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Legal Information: Alabama

Custody

Updated: 
September 1, 2023

Who can get custody? Can a non-parent get custody?

There is an assumption that it is in the best interest of the child to be with one or both of his/her natural parents. For a non-parent to get custody, the parents have to either give up their rights, be deceased, or the non-parent seeking custody has to prove that the parent is guilty of such bad misconduct or neglect that the parent is unfit and an improper person to be entrusted with the care and upbringing of the child.1

1Ex parte Jonathan M. Terry; 494 So. 2d 628, Supreme Court of Alabama (1986); see Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S. Ct. 2054, 147 L. Ed. 2d 49 (2000)