The Supreme Court on Tuesday quashed a court decision which ordered a couple to turn over a girl they had raised since birth to her biological father because he was a Native American.
In an emotionally wrenching case, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who adopted a girl they named Veronica as a baby and cared for her until South Carolina granted her father custody in 2011.
Dusten Brown, the girl’s father and a member of the Cherokee Nation, had agreed to the adoption during the pregnancy before later changing his mind and launching a legal bid for custody.
Brown sought to regain custody of his biological daughter under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978, legislation which had been set out to prevent Native American children being split up from their families.
However Justice Samuel Alito said the legislation should not offer blanket protection to biological parents such as Brown.
“Under the State Supreme Court’s reading, 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.”
“When an Indian parent abandons an Indian child prior to birth and that child has never been in the Indian parent’s legal or physical custody, there is no relationship to be discontinued and no effective entity to be ended by terminating the Indian parent’s rights.”
The Supreme Court did not grant custody of Veronica, now three, to the Capobiancos but sent the case back to South Carolina’s courts for further hearings.
The Capobiancos’ lawyer Lisa Blatt had called the situation “absurd” and “Kafkaesque” in arguments before the Supreme Court in April. The couple’s legal challenge was also supported by the girl’s biological mother.
Parents win thorny Supreme Court adoption case
