Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1034_b8dg.pdf
Page Number: 8.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

In July 2018, Golan flew with B. A. S. to the United States 
to  attend  her  brother’s  wedding.    Rather  than  return  as 
scheduled in August, however, Golan moved into a domestic 
violence shelter with B. A. S.  In September, Saada filed in 
Italy  a  criminal  complaint  for  kidnapping  and  initiated  a 
civil proceeding seeking sole custody of B. A. S.

Saada  also  filed  a  petition  under  the  Convention  and
ICARA in the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District 
of New York, seeking an order for B. A. S.’ return to Italy.
The  District  Court  granted  Saada’s  petition  after  a  9-day 
bench  trial.  As  a  threshold  matter,  the  court  determined 
that  Italy  was  B. A. S.’  habitual  residence  and  that  Golan
had wrongfully retained B. A. S. in the United States in vi-
olation of Saada’s rights of custody.  The court concluded, 
however, that returning B. A. S. to Italy would expose him
to a grave risk of harm.  The court observed that there was 
“no  dispute”  that  Saada  was  “violent—physically,  psycho-
logically, emotionally, and verbally—to” Golan and that “B.
A. S. was present for much of it.”  App. to Pet. for Cert. 79a.
The court described some of the incidents B. A. S. had wit-
nessed as “chilling.”  Ibid.  While B. A. S. was not “the target
of violence,” undisputed expert testimony established that
“domestic  violence  disrupts  a  child’s  cognitive  and  social-
emotional  development,  and  affects  the  structure  and  or-
ganization of the child’s brain.”  Id., at 79a–80a, and n. 37.3 
Records indicated that Italian social services, who had been 
involved with the couple while they lived in Italy, had also 
concluded that “ ‘the family situation entails a developmen-
tal danger’ for B. A. S.”  Id., at 80a.  The court found that 
Saada had demonstrated no “capacity to change his behav-
ior,”  explaining  that  Saada  “minimized  or  tried  to  excuse 

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3 The  court  noted  that  “[t]here  were  isolated  incidents  of  possible 
abuse” of B. A. S. based on Golan’s testimony that Saada had inadvert-
ently hit and pushed B. A. S. while targeting her and Golan’s brother’s 
testimony that Saada had spanked B. A. S. aggressively, accusations that
Saada disputed.  App. to Pet. for Cert. 79a, n. 37; see id., at 54a–55a, 61a.