Media Almost Gets this Eight year custody case Right!

This is So Exciting! Media inches towards Reality!

I offer the latest from AP wires...and as close as anyone has gotten in years, along with editorial comments, in red.

Feb. 14, 2007

Tenn. custody case dragged on for years (of course it did. That's the point.)

By WOODY BAIRD Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Qin Luo He wailed in broken English that rich Americans were stealing her baby. But it took almost seven years before Tennessee courts agreed to return the child to her.

That delay, say some legal experts, is one of the most scandalous aspects of the whole heartbreaking case. ("Scandalous?" This is routine.)

"That's a disaster. It's an incredibly long time," said Bruce Boyer, director of the Loyola University ChildLaw Center in Chicago. (It is a Diaster, but the point being, this is not news. The courts commit this kind of behavior routinely, without any media casting a critical eye.)

In 1999, Qin Luo and Shaoqiang He, Chinese citizens living in Memphis, put their daughter in foster care with an American couple, Jerry and Louise Baker, when she was a month old. The Bakers later went to court to contend the Hes had abandoned their baby, and a judge stripped the Hes of their parental rights.

Last month, after a remarkably drawn-out case that produced volumes of paperwork, the Tennessee Supreme Court sided with the Hes, saying they had given up Anna Mae only temporarily so she could get medical insurance.

At the time, Shaoqiang He, who had been a graduate student at the University of Memphis, had lost his scholarship and was out of work after being accused of sexually assaulting another student. He was ultimately acquitted.

The high court said the Chinese couple had been penalized because they did not understand the American legal system. It found no evidence the Hes had harmed their daughter.

"The only evidence of substantial harm arises from the delay caused by the protracted litigation and the failure of the court system to protect the parent-child relationship throughout the proceedings," the court said in its 5-0 decision.

Now, 8-year-old Anna Mae must leave the family she has lived with nearly her entire life and return to parents she barely knows. (A family court judge, thus be the cause of the problem, could now rule it wasn't in her best interests to break the bond). The second-grader has a younger brother and sister she must get to know, too. No timetable has been set for reuniting the little girl with her parents.

State law urges judges to move quickly on parental rights petitions, (yes, but there are so many lawyer and theraputic mouthes to feed that wouldn't be feed if these cases were adjudicated as the law urges. Common sense in feeding the legal industry dictates they will Not be resolved without as many comers as possible) but the fight raged on for years, fueled by arguments over where Anna Mae would have a better life — in middle-class, suburban America with the Bakers, or in China with her biological family.

"It should go to trial in six months and have a decision 30 days afterward," said Christina Zawisza, a law instructor with the University of Memphis Child Advocacy Clinic. "It's unusual for a case to blow up this dramatically. They just didn't focus it. It was every issue imaginable and pages and pages of discussions." (Them that can do, them that don't know what's going on, teachdo.)

Sue Allison, a spokeswoman for Tennessee's Administrative Office of the Courts, said the Supreme Court's ruling showed its displeasure with lower-court delays in settling the custody dispute.

"The court has and will continue to take steps to ensure that it doesn't happen in the future," she said. (We've got Arizona swampland to sell. Please contact us immediately.)

The Bakers, who have four biological children, argued in court that Anna Mae would be devastated emotionally by taking her from them after so many years.

"But if the Bakers were allowed to profit by delays," said David Siegel, the Hes' lawyer, "you're saying all you have to do is prolong the proceedings and show that the child is now fully attached to you." (This makes perfect sense. The lawyers profit, the therapist's profit; all under the "best interests of the child." Kinda like, "We had to destroy this village to save it.")

Each side blames the other for dragging out the dispute, but university lawyers Zawisza and Boyer said the greatest fault lies with the courts. (And that's Exactly right!)

"That is ultimately the responsibility of trial judges," Boyer said. "When you've got a case that involves the welfare of a child, you need to put that at the top of the pile."

Sue Allison, a spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the Courts in Tennessee, said the Supreme Court would have no comment beyond its ruling.

The Memphis Juvenile Court is under orders to draw up a plan for reuniting Anna Mae with her parents in such a way as to limit the emotional trauma and slowly loosen her ties to the Bakers. The transition is expected to take several months.

"You want to make sure she has contact with both families for a period of time. They're going to have to put aside their differences," John Ciocca, a psychologist who expects to work with the court on the transition.

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Never mind the "He said, she said," We're waiting for mainstream press to do a story on the economics of "family law."