Draft:Elizabeth Morgan case

Morgan v. Foretich (docket number D 683-84), popularly known as the Elizabeth Morgan case, was a protracted custody dispute between plastic surgeon Elizabeth Morgan and her ex-husband, oral surgeon Eric Foretich. The couple's daughter (known at different times as Hilary Foretich, Ellen Morgan, and Elena Mitrano) alleged that Foretich had sexually abused her; when a District of Columbia court found the evidence inconclusive and ordered Elizabeth to grant Eric unsupervised visitation, Elizabeth refused to divulge her daughter's whereabouts and spent 25 months in jail for contempt of court. Elizabeth's detention led the United States Congress to pass the District of Columbia Civil Contempt Imprisonment Limitation Act in 1989, which led to her release. Ellen Morgan was subsequently revealed to have been with Elizabeth's parents in New Zealand; Elizabeth Morgan stayed in New Zealand with her daughter until 1996, when the Elizabeth Morgan Act allowed the two to return to the United States.

The dispute garnered international media attention, with Elizabeth and Eric becoming causes célèbres for women's rights and fathers' rights groups respectively. The case cost both parties millions of dollars and led to legal proceedings in four courts. It was the largest and longest-running case in the history of the District of Columbia's domestic relations court, of a size the Chicago Tribune compared to that of "a major antitrust case". Congress's decision to twice intervene in a custody dispute was unusual and controversial, and the Elizabeth Morgan Act was later struck down as an unconstitutional bill of attainder after Eric sued.

Neither Elizabeth Morgan nor Eric Foretich was ever charged with any crime.

Morgan family
Jean Elizabeth Morgan was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, in July 1947 to William James Morgan (né Anthony Mitrano) and Antonia Morgan (née Antonia Farquharson Bell). William and Antonia were both psychologists. William at the time worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and had fought in France in World War II while with the Office of Strategic Services; he had met Antonia, a Brit, during the war.

In her memoir Custody, Elizabeth wrote of William, "When I was growing up, no success of mine was enough to satisfy him." According to later testimony for Foretich by psychiatrist Elissa P. Benedek, Antonia said in an interview that she and William often fought in front of Elizabeth and her brothers, and that on some occasions William struck Antonia or put a gun to his head and threatened to kill himself. Antonia further alleged, according to Benedek, that William had once threatened Elizabeth with a golf club. In a complaint to the American Psychiatric Association, of which Benedek was then president-elect, Antonia denied having said much of this. William denied having ever been abusive, and no allegations of abuse were ever proven.

As a sophomore and junior at Kent School, Elizabeth engaged in binge eating and highly restrictive diets. She began her studies at Radcliffe College (the female coordinate institution to Harvard College) at the age of 16; she was a good student but, she later wrote, struggled with "terrible bouts of depression". She entered the Yale School of Medicine at 20—one of nine women out of roughly a hundred students—and graduated in 1971. In 1973, while a surgical intern, she began writing the medical column "Your Body" for Cosmopolitan, which she continued writing for seven years. After a year as chief resident of two Harvard University–affiliated hospitals, she trained for two years at Yale and Harvard as a plastic surgeon, specializing in reconstructive surgery. She became certified as a plastic surgeon in 1978; the next year, she opened a practice in McLean, Virginia, and moved out from her parents' home and into an adjacent home they owned. Her practice was successful and she was soon making $350,000 per year.

After William began to behave eccentrically, Antonia left him, and she and Elizabeth moved to D.C. proper. Soon thereafter, Elizabeth published her first memoir, The Making of a Woman Surgeon, which became a best-seller. She published her second memoir, Solo Practice, in 1982.

Foretich family
Eric A. Foretich was born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1942, to Doris and Vincent Foretich, a blue-collar couple with deep roots in the area. When Eric was young, Vincent would sometimes hit him with his belt. Eric was sexually assaulted by an adult man when he was fifteen. The next year, his sister, Doris Paula, died at the age of five weeks due to a congenital blood condition.

After graduating from Warwick High School, Eric first attended Lynchburg College, and then as a sophomore transferred to College of William and Mary. While a student at the Medical College of Virginia's School of Dentistry, he married his first wife, a schoolteacher two years his senior, at the age of 22. Three years later, Eric's younger brother, Craig, was killed in a car collision while driving under the influence of alcohol and possibly other drugs. The loss brought Eric closer to his parents, which may have caused further strain on his marriage. He completed dentistry school in 1969 and divorced his wife the next year—according to him, amicably. In 1973 he established oral surgery practices in northern Virginia and D.C.

In 1976, at age 34, Eric began a relationship with a 19-year-old model; the two married a year later. According to her, their relationship grew troubled during a pregnancy that resulted in a stillbirth. As in his first marriage, his close relationship with his parents became a source of tension, with frequent phone calls and in-person visits. She moved out three months into her second pregnancy, after she had to be hospitalized due to complications of the pregnancy while he was, over her objections, on vacation with his parents. The two reconciled after their daughter was born, but she sought a divorce in September 1981. She claimed the inciting event was Eric pulling at a tube that was administering an intravenous medication to her, causing the medicine to spill; Eric denies the claim, and the finder of fact in their divorce proceedings found no evidence for it.

Courtship, marriage, and divorce
Elizabeth and Eric met in August in 1981 at Fairfax Hospital. They met for lunch in early October, on the same day that a judge had granted a separation and given Eric's second wife temporary full custody of their daughter. Both Elizabeth and Eric had dated dozens of people by the time they met. The two fell quickly in love, Elizabeth taken with Eric's Southern charm.

Elizabeth became pregnant as a result of a sexual encounter on Thanksgiving 1981—their first, according to Eric. Both felt marriage as preferable to an abortion—Elizabeth since she had hoped to marry Eric regardless, Eric because he felt it "the noble thing to do" and because he held the Catholic view that abortion is immoral. Under Virginia law, Eric's divorce from his second wife would not be final until after his and Elizabeth's child was born. In January 1982, using a legal maneuver common at the time, Eric and Elizabeth flew to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where Eric unilaterally divorced his second wife and married Elizabeth. In March, the couple rented a house together in Great Falls, Virginia. Antonia, who was still living with Elizabeth, moved in with them. Eric and Elizabeth kept their finances separate, and the two of them and Antonia split household expenses three ways. Elizabeth and Antonia spent hours together every day, which put a strain on the relationship.

On July 11, 1982, Eric and Elizabeth's marriage was featured in Rudy Maxa's gossip column in The Washington Post Sunday magazine. Elizabeth alleges that, after the Post called Eric for comment, Eric pushed her to the floor and kicked her in the stomach. Eric and Maxa deny having spoken, and Eric denies having assaulted Elizabeth, saying that she went to the emergency room around that time but that it was due to an accidental injury sustained during sex. Antonia and their fourth housemate, Eric's cousin, say they did not witness Eric being physically violent toward Elizabeth, and Antonia testified that Elizabeth did not tell her about such an incident at the time.

Eric's second wife learned of the divorce and re-marriage from the Maxa column. Her lawyer used the threat of a public trial to secure a deal for child support, alimony, and housing, with Eric getting partial visitation with his daughter. Later that day, Elizabeth and Antonia left the home in Great Falls after Elizabeth came to feel that Eric "thought nothing of [her] except as a source of revenue". Eight days later, Elizabeth gave birth to Hilary Antonia Foretich at Sibley Memorial Hospital. Elizabeth had Eric barred from the labor and delivery rooms, but he met her in the recovery room with two dozen roses, which led to a rekindling of affections and a rapprochement between the Morgan and Foretich families. The reconciliation fell through several weeks later—over further money issues according to Elizabeth, although Eric disputes her narrative.

Elizabeth forbade Eric from visiting the home, so with her consent he arranged to see Hilary at her day care for a few hours a day, three or four days a week. Eric requested to have Hilary in his home for part of the Christmas season. Elizabeth replied that a formal custody arrangement would be needed, and in January flew to Haiti to unilaterally divorce Eric. In February, she stopped allowing visitation—Jonathan Groner, in the 1991 non-fiction book Hilary's Trial, says that Elizabeth changed Hilary's day care provider and refused to give Eric the new address, while The Washington Post in 1988 said that she had switched to an at-home babysiter.

Custody trial
Elizabeth petitioned for child support on 11 March 1983. (Groner says that she also petitioned for custody, while Bella English in The Boston Globe Magazine says that she did not. ) Eric counterclaimed for temporary custody or overnight visitation rights. Elizabeth argued that rearing a child was a woman's role rather than a man's and alleged that Eric had let his older daughter get too close to the construction site for his new house. Eric argued that Elizabeth was unstable and requested a psychiatric evaluation.

Elizabeth and Eric both had mental health experts assess the situation. Elizabeth's expert concluded that Eric should have visitation but not overnight. Eric's expert argued that, since Hilary had spent so much time at day cares already, overnight visits would not be too disruptive. Judge Carlisle Pratt (father of later D.C. mayor Sharon Pratt) ordered overnight visits for Eric every other weekend. Elizabeth was displeased with the result.

On the recommendation of a psychiatrist, Elizabeth agreed to give Eric visitation on every other Wednesday as well, which was formalized in a court order. After a disagreement with the psychiatrist, she refused to hand Hilary over for the second Wednesday visitation, and as a result was held in contempt by Judge Shellie Bowers and fined $175. Elizabeth then fired her attorney and, acting as her own attorney, had the still-pending custody trial delayed; on at least four subsequent occasions, the trial had to be delayed for want of a judge and courtroom.

When the trial did occur in November 1984, Judge Bruce Mencher awarded Elizabeth sole custody, crediting her "stable and nurturing" home life and faulting Eric's "tenor of instability". Mencher criticized Elizabeth's attempts to deny Eric visitation and somewhat expanded Eric's visitation rights to a total of 112 days a year, including six weeks every summer; he also ordered Eric to pay $450 per month in child support. Mencher warned that the custody arrangement could be changed if Elizabeth denied Eric visitation again. Eric and his parents were mostly happy with the ruling, while Elizabeth was both "grateful and ... bitter" and was driven to tears.

Abuse allegations
Shortly after Eric first won visitation, Eric's second wife called Elizabeth and alleged that her and Eric's daughter had "touched his hot dog" while bathing together. (Eric denies having ever bathed with her.) Eric's first wife asked Elizabeth if she thought Hilary was being sexually abused. Elizabeth did not, but told her parents about the call. On 3 July 1983, Hilary returned from a weekend with Eric and his parents with a fever, diarrhea, and reddened thighs. William assessed that Eric had intercrurally raped her. Emergency room doctors at Georgetown University Hospital considered the possibility but concluded it was a diaper rash. Elizabeth agreed at the time that sexual abuse had not occurrred, while William was not convinced and maintained a chronology of his suspicions.

In this time, both Elizabeth and Eric's second ex-wife found that their daughters were sad and frightened after returning from visits with their father, and would ask not to be sent back. Contariwise, Doris said that Hilary would cry on her way back to Elizabeth's. According to both families, Hilary would often wake in the night, afraid. On one occasion, Hilary bumped her head and then briefly stopped breathing. Elizabeth feared she had had a grand mal seizure brought on by fear of the visitations. A neurologist found no issues and Hilary did not have a seizure again. Eric and Elizabeth both took Hilary to see psychiatrists who had testified as experts on their respective behalves. Neither saw signs of sexual abuse, although the psychiatrist Elizabeth hired did note that Hilary had undressed a male doll to see what was in his pants.

In early January 1985, Elizabeth's housekeeper gave Hilary a bath. Hilary cried when the housekeeper tried to clean her vagina. The housekeeper, who had been sexually abused as a three-year-old, asked Hilary if anyone had touched her there. She replied, "Papa. Papa was taking sand out of my vagina." It is unclear who Hilary was referring to: She did not call Eric or Vincent Papa; she occasionally called William that, but she had not spent much time with him in the preceding year. The housekeeper told Elizabeth about the conversation. The housekeeper told The Washington Times in 1990 that Hilary had not been referring to Eric, but declined to say to whom she had been referring.

According to Elizabeth, on 15 January, Hilary told her "I see my daddy's hiney, and I go lick lick" and then screamed; hiney has been described as either "the Foretich family word for genitals" (Groner) or "Hilary's term for both female and male genitals and buttocks" (English). When Elizabeth asked whether Eric had had clothes on, Hilary answered in the negative and the made licking noises, which Elizabeth took as a reference to oral sex. Elizabeth memorialized the conversation in a diary entry that day.

Assessments of Hilary
Over the course of subsequent litigation, Elizabeth offered a total of eleven expert witnesses—eight of whom had evaluated Hilary—who found some evidence of sexual abuse, including six who reached that conclusion definitively. She also offered four who concluded the same about Eric's older daughter. Four other experts met with Hilary and concluded that Eric had not abused her. Eric presented a number of experts who reached that same conclusion, although he did not ask two to testify. Dixon excluded the testimony of several witnesses who had reached conclusions of abuse, as well as any evidence about Eric's older daughter.

Among the assessments:


 * Hilary's psychologist, who met with her for 87 sessions, reported that she was in the early stages of "multiple personality disorder" (now known as dissociative identity disorder) and expressed a desire to die. She concluded it was "one of the clearest cases of child sexual abuse" she had seen, citing Hilary's compulsive masturbation and "many, many statements that she made over a long period of time", including regarding digital and penile penetration of the vagina and anus. She concluded that Eric was the perpetrator "beyond a reasonable medical certainty". According to Froning's notes, in one session Hilary used dolls to demonstrate how Eric would abuse her.
 * A Fairfax County, Virginia, social worker determined that there was some evidence that someone had abused Hilary, but not enough to prove it.
 * A psychiatrist from Children's National Hospital concluded that Hilary was "very stressed" and exhibiting aggressive behavior, but found no evidence of child sexual abuse.
 * Psychiatrist Elissa P. Benedek, testifying for Eric, found no evidence of abuse and said, "Hilary over time has been conditioned to make those statements and rewarded for that kind of behavior." She felt that the best thing for Hilary was for the litigation to stop and Eric Foretich and his parents to be allowed to see her.
 * Pediatrician Charles I. Shubin found evidence of past vaginal penetration in both Hilary and her half-sister.
 * Pediatrician Catherine D. DeAngelis, testifying for Eric, disputed Shubin's findings.

Eric denied the allegations and in turn alleged that Elizabeth had abused Hilary. He pointed to photographs she had taken of Hilary that he characterized as "obscene"; Elizabeth countered that she was documenting unusual behavior by Hilary that she alleged was a result of the abuse. He further alleged that Elizabeth was mentally ill, which he sometimes conveyed via hand gestures during court proceedings. Benedek concluded that Elizabeth had a personality disorder, while Elizabeth's psychiatrist found that she was depressed but "not mentally ill".

Eric was evaluated psychologically as well. A psychologist he had hired during a dispute with his second wife found evidence that "may suggest sexual ideation with young girls". However, Eric's psychiatrist saw no evidence that he had molested either child, and noted Eric's success with adult women.

Abuse suit and defamation countersuit
In a trial in November 1985, Judge Herbert Dixon Jr. of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia found insufficient evidence that Hilary was being abused, and allowed Foretich continued unsupervised visitation. In a second trial in July 1986, a therapist appointed as a result of the previous trial testified that Hilary had been abused. Dixon still found the evidence unpersuasive, and ordered Hilary sent to Foretich for the summer. Morgan refused to comply, and was held in contempt and jailed. She was released on appeal, and ordered not to be jailed again for contempt until the appeals court reached a final ruling, while also having her passport confiscated, her house held as bond, and her travel restricted to the D.C. area.

Morgan then sued Foretich and his parents in an Alexandria, Virginia, court; Foretich countersued for defamation. The D.C. appellate court ruled in February 1987 regarding visitation, upholding Dixon's order; while Morgan "reluctantly" complied with the ruling, Dixon jailed her another three days for having defied his past orders, just as the Virginia trial was starting. She was escorted to the trial by United States Marshals, looking "disheveled". The jury found against both Morgan and Foretich's claims. Both sides appealed.

Dixon found the evidence for and against the claim of abuse to be "in equipoise" and thus inconclusive, and ruled that Foretich could continue to have visitation.

August 1987 – September 1989: Elizabeth's incarceration
Antonia and William remarried to help support Hilary. In the summer of 1987, Elizabeth, having been ordered to send Hilary to Eric for two weeks, instead gave the child to her parents. Dixon held her in civil contempt on August 28, 1987, for refusing to give Eric access to their daughter. Confined to a 6-by-11-foot cell, Elizabeth was to be jailed until she would give Ellen's location to Dixon. Elizabeth vowed that she would not comply with Dixon's order until Ellen, who was five years old at the start of Elizabeth's incarceration, turned 18. Elizabeth became a symbol for child custody disputes in general, and led to national debate over the use of incarceration in civil contempt cases. The District of Columbia was at the time known for its high crime rate, and newspapers highlighted the fact that Morgan, who had not been charged with any crime, was incarcerated alongside prostitutes and drug users. Elizabeth slept four hours a night while in prison. She studied ballet and conducted psychology research on other prisoners, writing on her wall in German, "What doesn't kill me outright makes me stronger."

An extensive appeal process ensued. Elizabeth's case became a cause célèbre for women's rights groups, while fathers' rights groups sided with Eric. Many observers saw the case as being "as much Morgan v. Dixon as Morgan v. Foretich". Dixon defended his decision to the court of appeals, pointing out that Morgan had not availed herself of the option to turn Hilary over to the court's social services office or the Department of Human Services.

D.C. Civil Contempt Imprisonment Limitation Act
As Elizabeth's incarceration continued, her case grew increasing attention from members of the United States Congress, which has exclusive authority over D.C.'s courts. Former Watergate conspirator Charles Colson, billionaire Ross Perot, and former Democratic National Committee chair Robert S. Strauss all lobbied on Morgan's behalf. In April 1989, Representative Frank Wolf introduced the District of Columbia Civil Contempt Imprisonment Limitation Act, to limit civil contempt incarceration to 12 months and criminal contempt incarceration to 18 months in all D.C. custody cases. Designed with the intent of freeing Elizabeth and unlikely to apply to anyone else, the act was retroactive and made to expire after 18 months. Wolf said that he was not taking Elizabeth's side, but that "If an individual has not complied with a civil contempt order after 18 months, I think it is reasonable to say that further incarceration is unlikely to elicit the desired response."

The act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 376–34 and the Senate by unanimous consent. Barton Gellman of The Washington Post wrote that the bill was passed "at a speed reserved normally for wartime or economic emergency"; the hard copy was signed almost immediately after the Senate's vote and then flown to Kennebunkport, Maine, where, on September 23, 1989, President George H. W. Bush quickly signed the bill "out of compassion for [Morgan's] plight". It took effect as.

[TKTKTK procedural steps per Gellman 1989d.] A frail Elizabeth Morgan left prison in D.C. on September 26, 1989, after 759 days of incarceration, which according to the Los Angeles Times was thought to be the second-longest contempt confinement in U.S. history.

Related proceedings
In May 1988, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that Judge Richard Leroy Williams had wrongly excluded some of Elizabeth's evidence in the Virginia suit. On remand, Williams dismissed the case with prejudice due to Elizabeth's refusal to give her daughter's location.

Elizabeth's brother Robert Morgan, an assistant United States Attorney, also refused to testify, and was subsequently placed on administrative leave. Elizabeth's then-fiancé, federal judge Paul Redmond Michel, testified that he regretted taking Hilary to court-ordered visitations with Eric. His role in the case brought him into conflict with Judge Dixon, who at one point interrupted him to say, "Judge Michel! My court." Eric filed claims of judicial misconduct against Michel for "condoning child abduction"; Chief Judge Howard Thomas Markey dismissed the claims.

August 1987 – February 1990: William, Antonia, and Hilary in hiding
Antonia and William were suspected to have taken Hilary, but it was not proven at the time. Posing as tourists and aided by William's background in espionage, the trio successfully eluded Metropolitan Police Department detectives, private investigators hired by Foretich, and the news media, even as Foretich offered a $50,000 reward. They changed Hilary's name to Ellen Morgan (sometimes Helen at first) and initially traveled through the Bahamas and Canada to Plymouth, United Kingdom.

In Plymouth, Ellen was enrolled for six months at Beechfield College. Those who saw her in this time noted the murkiness of her past but saw her as happy and well-balanced in the care of her grandparents. She would not cut her hair, for fear that Elizabeth would not recognize her. William and Antonia had a pay phone installed in their apartment so that their calls could not be traced.

After seeing an ad in the UK offering a reward for Ellen's return, William and Antonia decided to move to a country that had not signed the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. By way of Singapore and Auckland, New Zealand, the three traveled to Christchurch, New Zealand, where they lived in a motel.

On February 15, 1990, Eric traveled to London to speak with a television producer who had interviewed him for a program on custody cases. She had previously spoken to a teacher at Beechfield and was aware that Ellen Morgan might be Hilary Foretich. Four days later, under a court order, the producer told Eric about Ellen's attendance at Beechfield. Eric was quickly able to track the trio to Christchurch. On February 23, 1990, New Zealand authorities announced that they had located Hilary in good health in Christchurch. News photographers quickly descended on the motel, banging on their windows and, according to Elizabeth, climbing in.

February 1990 – ???: Custody dispute in New Zealand
William and Antonia obtained a provisional custody order the same day that their location was revealed. The court also ordered them to stay within its jurisdiction and appointed a lawyer to represent Ellen.

Elizabeth was aware of Hilary's location while in prison, but would not disclose her location. Elizabeth could not travel to New Zealand after her release because Dixon initially did not return her passport. The D.C. Circuit overturned Dixon's denial on March 2 and Morgan arrived in Auckland, New Zealand, four days later. She retained local counsel and did not immediately meet with Ellen. The influx of reporters to Christchurch, meanwhile, drew the ire of the locals and a condemnation from Peter Trapski, a former New Zealand family court judge. Elizabeth flew to Christchurch on March 17 and was photographed in church with Antonia and Ellen the next day. By March 27, Elizabeth had sought permanent residency in New Zealand; Paul Michel, as a sitting federal judge in D.C., was unable to do the same.

Under New Zealand law, it is illegal to report on Family Court proceedings, which limited coverage of litigation over Ellen in Auckland. On November 21, 1990, the Family Court granted Elizabeth custody, ruling that Ellen's "physical, educational, spiritual and emotional needs are being met". They retained her passport, ordering that she remain in Christchurch and at the same school. Elizabeth was ordered to submit semiannual reports on Ellen's welfare and was prohibited from publishing her book about the case in New Zealand. The order was not publicized in New Zealand, but was reported in Washington, D.C., by WUSA a week and a half later, based on notes taken by someone who had seen the decision. James Morgan commented that, if Elizabeth and Ellen returned to the United States, they would still be bound by Dixon's visitation order.

William returned to the United States three months after Elizabeth's arrival. Michel came to visit the family twice a year for a month at a time, he and Elizabeth honeymooning in Akaroa some five years after her release. Ellen was by this time in generally good spirits, but suffered occasional fits of rage. In a 1994 interview, Elizabeth expressed a strong desire to return to D.C., where Michel meanwhile struggled with her absence.

Hilary in Hiding
The BBC produced a documentary about Ellen titled Hilary in Hiding, which it aired in the United Kingdom. Eric sued to prevent the film from running on the American channel Lifetime, arguing that Ellen would be irreparably harmed by the publication of footage in which she describes the alleged abuse. Judge Stanley Sporkin of the D.C. District Court issued an order preventing the program from airing, comparing the dissemination of the footage to child pornography. On April 6, about half an hour before the program's scheduled airtime, the D.C. Circuit overturned Sporkin's order as unconstitutional prior restraint. Sporkin also appointed attorney Nathan Lewin to represent Ellen's interests. Assisted by co-counsel Stephen L. Braga, Lewin sought an emergency stay from Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the circuit justice for the D.C. Circuit, to keep Lifetime from again airing a scene in which a four-year-old Hillary uses dolls to show Froning and David Corwin the alleged abuse. Rehnquist denied the request on April 12.

PBS's Frontline aired an updated version of the documentary later that month. Eric's lawyer persuaded them to shorten the footage of Hilary with the dolls and in some cases paraphrase her rather than include audio. Los Angeles Times television critic Howard Rosenberg faulted the documentary both for including the sensitive footage of Hillary and for strongly implying that Eric had abused her, a narrative that Rosenberg felt to be without evidence. Megan Rosenfeld in The Washington Post dismissed Eric's lawyer's claim that the footage with the dolls might be obscene under U.S. law, arguing that they did not appeal to the prurient interest. Rosenfeld pointed to the tapes of Hilary at issue as potentially the most interesting part of the film. She characterized Morgan as condescending and Foretich as unconvincing in his denials, concluding, that while many viewers had already made their minds up, "[t]hose still on the fence ... may find themselves leaning toward Morgan. Or at the very least, toward Hilary".

In 1992, Lewin won Ellen a $200,000 settlement from Lifetime, to be paid on her 18th birthday.

Elizabeth Morgan Act
As the Morgans remained in New Zealand, unwilling to return to the United States due to Dixon's standing order, members of Congress began moving toward a second legislative intervention in the case. In March 1995, Ellen wrote a letter to Tom Davis, William's representative in the House; William spoke with him as well. Davis began pursuing legislation the next month. In December, Elizabeth was hospitalized with ulcerative colitis. She underwent a colectomy and was told she would need a year to recover and two more surgeries. The following month, Frank Wolf, who had introduced the act to free Elizabeth in 1989, announced legislation to intervene again on her behalf, alongside fellow Repubicans Davis and Connie Morella. The legal scholar Jonathan Turley announced in advance that he would try to block any legislation, which he argued would be unconstitutional.

The three continued to advocate for legislation in the following months, during which time William died, Ellen turned 14, and Eric retained Turley as counsel. In September, having failed to pass the bill on its own, Wolf introduced an amendment to the 1997 transportation bill that would strip jurisdiction over the case from the D.C. court system. Some from both parties expressed hesitation, but leadership added the rider on September 13 after Wolf threatened to delay passage of the entire bill. Six days later, the measure passed both houses of Congress overwhelmingly. After the full transportation bill passed the House, the so-called "Morgan law" (later sometimes called the Elizabeth Morgan Act) was enacted by Bill Clinton's pen on October 7.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s non-voting House delegate, opposed the act as a violation of the principle of D.C. home rule and called it "an insult to the district". The D.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the notion of Congress "step[ping] in and second-guess[ing] a court on a particular case". Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner criticized the procedural tactic used and called the law "the poster child for the line-item veto". Wolf, citing the Bible, defended his actions as motivated by humanitarian concerns.

Impact
Lawyer and journalist Jonathan Groner, in the 1991 non-fiction book Hilary's Trial: The Elizabeth Morgan Case: A Child's Ordeal in America's Legal System, describes the Morgan case as "the most publicized custody case of the decade, if not the century", with a "length, expense, and intensity" that were "almost unparalleled in American legal history."

No member of the Morgan or Foretich families was ever charged with a crime in relation to the dispute. Laura Blumenfeld of The Washington Post assessed in 1994:"The truth may no longer even exist, reality having long ago been overtaken by perceptions. To many, Elizabeth Morgan came across as an unpleasant woman: vindictive, manipulative, messianic. But wouldn't any mother—convinced that such an unspeakable betrayal had taken place—behave just like that? The father seemed evasive, creepy, cold, filled with aggressive fury. But wouldn't any father—wrongly accused of raping a child—behave just like that?"

Groner published Hillary's Trial while the Morgans were still in New Zealand. He wrote in its introduction that while he began with a bias in Elizabeth Morgan's favor, he eventually became convinced that Eric Foretich was probably innocent, while acknowledging that it was impossible to know for sure; he concluded, "Ultimately, though, this is Hilary's story. And Hilary is ultimately the loser."