Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl #BabyVeronica

 

Baby V (Cherokee)

Fletcher and Fort’s Rewritten Opinion in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

January 8, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Fletcher and Fort posted “Intimate Choice and Autonomy: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl,” forthcoming in CRITICAL RACE JUDGMENTS (Cambridge Univ. Press, eds. Bennett Capers, Devon Carbado, Robin A. Lenhart, and Angela Onwuachi-Willig) (forthcoming 2021).

As if there was any doubt, we have reached the opposite outcome as the Supreme Court did back in 2013. A few excerpts:

This case is about a little girl (Baby Girl) who is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, like her father, grandparents, and a multitude of generations before her. American Indian tribal citizenship with a federally recognized tribe is a unique concept in American law. E.g., Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 55 (1978) (“[Indian tribes] have power to make their own substantive law in internal matters. . . .”). Tribal citizens are beneficiaries of the federal government’s trust relationship with Indian tribes, and the federal government has promised to tribal citizens for centuries to assist in the maintenance of tribal governments, cultures, and sovereignty. Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515, 556 (1831) (“[The Cherokee treaty], thus explicitly recognizing the national character of the Cherokees, and their right of self government; thus guarantying their lands; assuming the duty of protection, and of course pledging the faith of the United States for that protection; has been frequently renewed, and is now in full force.”).

And:

The ethically dubious acts of the Petitioners in this case extends to this Court’s amici. Several amici invoked the racist dog whistle of referring to the Petitioners as the “only family” Baby Girl has ever known. E.g., Brief for Guardian Ad Litem, as Representative of Respondent Baby Girl, Supporting Reversal at 56 (“Indeed, it is hard to imagine what liberty interest is more important to a 27-month old child than maintaining the only family bonds she has ever known, absent a strong showing of necessity.”) (emphasis added); Brief of Amica Curiae Birth Mother in Support of Petitioners at 3 (“The decision below effectively negated Birth Mother’s decision to place Baby Girl with Adoptive Couple, and ripped Baby Girl from the only family she has ever known, in derogation of both Birth Mother’s and Baby Girl’s rights and expectations under state law.”) (emphasis added); Brief of Amici Curiae Bonnie and Shannon Hofer; Roger, Loreal, and Sierra Lauderbaugh; and Craig and Esther Adams in Support of Petitioners at 38 (“[T]he lower court took non-Indian Petitioners’ adopted Indian daughter from them – destroying the only family she has ever known.”) (emphasis added); Brief of Amici Curiae National Council for Adoption in Support of Petitioners at 13-14 (“ICWA is implemented in some cases to traumatize children by forcing them into completely unknown environments, traumatizing them by removal from the only family they’d ever felt a connection with and imposing the developmental delays that come with the traumatic removal from a secure attachment.”) (emphasis added).[1] It appears that for some of our amici, the “only family” that matters is the non-Indian Petitioners’ family. For these amici, the Indian family and other biological relatives are strangers and foreigners. The only pain and shame of removal and separation that matters is that of the non-Indian family. It is apparent the “only family” dog whistle is designed to distract our attention from the ever-present bias against Indian parents and relatives in the child welfare and adoption system. This we will not accept. As noted above, this Court long has been complicit in dehumanizing Indian people. In Professor Harris’ words, “[C]ourts established whiteness as a prerequisite to the exercise of enforceable property rights.” Harris, supra, at 1724. No longer. We additionally suspect that this form of advocacy implicates American Bar Association Rules of Professional Conduct 3.4 (Fairness to Opposing Party and Counsel), 3.5 (Impartiality & Decorum of the Tribunal), 4.4 (Respect for Rights of Third Persons), and 8.4 (Misconduct).

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[1] One commentator even referred to the Cherokee family here, who descend from an Indigenous nation that has been present in this hemisphere since time immemorial, as “foreign.” Thomas Sowell, Indian Child Welfare Act does not protect kids, Denton Record-Chronicle, Feb. 1, 2018, at 6A (“This little girl is just the latest in a long line of Indian children who have been ripped out of the only family they have ever known and given to someone who is a stranger to them, often living on an Indian reservation that is foreign to them.”) (emphasis added).

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Use the search word Baby Veronica to find our coverage and opinion on this blog...

Attacking #ICWA: Goldwater, RadioLab's bias is blaring #BabyVeronica

By Trace L Hentz  (adoptee, author and activist)

Remember this photo? In the big world out there, few people even knew about the Indian Child Welfare Act until Baby Veronica was adopted out... Then headlines were screaming for months. Indian Country responded and fought back using the federal law but even that wasn't enough to allow a Cherokee father to keep and raise his own daughter.

I have wanted to say something about the RadioLab program/podcast about Baby Veronica and the Supreme Court Case. This was a few years ago and rebroadcast a few days ago.

More Perfect presents: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
I spoke with the interviewer. He didn't use one word of my story in his RadioLab report. I have no clue why not. I did give him names of other adoptees he could speak to... He spoke to many many people and quoted them but not one adoptee!  I recall I told him I was Baby Veronica just 50 years later.  My dad would have raised me. There was no Indian Child Welfare Act when I was adopted by strangers. I was traumatized. I was not going to stop looking for my family, even if my records were sealed in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I was one of thousands who lost their family connections and tribal connections. I didn't want Veronica to go through what I did.  Our culture matters and adoption steals years of our lives.

These Goldwater and RadioLab people didn't and don't want to hear me, or adoptees (young or old). They simply don't. Their bias is blaring. (It's been drilled into their minds how adoption is always good and saving poor kids.)

I wrote an essay in 2013 about this case and submitted it to the Atlantic editors but they didn't publish it. WHY? I didn't get a reason but it's clear...they don't consider Indians and adoptees interesting enough or news-worthy, let alone a federal law concerning Indians.

Finally (with utter frustration) I sent it to Indian Country Today Media in New York. They published it.

I’m a “lost bird," one of thousands of Native children adopted-out of tribal communities from the late 1950s to late 1960s as part of a federal program called the Indian Adoption Projects. The Project came after the decades long boarding school era when government and missionary schools aimed to “kill the Indian to save the child.”

 

Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/12/baby-veronica-case-david-vs-goliath

 

Is that fair reporting and analysis if "THEY" (the mainstream radio, TV, newspaper media) don't consider WHY there is an ICWA?  Have they considered Baby V will grow up and not be a child anymore and imagine her loss of family and culture?  Who better to ask than an adoptee who has lived through it?

Why are they ignoring the ADOPTEE STORY in this story?

In San Diego a few weeks ago, Diane Tells His Name, Leland Kirk, Karen Vigneault, Tom Lidot (Tribal Star) and I had breakfast and we discussed this. (We were together, presenting at the California State ICWA Conference on June 7, 2016.)

"...There is an ICWA because of us, all the American Indian Adoptees, Lost Birds, Stolen Children, 60s Scoop, and Indian Adoption Project adoptees. WE are the reason there is a law. We are still called the Stolen Generations. We are the second phase of atrocities committed against Indian People before during and after the boarding schools. (WE were supposed to permanently disappear in closed adoptions with sealed records, living "happily ever after" with our white parents.) There is a federal law ICWA because of us, because adoption trafficking in Native babies and children was clearly genocide. With ICWA, there will be many less adoptees... We get that; in Indian Country we know this."

.@Sherman_Alexie We thought you should know ur quote opens this viciously anti-ICWA article by Goldwater https://t.co/mVKJhMAZYm #DefendICWA

— NICWA (@NativeChildren) June 20, 2016

“And finally this, when the sun was falling down so beautiful we didn’t have time to give it a name, she held the child born of white mother and red father and said, ‘Both sides of this baby are beautiful.’”

—Sherman Alexie

The ICWA Penalty Box: In Defense of Equal Protection for Indian Children By Timothy Sandefur (Goldwater Institute) used this quote.

Interior Secretary Says Changes To Indian Child Welfare Act 'Close Loopholes'

By Emily Schwing •  NWNews.

• 
  
  

  On a visit to the the Spokane Indian Tribe Thursday U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said changes under the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, close some long-standing loopholes in the law.

  @SecretaryJewell / Twitter

A day after tribal leaders and governors in all 50 states received a letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell paid a visit to the Spokane Indian Tribe.
Jewell said Thursday, changes under the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, close some long-standing loopholes in the law.
During her visit, Jewell said a disproportionate number of tribal youth are being placed in the non-tribal foster care system “without any credible effort being made by the states to place those children in a family structure and a community structure that honors their heritage and their culture.”
The new rules require state courts to ask all participants at the beginning of custody proceedings about a child’s heritage. As well, only tribes can determine if a child is Indian.
A spokeswoman from the National Indian Child Welfare Association said no organizations or agencies at the state or federal level track the number of kids placed under ICWA. The group’s most recent estimates say one-third of the Northwest’s native population was under the age of 19.
High ranking government officials don’t come to Wellpinit, Washington, often. Jason Campbell, CEO of Sovereign Power, the Spokane Indian Tribe’s energy company, aid tribal leaders usually have to go to Washington, D.C., for this kind of conversation.
The Spokane Tribe is a sovereign nation and you could say Wellpinit is the capital. There’s a clinic, a public safety building and the cars even have their own black and green license plates.
Campbell was among leaders who offered Jewell a tour. They discussed many needs as an excited group of women gathered nearby.
“The Spokane Tribe is being recognized and it’s about time. We need this,” said Nancy Raymond, who has lived on the Spokane Indian Reservation her whole life.
Wellpinit resident Clarissa Thatcher added, “There’s a long list of stuff that can be improved on here.”
The tribe was selected to participate in a federal initiative meant to boost economic prosperity. Secretary Jewell said that effort will continue despite the outgoing Obama administration.
“That doesn’t matter,” Jewell said. “It’s the programs and the structure and the career staff that facilitates moving this forward.”
Two federal staff members will be dedicated to helping the tribe with long term projects.

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The Indian Child Welfare Act descends from a history of human rights abuses of Native Americans and subjugation of their culture, as the Christian Science Monitor's Bamzi Banchir explained in March:

The act was passed to amend historical practices that saw native American children taken from their families and communities and placed in boarding schools in an attempt to 'solve the Indian Problem' – native Americans were depicted as 'savage heathens' – by assimilating them into mainstream American society....

http://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?trackingGroup=90962&siteSection=csmonitor_nws_non_sty_dynamic&videoId=28688128 


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AND from the Christian group who is seeking to destroy ICWA: [Christian Newswire 2016. All Rights Reserved. | 2020 Pennsylvania Ave. NW - Washington - DC - 20006 | 202-546-0054] Elizabeth Morris is Chair of the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare and author of "Dying in Indian Country." CAICW, a ministry and advocacy, has assisted families judicially, educationally, and as a prayer resource since 2004.  
If you thought Elizabeth Morris is gone after the Baby V case, she's not. Look at this

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NARF statement about frivolous lawsuits: Since our founding 45 years ago, NARF has worked to protect the rights of Native children, families, and communities. We stand hand in hand with our allies against these recent attacks on ICWA and we will fight these meritless lawsuits. 

Remember Baby Veronica? Prayer Request anyone?

No Joke: Capobianco supporter, Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare, sends out prayer request for “child’s best interest”

Posted on THE DAILY BASTARDETTE

 October 29, 2013 by dailybastardette@gmail.com — 3 Comments ↓

 

A couple weeks ago I wrote about an ICWA  law  forum  being held  (2013) today in St. Paul.  (I’m posting this early Tuesday morning/.)
Sunday, the misnamed  anti-ICWA Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare. (CAICW) operated by non-Indian Lisa Morris, sent up a tizzyful prayer on Facebook:  Ms Morris, in case you’re you’re not familiar with her, is a graduate of Bible College (unnamed), has “dabbled as a registered nurse” (her words)  and is an active member of the Minnesota Tea Party. She believes (at least on paper) that prayer is the greatest weapon against ICWA, If the US were a sane country, Ms. Morris would be left standing on a street corner passing out tracts to the unsaved and unwashed. Instead she’s running an anti-civil rights organization.
CAICW (or Ms. Morris)  urges us:

Please lift up the ICWA forum taking place on Tues, Oct. 29, in the Twin Cities. It is called “Implications for Working with Fathers in Indian Child Welfare Practice.”
Please pray that the “best interest of children” become not only clear, but vitally important to the majority of those present – and that misrepresentations and abuses of children by certain tribal leaders and advocates be exposed.

Excuse me!
Look carefully at the title of the forum:Implications for Working with Fathers in Indian Child Welfare Practice.  It appears that our prayer warriors,.siding with  adoption industry  ur-sleaze, believe that if evoked loud enough God will gag, bind, and smite  Indian men (and men in general probably) who grasp their parental rights in disputed child relinquishment  cases. Men who can’t keep it in their pants don’t deserve to rear a child. Christian paps, as we all know, have never soiled their bed outside of marriage.
I dare say if the forum were Implications for Working with Mothers in Indian Child Welfare Practice  we’d  have a different prayer request since women, with only mild sexual agency (according to evangelical adoptonists), are simply seduced and abandoned by rotters, who I’ve previously  noted, can’t keep their pants on  It’s OK to trash responsible unmarried fathers, CAICW tells us.  But unmarried mothers?  Women as baby producers, hold all the cards–that is, the product,  and in disputed relinquishment cases  our do-gooders aren’t about to kill the goose. Women can, instead,  just be cajoled, bribed, and threatened with a future of nothing.  Not that CAICW suggests that God would approve that prayer petition..
It takes a lot of gall  for CAICW to pray for “best interest” when their poster child Veronica Brown was not granted a routine child’s best interest hearing before she was tossed into the grabby arms of the crazy Capobiancos. If a hearing had been held– a hearing which the USSC certainly expected would be held– she’d be back in Oklahoma where she belongs with her dad Dusten Brown and stepmom Robin and grandparents. Instead, she’s being paraded around for photo ops in Charleston by her pretend parents,
But what if…
CAICW  gets what it prays for and the child’s best interest “rule” actually is taken seriously by adoption agencies and  courts? That would shove CAICW’s grubby ass right back into to the christianist cultural appropriation muck  with a great big plop.
Let us pray!

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The historic role of christian missions in the destruction of native culture is well documented. The recent Brown case has reminded us not only of historical record, but that attempts to dismantle tribal culture, language, property rights, natural resources, and families continue in the effort to make other people rich and to save the souls of the heathen.
In The missionary is back: or perhaps they never left,  published a few days ago, Shawnee-Cherokee adoptee writer Trace DeMeyer  summarizes past mission practices,  puts  CAICW in its historical context, and condemns CAICW’s attempt to gut Indian protections and bring back colonization in the form of  humanitarian intervention. (my term). She reminds us that Indians are  capable of taking care of their own families without the pious interference of the descendants of Calvin and Knox.
What has happened in Indian Country since colonial invasion is not their concern as missionaries – but they do want to freely adopt out those poor kids off the rez.  Is this a new thing? Absolutely not.  This type of missionary zeal was the reason behind the Indian Child Welfare Act to begin with:  White people taking Indian kids (for boarding schools and closed adoptions) caused a genocide and despair and collapse of culture that is still being felt today…
...History will repeat itself until Christians like Lisa  [Morris] begin to understand sovereign tribes are handling their own Indian Child Welfare cases since ICWA was passed in 1978, and are working every day to heal the mess left by colonialism and earlier missionaries like Lisa.

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“Bad Indians” Chrissi Nimmo and Dusten Brown. How uppity can they get?

I  know it’s popular to say that “ignorance” is no excuse for racism   I suppose it’s not…. but really.    These CACIW people (and other self-righteous baybee grabbers) despite their squawks  are so hateful, so ill-informed, so white pickety fence, so full of themselves, so christo-fascist that willful ignorance can be the only explanation.  Nothing fixes that. ICWA, they argue, is racist because it interferes with their white privilege of child appropriation, a privilege they’ve never examined without their rose colored glasses hanging from their pointy noses… Their “special right” to an Indian child does not extend to tribal and parental rights to their own children. Anyone who disagrees with these nutballs is guilty of promoting child abuse and “racism.”  Adoptess shut up!

Last night I posted a short comment, now removed by CACIW,  on its FB page under the law forum prayer request  thread.  (CAICW issues lots of prayer requests)  I sent something like this:
Speaking of “best interest” Veronica Brown was not given a child’s best interest hearing.  The adopted class is rising.
I know!  But the Devil was whispering in my ear. I added a couple more tonight, which no doubt will be gone soon.
As of a little while ago  the responses to the law forum prayer request thread (including mine that I put up a few hours ago), are posted below. The comments  display an alarming amount of  anger, disgust, ridicule and downright hatred  towards Chrissi Nimmo,  the AG for the Cherokee Nation who defended the tribe against Capobianco  Veronica lust... Commentators, also exhibit an unhealthy degree of animosity to anyone who disagrees with their narrow views on adoption and tribal sovereignty. How dare they! As usual, bastards don’t count.

CONTINUE READING

[I remember Veronica and send her constant good thoughts for what is ahead... Trace]

New Scholarship on Removals of Indian Children from their Homes #BabyVeronica #Colonization

Archive Photo

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Matthew L.M. Fletcher | Turtle Talk

 

Alyosha Goldstein has posted “Possessive Investment: Indian Removals and the Affective Entitlements of Whiteness,” published in the American Quarterly, on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In 2013 the US Supreme Court effectively granted custody of an almost four-year-old child to adoptive white parents over the opposition of her Cherokee birth father and the Cherokee Nation in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl (the “Baby Veronica” case). This essay examines the Court ruling, and the protracted custody and jurisdictional struggles in its wake, in order to show how whiteness in the US has been historically constituted not only as a form of property but also as the capacity to possess. Against the perspective that colonialism persists in the US only insofar as indigeneity remains legible as racial difference, this essay focuses on how Adoptive Couple served as a means of reasserting white heteronormative rights to possess and to deny culpability for the ongoing conditions and consequences of colonization and multiple forms of racial violence in the present.

The statements by Alito and the adoptive couple’s attorney are reminiscent of efforts by US policymakers and federal agencies to deny or subordinate the political
terms of indigenous sovereignty and reject historical treaty rights by subsuming
American Indians as racialized “minority” citizens.8

It is also significant for characterizing the separation and custody battle between Maldonado and Brown as a conflict between a woman of color and a man with suspect racial claims, since Brown’s Cherokee citizenship was often depicted in the media as questionable. For instance, National Public Radio’s report on the case began by stating, “Christy Maldonado’s ethnic background is Hispanic” and, in the next sentence, merely that Brown “considers himself Cherokee.”10 The question of ethnicity and race was displaced onto and emphasized in the dispute between Maldonado and Brown in such a way as to exonerate the adoptive couple and authorize their claims as altogether unencumbered by race.

I have the paper so if anyone in reading the entire article, please email me...It's definitely worth a read...It took time but this analysis of colonizers and race is spot-on. ...larahentz@yahoo.com.

7th Annual Demons in Adoption nominations (a must read) #BabyVeronica

The link for nominations may be found at: http://poundpuplegacy.org/seventh_demons_of_adoption_nominations

7th Annual Demons in Adoption

Submitted by Priscilla Sharp

Hands down this year!! The Matthew and Melanie Capobianco, Troy the Stalker Dunn, Nightlight Adoption Agency and its owners/attorney Raymond W. and Laura Beauvais Godwin, their PR rep, Jessica Munday and her company, Trio Solutions, and their national fund-raising/lobbying arm Christian Alliance for Indian Child Kidnapping
By their outrageous behavior - violating gag orders, hiring PR firms, taking what should have been a private matter to the court of public opinion and peddling lies and slurs against Veronica's father on talk shows, in newspapers, "news" programs, exploiting a minor child by using her image and name to raise tens of thousands of dollars, contracting with a TV reality show producer to film her and invade her privacy (show up at her school uninvited and unannounced), demanding public officials arrest her father and "seize" her, threatening the safety and security of the Brown family to such an extent that they had to move out of their family home and into tribal housing and be provided with 24-hour security guards, and more - the Capobiancos have proven to the world that so-called "love" for this child and her safety and security are the furthest things from their minds. By their actions, they have indelibly harmed her for life. They began exposure of an innocent child for public display in such a manner that she will never know privacy and peace again. From now until forever everyone will know who and where she is. Her security has been compromised beyond repair. For these reasons and more, including the underhanded, unethical and probably illegal means in which she was abducted from OK at birth, they have forfeited any right of entitlement or possession of this or any other child, if not provided ample grounds for criminal charges and civil liability to the Brown family.

There are plenty more to read but this one nailed it on the BABY VERONICA CASE... Trace 

I nominate the Nightlight Adoption Agency

Submitted by Trace A DeMeyer

I nominate Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency and its owners and operators for their violations of the Indian Child Welfare Act and trafficking in babies. Rumor is there are 50 children from North Dakota tribes placed thru Nightlight in addition to Veronica Brown and Baby Desaray (and untold others).
Nightlight is a corporation with Laura Godwin, its CEO/director, and Ronald Stoddart as Principal Officer for tax purposes. In 2011 alone, they grossed $2,747,914. Nightlight is licensed in Colorado, California, South Carolina and in Kentucky so far. Now in two lawsuits over Native American babies they attempted to place for adoption...
Raymond W. Godwin, called an unethical adoption attorney in news reports, was the original adoption attorney for Matt and Melanie Capobianco and is also involved in this dispute called #BABY DESARAY. His wife Laura is the director of the Nightlight adoption agency that handled the Baby Veronica placement/adoption.
Read more here: http://www.cherokeephoenix.org/Article/Index/7609

#BabyVeronica case discussed at Yale, missing aspects of #HumanTrafficking

From left: Claire Chung, 3L, Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic, Yale Law School;  Joel West Williams, Staff Attorney, Native American Rights Fund; Jacqueline Pata, Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians. Introducing them is Sparky Abraham, 3L, Yale Law School (moderator). The lecture hall was filled to capacity with law students. (Photo by Trace A DeMeyer)

By Trace A. DeMeyer

I plan to write a longer piece on this discussion but essentially the panel said that the Capobiancos won this case in the media first which paved the way to their winning permanent custody of Veronica Brown in rulings handed down by the Supreme Court and the South Carolina Supreme Court.  Despite 17 total amicus briefs, written support by 393 tribes, 600 groups interested in this case including some adoption agencies, and 19 State's Attorney Generals in support of Dusten Brown keeping his own daughter, the Supreme Court did not and does not rule in favor of Indians.  American Indians don't win in public opinion polls either.  Tribes are actually discouraged from taking cases to the Supreme Court.  Out of nine Indian Law cases, only one won in the Roberts/Alito-controlled Supreme Court.

Asked if the Indian Child Welfare Act should be amended or made stronger - Jackie Pata said no.  Pata admitted that NCAI and NARF waited too long to respond in the media to the Baby Veronica media circus, though they tried to rally support for Dusten and met in weekly committees to discuss the case and did try their own media coverage. (Too little, too late.)  Pata said by the time the Dr. Phil show happened with the Capobiancos, Dusten Brown had a gag order placed on him and he was not able to respond or play the same media game as the Capobiancos did.  

In the Q&A, a man in the audience asked Cherokee citizen and attorney Joel West Williams of NARF, "If the Capobiancos could sue the Cherokee Nation for one million dollars, then why can't the Cherokee Nation sue the Nightlight Adoption Agency for their errors in notifying the Cherokee Nation (with Dusten's name misspelled and the wrong birthdate)? These details were not insignificant and actually started the nightmare for Dusten Brown and the Cherokee Nation along with the adoption agency's failure to abide by ICWA which is federal law.  Williams said he could not comment on any pending lawsuits. 

As I have written before on this blog, the Department of Justice needs to interview Christy Maldonado and investigate the Nightlight Adoption Agency for moving and selling children like Veronica across state lines which is in violation of the Interstate Compact. (Not once did this panel use the words HUMAN TRAFFICKING.)

The way the Capobianco's PR campaign was run by Jessica Munday and Trio Solutions who played this case in the media, capitalizing on Social Media with the Save Veronica Facebook page, filling mainstream newspaper opinion pieces with sympathy for the infertile Capobiancos in their late 30s, to demonizing Dusten Brown for text messages to his ex-fiance, then confusing the public and essentially attacking anyone who supported Dusten Brown retaining custody of his own daughter, this case was doomed from the beginning.

RebLaw Panel Details - I: Deconstructing the "Baby Veronica" Case: Implications for the Future of the Indian Child Welfare Act

In June 2013, the Supreme Court decided Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, a widely publicized case involving the adoption of a Cherokee child by non-Natives over the objections of her Cherokee father. At the heart of the controversy was the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law designed to protect the best interests of Native children and promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families. This panel will explore the history behind this landmark law, the current landscape of Indian child welfare, and the implications of the "Baby Veronica" decision for the future placement of Native children. Additionally, panelists will discuss how their organizations collaborated with both tribal and non-tribal stakeholders to develop legal, media, and other advocacy strategies for the case as part of the Tribal Supreme Court Project.

Radio Lab coverage was also mentioned by the panel: CLICK: Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl May 30, 2013

Source materials on this case:

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl on the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) Blog

Audio from the oral arguments in the Supreme Court

Official website for ICWA (the federal Indian Child Welfare Act)

1974 Hearings Before the Subcommitee on Indian Affairs "on problems that American Indian families face in raising their children and how these problems are affected by federal action or inaction." PDF

FOOTNOTE: There is a clear and present danger that this will happen again - I say this because the American public (and Supreme Court) is clearly anti-Indian until a white couple wishes to purchase a newborn baby and the only ones available are from Indian reservations.  To be safe, NCAI, NICWA and NARF are obviously trying to educate on the Indian Child Welfare Act since the Baby Veronica case created such a nationwide stir.

Veronica will eventually know that her biological father loved her and fought for her even with the prevailing prejudice of our times. The bright spot for me is the fact that despite this adoption and litigation, Veronica is and will always be a citizen of the Cherokee Nation - no one can ever ever take that away from her. 

More on this discussion soon... Trace

 

Baby Veronica Case UPDATE

 South Carolina court drops contempt charge against Dusten Brown

Dusten Brown and the Cherokee Nation reach an agreement with Baby Veronica's adoptive parents.

Dusten Brown: The deal won’t affect a criminal complaint of custodial interference, which Brown still faces in South Carolina.

Posted: Friday, January 17, 2014 

 

By MICHAEL OVERALL Tulsa World Staff Writer

A South Carolina judge dropped a contempt of court case against Baby Veronica's biological father Thursday, bringing a definitive end to the drawn-out custody battle there.
The case was dropped "with prejudice," meaning it can never be refiled, after Dusten Brown and the Cherokee Nation reached an agreement with the adoptive parents. No settlement was paid, officials said.

Matt and Melanie Capobianco had been seeking compensation for expenses they racked up during a seven-week visit to Oklahoma last year to fight for custody of their 4-year-old adopted daughter, according to previous reports.

Thursday's agreement won't affect a criminal complaint of custodial interference, which Brown still faces in South Carolina, even though authorities are no longer seeking his extradition from Oklahoma.

It also won't affect a separate civil case here in Oklahoma, where the Capobiancos' attorneys are seeking more than $1 million in fees and expenses from Brown and his tribe, which fought alongside him to keep Veronica.

An agreement in South Carolina, however, might suggest that a similar resolution is possible for that case, which was filed in Oklahoma's Nowata County, where Brown and his wife live.

"I hope so, but I don't know," said Chrissi Nimmo, an assistant attorney general for the Cherokee Nation. "We'll have to see what happens."

Meanwhile, both the Capobiancos and the Browns have steadfastly stayed away from the media.

Brown hasn't spoken publicly since early October, when he spoke at a brief press conference to announce that he was dropping all legal efforts to get Veronica back.

The Capobiancos appeared briefly on the "Dr. Phil" television show in late October but have not given interviews since.

At the time, they confirmed that Brown and his family were still in contact with Veronica, although they didn't elaborate on what kind of contact or how much.

There's no information on whether such contact is still happening.

The Capobiancos arranged a private adoption with Brown's ex-fiancee and came to Oklahoma for Veronica's birth in 2009.

Brown, who was about to deploy to Iraq with the Oklahoma National Guard, didn't find out about the adoption until Veronica was 4 months old.

He says he was tricked into a signing a document that said he wouldn't contest the adoption.

With help from the Cherokee Nation, he gained custody of Veronica in 2011, but the Capobiancos appealed that decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices ruled that Brown didn't have standing under the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, but they sent the case back to a South Carolina court for a custody ruling, and the legal battles continued for months.

Brown refused orders to return Veronica to South Carolina until the Oklahoma Supreme Court issued an unfavorable ruling Sept. 23, when he gave the girl back to the Capobiancos.

SOURCE