Since when is the best interest of the child not served by being separated from her natural parents? I’m curious to know what the Tennessee burden is in this case
Anyone point a law link to this to explain the judge’s reasoning? Couldn’t quite tell from the news article blurb.
=YC
The NY Times’ coverage made this story that much more depressing. (check it out at ). The cultural and racial divide continues, so far as I can tell. And, I can’t quite understand how the Tennessee judge made it that easy to cut the bio-parental rights – basing it primarily on the bio-parents’ alleged absence from the child’s life – yet, they apparently were prohibited by police and other asundry that the foster parents used as barriers (not exactly signs of neglect on the bio-parents’ part). I didn’t think the ignorance of the law argument (i.e., that being absent from a child’s life for four months constitutes “abandonment”) would have worked to terminate bio-parent rights. Plus, who on earth would accept a verbal agreement over a child custody matter? I could have sworn from family law that it’s pretty darn hard to do it. Then again, I’ve never been in Tennesee, so maybe that place is just plain strange (not that I’m denigrating the place, I’m just a NY’er who only knows what NYS may say on this topic).
Sorry – guess the NY Times website didn’t link right – try here: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/national/13custody.html
The article tried to give a sense of the judge’s reasoning, but I’m still puzzled about it; the only way to really know would be to read the opinion, I guess.