By Harriet McLeod
CHARLESTON, S.C., July 17 (Reuters) – South Carolina’s high
court on Wednesday ordered a young girl living with her birth
father at the center of an emotional, cross-cultural legal
battle to be returned to her adoptive parents.
The order on the future of Veronica, 3, was greeted joyfully
by her adoptive parents in South Carolina, who raised her from
birth but were ordered 18 months ago by the same court to turn
her over to her birth father because he is American Indian.
Veronica has been living with her birth father, Dusten
Brown, in Oklahoma since 2011.
“We are thrilled that after 18 long months, our daughter
finally will be coming home,” adoptive parents Matt and Melanie
Capobianco, who live in Charleston, said in a statement. “Our
prayers have been answered.”
The court’s order on Wednesday instructs the state’s family
courts to finalize Veronica’s adoption by the Capobiancos. It
comes just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court in June threw out
the earlier decision to grant custody to Brown, a member of the
Cherokee Nation.
The decision brought harsh rebuke from the Cherokee Nation.
“Dusten Brown is a fit, loving parent and Veronica is, as
the court previously defined, ‘safe, loved, and cared for,'”
Cherokee Nation said in a statement. “That should be enough.”
Brown, who was not married to the birth mother, had argued
that the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, intended
to keep Native American children from being separated from their
families, entitled him to have Veronica, who is 3/256th
Cherokee.
He took custody at the end of 2011 when the girl was just
over 2 years old, and South Carolina’s highest court later
upheld his custody.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the
Capobiancos. The Supreme Court threw out the South Carolina
court decision awarding custody to the father and returned the
case to the South Carolina state courts to sort out the adoption
case.
Although adoption petitions have been filed by Brown and
other family members in Oklahoma, the South Carolina court said
on Wednesday that only the Capobiancos had filed for adoption in
the correct jurisdiction and should get custody.
The couple had arranged with the girl’s birth mother to
adopt the girl before she was born and still maintain a
relationship with the mother.
In its order, the court said it had erred in its 2011
judgment.
“There is absolutely no need to compound any suffering that
Baby Girl (Veronica) may experience through continued
litigation,” wrote South Carolina Chief Justice Jean Toal.
But while the courts say the time has come for the
tug-of-war to end, tribal lawyers say they’ll continue the
battle to let Brown keep custody of Veronica.
“We absolutely believe that it is in Veronica’s best
interest to stay with her father and we will do what we can to
make sure that happens,” said Chrissi Nimmo, assistant attorney
general for the Cherokee Nation. “She not only has a father, she
has a large family and pets and friends and a sibling.”
(Editing by Karen Brooks and Lisa Shumaker)
