Fla. Stat. § 61.538

This is the official text of Fla. Stat. § 61.538, part of Florida’s Stat — part of the compiled statutory law of Florida, published by the state as "Stat." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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61.538 Role of state attorney.

Official statutory text

(1) In a case arising under this part or involving the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, the state attorney may take any lawful action, including resort to a proceeding under ss. 61.524-61.540 or any other available civil proceeding, to locate a child, obtain the return of a child, or enforce a child custody determination, if there is: (a) An existing child custody determination; (b) A request to do so from a court in a pending child custody proceeding; (c) A reasonable belief that a criminal statute has been violated; or (d) A reasonable belief that the child has been wrongfully removed or retained in violation of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

(2) A state attorney acting under this section acts on behalf of the court and may not represent any party.

History: s. 5, ch. 2002-65.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.