Eight years ago, the Illinois Supreme Court, in one of its most contentious cases, awarded custody of 3 1/2-year-old “Baby Richard” to his biological father after the boy had lived happily with his adoptive family for virtually his entire life.
Since then, thousands of lower-profile but nonetheless heartbreaking child custody cases have made their way through courts. Some have ended fairly; some yielded traumatic results. All probably could have been done faster, with less harm to the most innocent participants.
Absent such dramatic images as a frightened, wailing “Baby Richard” being turned over from his adoptive family to his biological family, it is easy to ignore the problems that created such a case. Lengthy court delays can keep a child in limbo for years. Often that can mean all of his formative years are spent in some uncertainty about where he will grow up and who will care for him.
Last week, the Illinois Supreme Court decided to take a hard look at how the courts handle adoptions, child custody and the termination of parental rights.
At the instigation of Justice Thomas Fitzgerald, the high court appointed a committee of 15 state judges to take on the task. “Formation of the committee is motivated by a desire to provide the children of our state the fairest system that is possible,” Fitzgerald said in a written statement. “The most difficult cases our Court or any court in the state is called upon to face are cases involving the custody of children, and we must be able to deal with those issues, not only correctly but also in a timely manner.”
Illinois Appellate Judge Alan Greiman will be the chairman of the committee, and Fitzgerald and Supreme Court Justice Rita Garman will serve as the high court’s liaisons to the panel. The rest of the committee reads like a Who’s Who of leading talent on the bench.
That suggests this will not be a file-a-report-and-toss-it-on-the-shelf endeavor.
Greiman said the committee is going to examine “the entire relationship of the courts to custody, parental termination and adoption issues” with a focus on expediting child custody and adoption cases. He called child custody “this most important of all relationships in the Illinois courts.” That’s true. But it has not always been the case in practice.
Justice Fitzgerald and the rest of the Supreme Court deserve credit for taking on this mission. The juvenile courts, particularly in Cook County, have shown substantial improvement in recent years, but the legal system still has a tough time recognizing that, for children, time is a very precious commodity.
