User:Akieken/sandbox

Reeves adoption: Atty. Godwin, as the adoption agency attorney, represented [???] in the adoption of. The adoption was challenged in the Greenville South Carolina Family Court, [trial court ???t Reeves, the birth father, had made sufficient efforts, the South Carolina Supreme Court, and finally the U.S. Supreme Court. Atty. Godwin was not involved in any of these court cases.

“The South Carolina Supreme Court found that the adoption agency did not actually instruct the mother to reject support from the Petitioner." This was the only aspect in which Attorney Godwin’s actions were addressed by either court. Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruled that it was irrelevant whether or not the birth mother was advised not to take the money, and that the key issue was her actions: “Whether her actions were based on actual advice…is irrelevant, as they both [reasons] have the same effect as far as the Petitioner is concerned.” [9] Atty. Godwin was not an attorney of record in either the Family Court or Supreme Court hearing relating to this case.

This custody case was undoubtedly complex, with strong feelings on both sides, and it highlights difficulties that can arise in establishing parental rights. In determining custody, both the South Carolina Family Court and South Carolina Supreme Court hearings focused on the whether the birth father “demonstrate[d] his full commitment to the responsibilities of parenthood.” The Family Court took into account the regular visitation of the birth father with the child, while the Supreme Court considered only the inconsistent monetary contributions of the birth father. [10]

Neither Court came to a unanimous decision, as the members of the Courts themselves could not agree what the final ruling should be. Even these highly trained and experienced judges did not see this as a straightforward case with straightforward answers. The Family Court determined in a non-unanimous ruling that the birth father demonstrated full commitment to the child. The S.C. Supreme Court overturned the Family Court decision, again in a non-unanimous verdict. [11] It is difficult to comprehend the disparate conclusions of the two Courts, based as they were on the same law, but with very different interpretations of that law.

Re: baby Veronica The court overturned a lower court decision Tuesday, not granting the couple an adoption, but rather, throwing out a lower court decisions awarding custody to the father.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a lower court order requiring a South Carolina couple to turn over a young girl they had raised since birth to her biological father simply because he was an American Indian.

By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled in favor of Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who had been caring for the girl they named Veronica until a family court ordered them to turn her over to her biological father Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation.

Brown had argued that the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, intended to curb practices that caused many Native American children to be separated from their families, entitled him to custody of the girl, who was 3/256th Cherokee.

He took custody at the end of 2011 when the girl was just over 2 years old, and South Carolina's highest court later upheld his custody.

But conservative Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the Supreme Court majority, concluded that the law did not bar the termination of Brown's parental rights.

"Under the State Supreme Court's reading," Alito wrote, "a biological Indian father could abandon his child in utero and refuse any support for the birth mother ... and then could play his ICWA trump card at the eleventh hour to override the mother's decision and the child's best interests," Alito wrote. "If this were possible, many prospective adoptive parents would surely pause before adopting any child who might possibly qualify as an Indian under the ICWA."

The Supreme Court did not grant the couple an adoption, but threw out the South Carolina court decisions awarding custody to the father.

The court returned the case to the South Carolina state courts for further proceedings. ref: http://news.msn.com/us/supreme-court-rules-for-couple-in-baby-girls-adoption