SB 1091 Summary

• Expands the definition of "domestic violence" to include coercive control, stalking, patterns of threatening, and threats based on immigration status or sexual orientation, effective from passage.

• Establishes a grant program providing free legal counsel to indigent individuals applying for restraining orders, administered through judicial districts in Fairfield, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford-Norwalk, and Waterbury with grants up to $200,000-$400,000 per district.

• Adds "physical and emotional safety of the child" as the first factor courts must consider in child custody determinations and requires courts to sanction parties filing frivolous or fabricated pleadings in family relations matters.

• Modifies bail and release conditions to require consideration of heightened risks to domestic violence victims and changes bigotry or bias crime definitions from "because of" to "motivated in whole or in substantial part by" protected characteristics.

• Allows landlords to change locks for tenants with active protective or restraining orders within 48 hours at the landlord's expense, and prohibits landlords from charging protected tenants additional rent or deposits due to the respondent's exclusion from the dwelling.