Daddy, why did you go?
by Glen C Schulz
Dad, we saw you drive by the house today, Mom had made us go out and play.She's been mad at us lately but why I can't say. Daddy, why did you go away?
My son, I love you with all of my heart and being away just tears me apart. Waving was all I could do as I drove by, I was trying so hard not to cry.
But Dad, I heard Mom tell someone that we're in her way; could you please come home and stay? I promise that we won't be mad, if you will just come back to us Dad.
My dearest child, it was your Mother that sent me away; Oh Jesus Christ, just what should I say? Your Mother loves you and it will all be okay, she's just confused and won't let me come home to stay.
But Dad, each night you read us a story and tucked us in; last night we watched Mom drink from a bottle of gin. Dad please come home, we promise that we'll be good. We are both so very sad, Mom told us you left 'cause we were bad. We're sorry Dad.
Son, you're not the reason that I went away and if I was allowed, I'd come home today. You've done nothing wrong and I'm so sorry to see, the hurt in your eyes because you miss me.
Honey, my child, my reason to be, Your Mother loves you, can't you see? Of that you can be sure, you don't need to worry. And if she would let me I'd be home in a hurry. Please give Mommy some time and give her some space, and please take care of your sister. I miss you all so very much, but please... don't tell Mommy I miss her.
She will say I'm using you to cause and stir up trouble, and she'll go file another false charge; she'll do it on the double. My son, let things calm down and you both be good, right now things are in tatters. If we give Mommy time and give her some space, she may realize what matters.
I love you both more than life itself. Daddy
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Screaming in silence-For all of the mothers and fathers that for whatever reason don't get to see their children this Christmas.
Screaming in silence.
by Glen C Schulz
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Rated "G" by the Author.
For all of the mothers and fathers that for whatever reason don't get to see their children this Christmas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Screaming in silence.
As some sing along to Christmas carols and others go on a shopping spree,
There are those who are the actors, alone and screaming silently.
While we laugh and tease the children asking if they've been bad or good,
There are many parents that are alone, in empty solitude.
At work they seem to be just fine and they will laugh and play,
But inside they know that they will be alone on one more Christmas day.
All they want for Christmas is to see their kids again,
for some it's been so very long they can't remember when.
And so they lie and weave a web of how busy they will be,
but they won't bother to decorate, or even buy a tree.
Another Christmas and the gifts are sent and yet again they will not see,
the happy faces of their kids, nor the gifts under the tree.
by Glen C Schulz
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Rated "G" by the Author.
For all of the mothers and fathers that for whatever reason don't get to see their children this Christmas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Screaming in silence.
As some sing along to Christmas carols and others go on a shopping spree,
There are those who are the actors, alone and screaming silently.
While we laugh and tease the children asking if they've been bad or good,
There are many parents that are alone, in empty solitude.
At work they seem to be just fine and they will laugh and play,
But inside they know that they will be alone on one more Christmas day.
All they want for Christmas is to see their kids again,
for some it's been so very long they can't remember when.
And so they lie and weave a web of how busy they will be,
but they won't bother to decorate, or even buy a tree.
Another Christmas and the gifts are sent and yet again they will not see,
the happy faces of their kids, nor the gifts under the tree.
Parental Rights too Easily Revoked
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Parental rights too easily revoked
I am writing in response to David Johnson’s letter to the editor as to bills filed to remove a judge and a marital master.
Johnson was quite correct in his letter and many of the citizens of New Hampshire, as well as people from other states, are quite happy to see our Legislature is working toward helping families torn apart by the corruption of DCYF and our judicial system.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats are safe from this corruption. Our children and families lives are at stake. It’s about time someone within our government held DCYF and judges accountable for the illegal practices used against families in the taking of their children.
There is no judicial accountability or lawyer accountability in this state. Judges and lawyers side with their own, as well as DCYF.
My grandson has been placed in a pre-adoptive home, scheduled to be adopted in December. From what I’ve been told, he’s in the same foster home where he was first placed. He’s been put on Adderall since then to calm down his newly found violent behavior.
The administrator in Concord stated in an e-mail to the Administrative Appeals unit that my grandson’s name has been changed. To change a child’s name before he’s adopted is illegal, yet when does DCYF follow the law? They don’t and neither do the probate court judges.
The judges write the opposite of testimony heard in court in their decisions and the Supreme Court goes right along with them, separating children from their families forever. I know this for a fact.
A DCYF worker told my husband and I that parental rights terminations in New Hampshire are never reversed. I myself haven’t seen this happen. She also told us our government gave them the power to do whatever they want to do, no matter how many children they traumatize and families they tear apart.
Do the Supreme Court judges really believe that these probate judges or even District Court judges are perfect? That they are always right? Or is it just a matter of siding with their own?
Something is definitely wrong with the judicial system. I don’t understand how our government can stand by and let this happen to its own people – the people who voted them into office.
I pray the petitions filed can straighten out this mess.
Dorothy Knightly
Nashua
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/opinion/letters/496741-263/parental-rightstoo-easily-revoked.html
I am writing in response to David Johnson’s letter to the editor as to bills filed to remove a judge and a marital master.
Johnson was quite correct in his letter and many of the citizens of New Hampshire, as well as people from other states, are quite happy to see our Legislature is working toward helping families torn apart by the corruption of DCYF and our judicial system.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats are safe from this corruption. Our children and families lives are at stake. It’s about time someone within our government held DCYF and judges accountable for the illegal practices used against families in the taking of their children.
There is no judicial accountability or lawyer accountability in this state. Judges and lawyers side with their own, as well as DCYF.
My grandson has been placed in a pre-adoptive home, scheduled to be adopted in December. From what I’ve been told, he’s in the same foster home where he was first placed. He’s been put on Adderall since then to calm down his newly found violent behavior.
The administrator in Concord stated in an e-mail to the Administrative Appeals unit that my grandson’s name has been changed. To change a child’s name before he’s adopted is illegal, yet when does DCYF follow the law? They don’t and neither do the probate court judges.
The judges write the opposite of testimony heard in court in their decisions and the Supreme Court goes right along with them, separating children from their families forever. I know this for a fact.
A DCYF worker told my husband and I that parental rights terminations in New Hampshire are never reversed. I myself haven’t seen this happen. She also told us our government gave them the power to do whatever they want to do, no matter how many children they traumatize and families they tear apart.
Do the Supreme Court judges really believe that these probate judges or even District Court judges are perfect? That they are always right? Or is it just a matter of siding with their own?
Something is definitely wrong with the judicial system. I don’t understand how our government can stand by and let this happen to its own people – the people who voted them into office.
I pray the petitions filed can straighten out this mess.
Dorothy Knightly
Nashua
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/opinion/letters/496741-263/parental-rightstoo-easily-revoked.html
State investigates mental health policy
State investigates mental health policy
The Associated Press
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 20, 2009 - 12:00 am
The Department of Health and Human Services has finished investigating a policy that allows young children with mental illnesses to be transferred to a state hospital unit that serves teenagers and adults.
Advocates for children have questioned whether the policy harmed two boys ages 6 and 12 who spent parts of two nights in the adult unit last week under a policy that allows such transfers if the number of patients at the Philbrook Center for children drops below four.
Health and Human Services Commissioner Nick Toumpas told New Hampshire Public Radio that he didn't know anything about the transfer until he read about it in the newspaper. He says he will review the investigation next week and work with those involved to decide what the policy should be going forward.
This article is: 3 days old.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091220/NEWS01/912200364
The Associated Press
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 20, 2009 - 12:00 am
The Department of Health and Human Services has finished investigating a policy that allows young children with mental illnesses to be transferred to a state hospital unit that serves teenagers and adults.
Advocates for children have questioned whether the policy harmed two boys ages 6 and 12 who spent parts of two nights in the adult unit last week under a policy that allows such transfers if the number of patients at the Philbrook Center for children drops below four.
Health and Human Services Commissioner Nick Toumpas told New Hampshire Public Radio that he didn't know anything about the transfer until he read about it in the newspaper. He says he will review the investigation next week and work with those involved to decide what the policy should be going forward.
This article is: 3 days old.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091220/NEWS01/912200364
Rights group questions children's care (NH)
Rights group questions children's care
12-, 6-year-old kept with adults, teens
By ANNMARIE TIMMINS
Monitor staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 16, 2009 - 12:00 am
The state hospital is temporarily housing its youngest mentally disabled students with adult and adolescent patients because there are too few kids to justify keeping them in their own quarters at the Anna Philbrook Center for Children, a hospital official said yesterday.
The decision prompted the Disability Rights Center to contact the New Hampshire Hospital yesterday with concerns about the children's well-being and care, said Richard Cohen, the DRC's executive director.
Philbrook is a school and therapeutic center on the state hospital grounds for kids between 4 and 14 years old who have moderate to severe mental disabilities. There is room for 25 kids, but yesterday there were just two, said Jamie Dall, director of financial and support services. One is 6 years old, the other about 12.
The hospital has a policy based on nursing standards, Dall said, to relocate the Philbrook kids to the other unit when enrollment falls below four students. That way, the staff typically assigned to Philbrook can be reassigned to other shifts in the hospital, he said.
This week, the two kids assigned to Philbrook have spent their days at the center, taking classes, meeting with their families and participating in counseling, Dall said. In the early evening, they go to the adolescent and adult unit of the hospital and remain there under close supervision until morning, he said.
When the hospital admits two more children, Philbrook will return to its normal schedule, Dall said. "There is no plan to close Philbrook," he added.
In the meantime, the Disability Rights Center has asked the hospital for the names of the children's parents or guardians to make sure the two kids there now are not being neglected or harmed by sharing space with adolescent and adult patients, Cohen said.
"We are concerned," he said. "We are looking to determine whether or not this is based on clinical needs or budgetary or administrative needs. This is unusual for Philbrook to be closed down. And it's very unusual for young children to be placed in an adolescent-adult unit at the hospital."
Dall said the hospital did not merge the young kids with the adolescent-adult unit to save money. The hospital still heats the Philbrook Center, and the staff still reports to work, Dall said. But there is a savings: With the young kids relocated for the evening, the hospital can use the Philbrook staff to fill shift vacancies elsewhere in the hospital, Dall said.
Children are admitted to the Philbrook Center voluntarily or by a court-ordered involuntary admission. And it's unusual for Philbrook to have so few students, Dall said.
Two weekends ago, there were 15 students at Philbrook. Last week, there were 11, he said. But at day's end on Friday, there was no one due to spend the night at the center, he said.
There was an attempted admission of a 6-year-old over the weekend, but due to "confusion," that admission did not happen, Dall said. He did not know the specifics. The parents of that child brought the child in Monday, and the child remained there as of yesterday, Dall said.
"As a general rule, we have to staff for the worst because we don't know who is going to come in at 2 or 3 in the morning," he said.
Dall said the two children who are spending the evenings and nights with the older patients are being kept at the far end of the adolescent wing, with close supervision.
The adolescent and adult wings are connected, but there is a nursing desk where they intersect, and the populations are kept apart, he said.
This article is: 7 days old.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091216/FRONTPAGE/912160301
12-, 6-year-old kept with adults, teens
By ANNMARIE TIMMINS
Monitor staff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 16, 2009 - 12:00 am
The state hospital is temporarily housing its youngest mentally disabled students with adult and adolescent patients because there are too few kids to justify keeping them in their own quarters at the Anna Philbrook Center for Children, a hospital official said yesterday.
The decision prompted the Disability Rights Center to contact the New Hampshire Hospital yesterday with concerns about the children's well-being and care, said Richard Cohen, the DRC's executive director.
Philbrook is a school and therapeutic center on the state hospital grounds for kids between 4 and 14 years old who have moderate to severe mental disabilities. There is room for 25 kids, but yesterday there were just two, said Jamie Dall, director of financial and support services. One is 6 years old, the other about 12.
The hospital has a policy based on nursing standards, Dall said, to relocate the Philbrook kids to the other unit when enrollment falls below four students. That way, the staff typically assigned to Philbrook can be reassigned to other shifts in the hospital, he said.
This week, the two kids assigned to Philbrook have spent their days at the center, taking classes, meeting with their families and participating in counseling, Dall said. In the early evening, they go to the adolescent and adult unit of the hospital and remain there under close supervision until morning, he said.
When the hospital admits two more children, Philbrook will return to its normal schedule, Dall said. "There is no plan to close Philbrook," he added.
In the meantime, the Disability Rights Center has asked the hospital for the names of the children's parents or guardians to make sure the two kids there now are not being neglected or harmed by sharing space with adolescent and adult patients, Cohen said.
"We are concerned," he said. "We are looking to determine whether or not this is based on clinical needs or budgetary or administrative needs. This is unusual for Philbrook to be closed down. And it's very unusual for young children to be placed in an adolescent-adult unit at the hospital."
Dall said the hospital did not merge the young kids with the adolescent-adult unit to save money. The hospital still heats the Philbrook Center, and the staff still reports to work, Dall said. But there is a savings: With the young kids relocated for the evening, the hospital can use the Philbrook staff to fill shift vacancies elsewhere in the hospital, Dall said.
Children are admitted to the Philbrook Center voluntarily or by a court-ordered involuntary admission. And it's unusual for Philbrook to have so few students, Dall said.
Two weekends ago, there were 15 students at Philbrook. Last week, there were 11, he said. But at day's end on Friday, there was no one due to spend the night at the center, he said.
There was an attempted admission of a 6-year-old over the weekend, but due to "confusion," that admission did not happen, Dall said. He did not know the specifics. The parents of that child brought the child in Monday, and the child remained there as of yesterday, Dall said.
"As a general rule, we have to staff for the worst because we don't know who is going to come in at 2 or 3 in the morning," he said.
Dall said the two children who are spending the evenings and nights with the older patients are being kept at the far end of the adolescent wing, with close supervision.
The adolescent and adult wings are connected, but there is a nursing desk where they intersect, and the populations are kept apart, he said.
This article is: 7 days old.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091216/FRONTPAGE/912160301
Officials study children's stay at adult psychiatric unit
Officials study children's stay at adult psychiatric unit
By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief
6 hours, 50 minutes ago
CONCORD – A report on how two children were sent to an adult psychiatric unit two weeks ago has yet to make it to the desk of Health and Human Services Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas.
HHS spokesman Kris Neilsen said yesterday a report has been completed, but Toumpas has not yet seen it. A short-lived policy that called for children to be moved from a children's facility when patient count was low has been rescinded.
"He plans to take a good hard look at the report when he gets it," Neilsen said.
She said the delay does not indicate a lack of interest on Toumpas's part.
"He has a lot of on his plate. This issue is a priority and he wants to give it the time it deserves, once he has an opportunity to review it in depth," she said.
On the weekend of Dec. 12, children aged 6 and 12 were transferred for two nights from the Philbrook Center, which is meant to handle children with severe emotional and behavioral disturbances.
They were placed on a ward at New Hampshire Hospital meant for adolescents and young adults. Each was accompanied by a mental health worker for the entire time they were at the hospital, HHS has said. They were at the hospital overnight, but returned to Philbrook for day programs.
HHS has said the children were kept apart from other patients at the adult facility, known as the F Unit. Their transfer was made based on a decision, made just days before, to empty the Philbrook Center when the number of patients there dropped to three, according to HHS officials. Philbrook can handle up to 20 children. HHS stopped the practice when the children's transfers became public.
The incident has drawn the attention of Richard Cohen, director of the Disabilities Rights Center, and Rep. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, the chairman of the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee.
Cohen said he doesn't know how it could be considered appropriate to have a child on an adult ward for psychiatric patients. He said he is waiting to read through the HHS report before deciding his next step.
"We're going to do a full investigation," he said. "We'll review their report and see if we think this needs further inquiry."
Cohen said he suggested to Toumpas and his staff areas that the report ought to cover. He said they include a description of the process that led to the decision to make the transfers, the names of officials involved, "and other legitimate questions any good investigation should cover."
Rosenwald said she, too, is waiting to see the finished report. At this point, she said she's confident the review will be thorough.
"I have spoken with the department and the department is, I think, diligently looking into it," she said. "I think they've been responsive. I think they were wise to rescind the practice even though they hadn't finished the review."
Rosenwald said she has been told that a treatment team that included a psychiatrist made the decision to move the two youngsters.
Rosenwald said that since Philbrook staffers accompanied the two children throughout their stay at the hospital, it may not have saved any money.
"I don't see what the benefit to doing it was in the first place," she said.
© 2009, Union Leader Corporation. All rights reserved.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. © 1997-2009.
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Officials+study+children%27s+stay+at+adult+psychiatric+unit&articleId=f23ffc9d-77d8-4b9a-9128-dd8625bc07bb
By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief
6 hours, 50 minutes ago
CONCORD – A report on how two children were sent to an adult psychiatric unit two weeks ago has yet to make it to the desk of Health and Human Services Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas.
HHS spokesman Kris Neilsen said yesterday a report has been completed, but Toumpas has not yet seen it. A short-lived policy that called for children to be moved from a children's facility when patient count was low has been rescinded.
"He plans to take a good hard look at the report when he gets it," Neilsen said.
She said the delay does not indicate a lack of interest on Toumpas's part.
"He has a lot of on his plate. This issue is a priority and he wants to give it the time it deserves, once he has an opportunity to review it in depth," she said.
On the weekend of Dec. 12, children aged 6 and 12 were transferred for two nights from the Philbrook Center, which is meant to handle children with severe emotional and behavioral disturbances.
They were placed on a ward at New Hampshire Hospital meant for adolescents and young adults. Each was accompanied by a mental health worker for the entire time they were at the hospital, HHS has said. They were at the hospital overnight, but returned to Philbrook for day programs.
HHS has said the children were kept apart from other patients at the adult facility, known as the F Unit. Their transfer was made based on a decision, made just days before, to empty the Philbrook Center when the number of patients there dropped to three, according to HHS officials. Philbrook can handle up to 20 children. HHS stopped the practice when the children's transfers became public.
The incident has drawn the attention of Richard Cohen, director of the Disabilities Rights Center, and Rep. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, the chairman of the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee.
Cohen said he doesn't know how it could be considered appropriate to have a child on an adult ward for psychiatric patients. He said he is waiting to read through the HHS report before deciding his next step.
"We're going to do a full investigation," he said. "We'll review their report and see if we think this needs further inquiry."
Cohen said he suggested to Toumpas and his staff areas that the report ought to cover. He said they include a description of the process that led to the decision to make the transfers, the names of officials involved, "and other legitimate questions any good investigation should cover."
Rosenwald said she, too, is waiting to see the finished report. At this point, she said she's confident the review will be thorough.
"I have spoken with the department and the department is, I think, diligently looking into it," she said. "I think they've been responsive. I think they were wise to rescind the practice even though they hadn't finished the review."
Rosenwald said she has been told that a treatment team that included a psychiatrist made the decision to move the two youngsters.
Rosenwald said that since Philbrook staffers accompanied the two children throughout their stay at the hospital, it may not have saved any money.
"I don't see what the benefit to doing it was in the first place," she said.
© 2009, Union Leader Corporation. All rights reserved.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. © 1997-2009.
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Officials+study+children%27s+stay+at+adult+psychiatric+unit&articleId=f23ffc9d-77d8-4b9a-9128-dd8625bc07bb
Can Unwed Fathers Block Adoptions? (What about a fictitious Mans Rights Being terminated?)
Can Unwed Fathers Block Adoptions? (Not in N.H., Rights are terminated to fictitious men and the real father's are not allowed custody or even paternity tests.)Navigating a Tricky Legal Terrain
By JOANNA L. GROSSMAN
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
When can an unwed father's biological child be adopted without his consent? In a recent ruling, the Nebraska Supreme Court held that the state's statutory scheme for determining the rights of unwed fathers was unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiff before them – an unwed father who had not been adjudicated to be a legal father, but who had maintained a longstanding familial relationship with the child.
Unwed fathers in most states do not have the same rights as unwed mothers vis-à-vis their children. Their parental rights turn not just on biology, but also on whether they have carried out the obligations of fatherhood and, in some situations, whether they have complied with technical legal requirements necessary to establish their status. The Nebraska case, In re Corbin J., reveals the limitations of this approach to determining legal fatherhood.
In re Adoption of Corbin J.: The Facts
The recent Nebraska case involves a child, Corbin J., who was born to Rusti M. in 1999. John J. is named as the father on Corbin's birth certificate, and no one disputes that John J. is, indeed, the child's biological father. Rusti and John never married, but, for the first three years of Corbin's life, the three lived together as a family. In 2002, however, Rusti took Corbin and left the house, leaving no indication of their whereabouts.
Shortly after leaving, Rusti filed a court action seeking to establish John's paternity, to get full custody of Corbin, and to impose a child support order on John. The trial court issued a temporary order granting custody to her and visitation to John, and ordering John to pay child support. For a little more than a year, John exercised his visitation rights and paid child support. During that time, Rusti married another man, Ilja M.
In July 2003, the court dismissed Rusti's paternity action for lack of prosecution (Rusti, in other words, had not taken all the steps necessary to pursue the petition.) After that ruling, John stopped paying child support for Corbin, though he continued paying for Corbin's health insurance.
In September 2003, Rusti did not arrive at the time and location where John usually picked up Corbin for visitation. Moreover, John claims that Rusti's phone had been disconnected and he had no way of knowing how to track them down. For five years, John had no contact with Corbin. He says he could not find them; she says he knew the location and phone number of her family's ranch and could easily have found them.
John received a legal notice in September 2008 informing him that Ilja, Rusti's husband, was planning to file a petition to adopt Corbin. The lawyer representing Rusti and Ilja sent John the forms necessary to relinquish his parental rights and to make Corbin available for adoption by his stepfather. However, John did not sign the forms and filed a formal objection to the adoption once the petition was formally filed in January 2009.
Over John's objection, the adoption was granted.
Background on the Rights of Unwed Fathers
The issue on appeal before the Nebraska Supreme Court is whether the trial court correctly treated John as a "putative" father – one who was without standing to object to the adoption because he had failed to properly exercise his rights – or whether the Constitution requires that John's rights vis-à-vis Corbin be more robustly protected.
A little background on adoption law and unwed fathers' rights is necessary to understand the choice before the court:
As a general rule, a child is available for adoption when its biological parents have surrendered their parental rights or had them terminated. An adoption has the effect of severing the legal ties between the child and his biological parents, and establishing a new parent-child relationship with the adoptive parents.
In the context of a stepparent adoption, a child can retain legal ties to one biological parent, while being adopted by that parent's spouse. But here's the hitch: A child cannot have three legal parents, so, before a stepparent adoption can proceed, the child's other biological parent must be out of the picture, legally speaking. Stepparent adoptions can thus take place when the other legal parent has died, has had parental rights terminated, has relinquished parental rights, or, as allegedly occurred in this case, has failed to take the steps necessary to have legal rights as a father in the first place.
Children born out of wedlock were considered the "child of no one" in early American law; as a corollary to this principle, neither unwed mothers nor fathers were legally tied to the child. States changed that rule for mothers during the Nineteenth Century, assigning the same rights and obligations of motherhood regardless of legitimacy. But for unwed fathers, the law's shift was slower and, ultimately, the law stopped short of granting unwed fathers legal rights on par with those of unwed mothers.
By the early Twentieth Century, virtually every state imposed a duty of support on unwed fathers, enforceable through "bastardy" proceedings in civil or criminal court. But the obligation of support came with little or nothing in the way of parental rights for the fathers who desired them. Those rights came later, after a series of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, beginning in the 1970's, that established constitutional protection for the rights of unwed fathers.
In the 1972 case of Stanley v. Illinois, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for Illinois to remove three children from their father when their mother had died, simply because the couple had never married. The law in question presumed unwed fathers to be unfit, and relied upon that presumption to justify the placement of the children in foster care. But the Court said that this categorical denial of parental rights for unwed fathers violated the Due Process Clause, which had been interpreted to provide strong protection for the right of parents to control the care and upbringing of their children. In another case, Trimble v. Gordon, the Court struck down a law categorically denying illegitimate children the right to inherit from unwed fathers.
States responded to these cases by eliminating most of the categorical rules regarding unwed fathers. But rather than equalize the rights of unwed mothers (who were automatically given the full benefit of a parent-child relationship) and unwed fathers, most states adopted a compromise approach that gave full rights to unwed fathers only if they had satisfied certain criteria.
Under a typical law, an unwed father could earn full parental rights through marriage to a child's mother, being named on a birth certificate, being adjudicated the biological father, or living openly with the child and its mother. Most states also set up a "putative father registry," which would permit men who registered to be notified of proposed adoptions or other actions regarding their children.
Can Unwed Fathers Refuse to Allow Their Children to be Adopted by Another Man?
In two subsequent cases, the Supreme Court addressed the specific right that is at issue in Corbin J. – the right of unwed fathers to veto a proposed adoption. In the 1979 case of Caban v. Mohammad, the Court struck down a New York law that gave unwed mothers, but not unwed fathers, the right to consent to (or veto) an adoption of their child.
The trial court in that case had permitted two children to be adopted by their stepfather without the consent of their biological father. The children were 8 and 10 years old when the adoption was proposed and had lived with both biological parents during their early years of life.
The Court rejected the idea of "any universal difference between maternal and paternal relations at every phase of a child's development," insisting that unwed mothers and fathers be treated equally with regard to children with whom they had an existing relationship. However, it left open the question whether unwed mothers and fathers necessarily deserved equal treatment with respect to infants, with whom they had not yet developed a relationship.
In 1983, the Court answered that question in Lehr v. Robertson, a case also involving a proposed stepfather adoption. In that case, the child was born in New York, which maintained a putative father registry. The child's biological father, Jonathan, was not listed in the registry, but he filed an objection to the proposed adoption of his daughter by his stepdaughter once he learned of the proceedings. He argued that a putative father's "actual or potential relationship" with a non-marital child is protected by the Due Process Clause, and also challenged the statute for providing greater procedural rights to unwed mothers than unwed fathers.
The Court, however, upheld New York's statutory scheme and its bypassing of Jonathan's consent to the child's adoption. By not satisfying any of the statutory criteria for legal fatherhood, the Court reasoned, Jonathan had not earned full-blown protection of his parental rights. As the Court wrote, the biological tie "offers the natural father an opportunity that no other male possesses to develop a relationship with his offspring. If he grasps that opportunity and accepts some measure of responsibility for the child's future, he may enjoy the blessings of the parent-child relationship and make uniquely valuable contributions to the child's development. If he fails to do so, the Federal Constitution will not automatically compel a state to listen to his opinion of where the child's best interests lie."
The Nebraska Supreme Court's Ruling in In re Corbin J.
Like most states, Nebraska has a somewhat technical scheme for dealing with the rights of unwed fathers. An adjudicated father – one who has been determined to be the father by a court of law – must give his consent in order for an adoption to proceed. A mere "putative father," however, has less solid rights.
To have standing to object to an adoption, a putative father must file a "Notice of Objection to Adoption and Intent to Obtain Custody" with the state's registry within five days of the child's birth or of receiving notice of a proposed adoption. The putative father's failure to do so entitles the mother to request a certificate of non-compliance; and that certificate eliminates the need for the father's consent to an adoption. A putative father, in other words, loses his standing to object to adoption unless he makes the timely filing required by the statute.
In the Nebraska Supreme Court case, John argued that he was an adjudicated father, but he lost on this claim. Although Rusti had brought a paternity action against him, the court had issued only a temporary order before the suit was dismissed for lack of prosecution. His paternity was therefore never "adjudicated" in a final court order.
As a putative father, John had to jump through an additional hoop in order to gain standing to object to the adoption. But he did not file the requisite "Notice of Objection" within five days of learning of the Ilja's proposed adoption of Corbin. He did make his objection clear, but not until the petition to adopt was actually filed, six months later, and not in the right technical form. Under the Nebraska code, his failure to make the appropriate filing in a timely manner means, ultimately, that his "consent shall not be required" for the proposed adoption.
The Nebraska Supreme Court, however, ruled that the statutory scheme was unconstitutional as applied to John. The constitutional violation, in the court's view, arose from the fact that John both was Corbin's biological father and had "established a familial relationship" with him. These two factors, the court reasoned, were enough to trigger constitutional protection for John's parental rights – per the U.S. Supreme Court's precedents on unwed fathers' rights.
Those cases, discussed above, distinguish between biological fathers who have developed a parent-child relationship with the child at issue and those who have not. To the extent that the putative father laws do not reflect that distinction, the Nebraska court held, they cannot be constitutionally applied. Here, John's longstanding relationship with Corbin was disregarded completely in the Nebraska lower-court proceedings; his parental rights were effectively severed because of his mere failure to file a simple form, just as they would have been had he never laid eyes on Corbin.
The Right Ruling; Unwed Fathers Deserve Rights When they Shoulder Commitments
The court in Corbin J. was right to stand up for the rights of unwed fathers – or at least this particular one. The putative father registries, which determine rights for unwed fathers in many states, are seldom used. Thus, there may be many men like John who are both biological and functional fathers, and yet are deprived of parental rights by technicalities. Balancing the rights of unwed fathers with adoption procedures and their goals can be tricky, but the Nebraska court was right here to side with John. Although there may well be good reasons to distinguish legally between unwed fathers and mothers in some cases, men who, like John, have acted as a father – and carried out the concomitant obligations – ought to see the benefits of that status as well.
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Joanna Grossman, a FindLaw columnist, is a professor of law and John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar at Hofstra University. She is the coeditor of Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press 2009), an interdisciplinary collection that explores the gaps between formal commitments to gender equality and the reality of women's lives. Her columns on family law, trusts and estates, and discrimination, including sex discrimination and sexual harassment, may be found in the archive of her columns on this site.
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By JOANNA L. GROSSMAN
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
When can an unwed father's biological child be adopted without his consent? In a recent ruling, the Nebraska Supreme Court held that the state's statutory scheme for determining the rights of unwed fathers was unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiff before them – an unwed father who had not been adjudicated to be a legal father, but who had maintained a longstanding familial relationship with the child.
Unwed fathers in most states do not have the same rights as unwed mothers vis-à-vis their children. Their parental rights turn not just on biology, but also on whether they have carried out the obligations of fatherhood and, in some situations, whether they have complied with technical legal requirements necessary to establish their status. The Nebraska case, In re Corbin J., reveals the limitations of this approach to determining legal fatherhood.
In re Adoption of Corbin J.: The Facts
The recent Nebraska case involves a child, Corbin J., who was born to Rusti M. in 1999. John J. is named as the father on Corbin's birth certificate, and no one disputes that John J. is, indeed, the child's biological father. Rusti and John never married, but, for the first three years of Corbin's life, the three lived together as a family. In 2002, however, Rusti took Corbin and left the house, leaving no indication of their whereabouts.
Shortly after leaving, Rusti filed a court action seeking to establish John's paternity, to get full custody of Corbin, and to impose a child support order on John. The trial court issued a temporary order granting custody to her and visitation to John, and ordering John to pay child support. For a little more than a year, John exercised his visitation rights and paid child support. During that time, Rusti married another man, Ilja M.
In July 2003, the court dismissed Rusti's paternity action for lack of prosecution (Rusti, in other words, had not taken all the steps necessary to pursue the petition.) After that ruling, John stopped paying child support for Corbin, though he continued paying for Corbin's health insurance.
In September 2003, Rusti did not arrive at the time and location where John usually picked up Corbin for visitation. Moreover, John claims that Rusti's phone had been disconnected and he had no way of knowing how to track them down. For five years, John had no contact with Corbin. He says he could not find them; she says he knew the location and phone number of her family's ranch and could easily have found them.
John received a legal notice in September 2008 informing him that Ilja, Rusti's husband, was planning to file a petition to adopt Corbin. The lawyer representing Rusti and Ilja sent John the forms necessary to relinquish his parental rights and to make Corbin available for adoption by his stepfather. However, John did not sign the forms and filed a formal objection to the adoption once the petition was formally filed in January 2009.
Over John's objection, the adoption was granted.
Background on the Rights of Unwed Fathers
The issue on appeal before the Nebraska Supreme Court is whether the trial court correctly treated John as a "putative" father – one who was without standing to object to the adoption because he had failed to properly exercise his rights – or whether the Constitution requires that John's rights vis-à-vis Corbin be more robustly protected.
A little background on adoption law and unwed fathers' rights is necessary to understand the choice before the court:
As a general rule, a child is available for adoption when its biological parents have surrendered their parental rights or had them terminated. An adoption has the effect of severing the legal ties between the child and his biological parents, and establishing a new parent-child relationship with the adoptive parents.
In the context of a stepparent adoption, a child can retain legal ties to one biological parent, while being adopted by that parent's spouse. But here's the hitch: A child cannot have three legal parents, so, before a stepparent adoption can proceed, the child's other biological parent must be out of the picture, legally speaking. Stepparent adoptions can thus take place when the other legal parent has died, has had parental rights terminated, has relinquished parental rights, or, as allegedly occurred in this case, has failed to take the steps necessary to have legal rights as a father in the first place.
Children born out of wedlock were considered the "child of no one" in early American law; as a corollary to this principle, neither unwed mothers nor fathers were legally tied to the child. States changed that rule for mothers during the Nineteenth Century, assigning the same rights and obligations of motherhood regardless of legitimacy. But for unwed fathers, the law's shift was slower and, ultimately, the law stopped short of granting unwed fathers legal rights on par with those of unwed mothers.
By the early Twentieth Century, virtually every state imposed a duty of support on unwed fathers, enforceable through "bastardy" proceedings in civil or criminal court. But the obligation of support came with little or nothing in the way of parental rights for the fathers who desired them. Those rights came later, after a series of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, beginning in the 1970's, that established constitutional protection for the rights of unwed fathers.
In the 1972 case of Stanley v. Illinois, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for Illinois to remove three children from their father when their mother had died, simply because the couple had never married. The law in question presumed unwed fathers to be unfit, and relied upon that presumption to justify the placement of the children in foster care. But the Court said that this categorical denial of parental rights for unwed fathers violated the Due Process Clause, which had been interpreted to provide strong protection for the right of parents to control the care and upbringing of their children. In another case, Trimble v. Gordon, the Court struck down a law categorically denying illegitimate children the right to inherit from unwed fathers.
States responded to these cases by eliminating most of the categorical rules regarding unwed fathers. But rather than equalize the rights of unwed mothers (who were automatically given the full benefit of a parent-child relationship) and unwed fathers, most states adopted a compromise approach that gave full rights to unwed fathers only if they had satisfied certain criteria.
Under a typical law, an unwed father could earn full parental rights through marriage to a child's mother, being named on a birth certificate, being adjudicated the biological father, or living openly with the child and its mother. Most states also set up a "putative father registry," which would permit men who registered to be notified of proposed adoptions or other actions regarding their children.
Can Unwed Fathers Refuse to Allow Their Children to be Adopted by Another Man?
In two subsequent cases, the Supreme Court addressed the specific right that is at issue in Corbin J. – the right of unwed fathers to veto a proposed adoption. In the 1979 case of Caban v. Mohammad, the Court struck down a New York law that gave unwed mothers, but not unwed fathers, the right to consent to (or veto) an adoption of their child.
The trial court in that case had permitted two children to be adopted by their stepfather without the consent of their biological father. The children were 8 and 10 years old when the adoption was proposed and had lived with both biological parents during their early years of life.
The Court rejected the idea of "any universal difference between maternal and paternal relations at every phase of a child's development," insisting that unwed mothers and fathers be treated equally with regard to children with whom they had an existing relationship. However, it left open the question whether unwed mothers and fathers necessarily deserved equal treatment with respect to infants, with whom they had not yet developed a relationship.
In 1983, the Court answered that question in Lehr v. Robertson, a case also involving a proposed stepfather adoption. In that case, the child was born in New York, which maintained a putative father registry. The child's biological father, Jonathan, was not listed in the registry, but he filed an objection to the proposed adoption of his daughter by his stepdaughter once he learned of the proceedings. He argued that a putative father's "actual or potential relationship" with a non-marital child is protected by the Due Process Clause, and also challenged the statute for providing greater procedural rights to unwed mothers than unwed fathers.
The Court, however, upheld New York's statutory scheme and its bypassing of Jonathan's consent to the child's adoption. By not satisfying any of the statutory criteria for legal fatherhood, the Court reasoned, Jonathan had not earned full-blown protection of his parental rights. As the Court wrote, the biological tie "offers the natural father an opportunity that no other male possesses to develop a relationship with his offspring. If he grasps that opportunity and accepts some measure of responsibility for the child's future, he may enjoy the blessings of the parent-child relationship and make uniquely valuable contributions to the child's development. If he fails to do so, the Federal Constitution will not automatically compel a state to listen to his opinion of where the child's best interests lie."
The Nebraska Supreme Court's Ruling in In re Corbin J.
Like most states, Nebraska has a somewhat technical scheme for dealing with the rights of unwed fathers. An adjudicated father – one who has been determined to be the father by a court of law – must give his consent in order for an adoption to proceed. A mere "putative father," however, has less solid rights.
To have standing to object to an adoption, a putative father must file a "Notice of Objection to Adoption and Intent to Obtain Custody" with the state's registry within five days of the child's birth or of receiving notice of a proposed adoption. The putative father's failure to do so entitles the mother to request a certificate of non-compliance; and that certificate eliminates the need for the father's consent to an adoption. A putative father, in other words, loses his standing to object to adoption unless he makes the timely filing required by the statute.
In the Nebraska Supreme Court case, John argued that he was an adjudicated father, but he lost on this claim. Although Rusti had brought a paternity action against him, the court had issued only a temporary order before the suit was dismissed for lack of prosecution. His paternity was therefore never "adjudicated" in a final court order.
As a putative father, John had to jump through an additional hoop in order to gain standing to object to the adoption. But he did not file the requisite "Notice of Objection" within five days of learning of the Ilja's proposed adoption of Corbin. He did make his objection clear, but not until the petition to adopt was actually filed, six months later, and not in the right technical form. Under the Nebraska code, his failure to make the appropriate filing in a timely manner means, ultimately, that his "consent shall not be required" for the proposed adoption.
The Nebraska Supreme Court, however, ruled that the statutory scheme was unconstitutional as applied to John. The constitutional violation, in the court's view, arose from the fact that John both was Corbin's biological father and had "established a familial relationship" with him. These two factors, the court reasoned, were enough to trigger constitutional protection for John's parental rights – per the U.S. Supreme Court's precedents on unwed fathers' rights.
Those cases, discussed above, distinguish between biological fathers who have developed a parent-child relationship with the child at issue and those who have not. To the extent that the putative father laws do not reflect that distinction, the Nebraska court held, they cannot be constitutionally applied. Here, John's longstanding relationship with Corbin was disregarded completely in the Nebraska lower-court proceedings; his parental rights were effectively severed because of his mere failure to file a simple form, just as they would have been had he never laid eyes on Corbin.
The Right Ruling; Unwed Fathers Deserve Rights When they Shoulder Commitments
The court in Corbin J. was right to stand up for the rights of unwed fathers – or at least this particular one. The putative father registries, which determine rights for unwed fathers in many states, are seldom used. Thus, there may be many men like John who are both biological and functional fathers, and yet are deprived of parental rights by technicalities. Balancing the rights of unwed fathers with adoption procedures and their goals can be tricky, but the Nebraska court was right here to side with John. Although there may well be good reasons to distinguish legally between unwed fathers and mothers in some cases, men who, like John, have acted as a father – and carried out the concomitant obligations – ought to see the benefits of that status as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joanna Grossman, a FindLaw columnist, is a professor of law and John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar at Hofstra University. She is the coeditor of Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press 2009), an interdisciplinary collection that explores the gaps between formal commitments to gender equality and the reality of women's lives. Her columns on family law, trusts and estates, and discrimination, including sex discrimination and sexual harassment, may be found in the archive of her columns on this site.
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