The best interests of a 3-year-old African-American boy known as Baby T–not those of the birth mother or the foster parents–should be the court’s top priority, lawyers pleaded Friday. But they disagreed on how to meet those needs, as one of the highest-profile child custody cases in recent years draws to a close.
Baby T should stay with Chicago Ald. Edward Burke and Illinois Appellate Judge Anne Burke, with whom he has been living since he was 8 days old, argued attorneys for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. He has formed “intense” attachments that would be disrupted if custody were awarded to Tina Olison, his biological mother, they said.
This stability is even more crucial since a team of experts diagnosed the boy last month as having an unnamed “condition” that makes him highly excitable and impulsive.
“That makes any relationship `an exquisitely difficult task’ with `catastrophic and devastating’ implications,” said Aru Rao, a DCFS attorney, quoting from a report by University of Chicago psychiatrist Bennett Leventhal and two colleagues. “Please do not let Tina Olison contradict the experts’ opinions.”
Assistant State’s Atty. Terry Lotsoff spoke not just about the amount of time Baby T has spent at the Burkes, but “the amount of work” it has taken to get him to this point. “Destroy the foundation and the whole structure of this child’s life falls around him,” he said. The mental health team recommended private guardianship, with visitation by Olison, an arrangement endorsed by both agencies.
But attorneys for Olison, a former cocaine addict, countered that the boy needs to know his biological family and his African-American heritage and that the Burkes’ lack of cooperation with the birth mother makes the potential success of such a plan slim.
Also at stake is the sibling bond between Baby T and his 8-year-old brother, who already have a fledgling relationship that needs to be nurtured, Olison’s attorneys said.
Assistant Public Guardian Elfreda Austin, who represents both minors, spoke movingly about how, when Olison was pregnant with Baby T, his big brother used to rub her stomach and talk to him. “They do not understand why they don’t live together; but they do understand that they are brothers . . . and that they are family.”
Baby T’s disorder would be an issue, Austin said, if Baby T were to be wrenched from his foster home, “but no one is suggesting that the Burkes be out of his life . . . they’re too important.” Rather, she recommended a goal of returning the boy home within 12 months and providing both families with transition services.
Judge Judith Brawka is expected to announce her decision in the custody case on Monday.
