or threatened act of violence upon a person with whom the actor is or has been involved in an intimate relationship," including conduct "used as a method of coercion, control, punishment, intimidation, or revenge." Even so, admitting a pattern of prior conduct as evidence in a criminal case is not automatic. Under C.R.S. § 18-6-801.5, a party offering evidence of similar past acts must advise the court by "offer of proof" and specify what the evidence is meant to show, and "the trial court shall determine whether the probative value of the evidence of similar acts or transactions is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to the defendant."
Notice the difference. Family court can find that domestic violence occurred without ever asking whether the conduct was criminal, and criminal cases carry a higher burden of proof to begin with. So what happens when a partner is accused of domestic violence and coercive control in family court, a finding of fact is entered against them, and they later face criminal charges arising from the same underlying facts? Practicing attorneys have real concerns about how those two tracks interact.
Part of the concern is the difference in evidentiary standards. Family courts decide domestic violence questions on a "preponderance of the evidence," a lower bar than "reasonable doubt." Under HB 26-1309, judges are now required to make specific findings related to domestic violence, including coercive control and behaviors like isolation, monitoring, stalking, degradation, and economic abuse. Those findings, made under the lower civil standard, do not disappear once a case moves toward criminal court. They can surface as evidence, and HB 26-1309 also lets a court recommend treatment for a person found to have committed domestic violence, so civil findings and noncompliance can carry consequences that extend well beyond the family court docket.
While the procedural distinctions play out in briefs and hearings, their real weight lands on families. A systematic review published this year in BMC Public Health, which searched international qualitative literature on parental intimate partner violence and abuse through November 2023, synthesized findings from 39 studies, reflecting the perspectives of 825 mothers/adult female survivors, 107 children, and 58 fathers. It identified three overarching themes:
The importance of supporting the family while safeguarding the child;
Systems failing to hold the perpetrator accountable; and
Systems that retraumatize the family.
The review's own conclusion spells out what those three findings mean in practice. Services need a whole-family approach that addresses both the parent and child survivor while still recognizing the perpetrator's parental identity. Interventions with adult survivors should be strengths-based even as accountability for the perpetrator is maintained. And particular care is needed whenever these families end up in family court, specifically to avoid retraumatizing them.
For anyone who sits on a bench, advocates for clients, treats survivors, evaluates families, testifies as an expert, or teaches others about coercive control, the practical version of this is sobering: lives, including children's lives, can be reshaped for years regardless of which evidentiary standard was ever actually tested. Colorado's civil statute tells an evaluator what categories of information to gather and document. It also tells a family court judge what findings it must make. A criminal defense requires an attorney to develop theories, evidence, and arguments rebutting the acts of abuse, even when they have been accepted as fact in the family court case. The civil and criminal domestic violence laws do not, and are unable to, guarantee that the court processes built around these cases avoid retraumatizing the people it is meant to protect.
The research and the statutes are answering different questions. One asks what gets documented and what standards should be applied. The other asks what happens to a family once they enter a courtroom. Colorado has made real, concrete progress on the first question. The international literature is a reminder that progress on the first does not settle the second, and that settling it may not be possible in an adversarial legal system under the Constitution.
Sources:
Source Article: Colorado’s 2026 Coercive Control Law: Impact on Domestic Violence Criminal Cases
Supporting data: HB26-1309
