Anna Mae He opinion reversed at Supreme Court

[charlottelouise]

"The Tennessee State Supreme Court has reversed an opinion by the state Court of Appeals and is ordering that Anna Mae He be returned to her biological parents.

The case has received national media attention for years and has revolved around the claim of Jerry and Louise Baker that Anna Mae's biological parents, Shao-Qiang and Qin Luo He abandoned their rights to the child when they left her with the Bakers at birth."

The case has been sent back to Chancery Court, who have 12 days to get the case back to Shelby County Juvenile Court. The court also ordered that the costs of the appeal be paid by the bakers (the people trying to take the child).

http://www.wmcstations.com/Global/story.asp?S=5976777

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Has anyone checked on the impact of all this on the little girl?

Or is it only about the parent's rights? The article didn't really say.

I recall years back when a child was taken from a foster home in Illinois and returned to the mother who had abandoned him. Three weeks later, that mother killed the child. Just because a person is the biological parent doesn't make them the best caretaker for the child. If the Bakers have provided a good, stable home for the child, the courts better look at the situation surrounding the biological parents long and hard before disrupting a child's life. Children aren't possessions-they are people.

[Poiuyt]

2. So the He's gave the child up for adoption at birth and then changed their minds?

Is that correct?

I wouldn't refer to the Bakers as trying to take the child since they've had her for eight years. It seems the other way around to me. That's going to be very traumatic to the child to be taken from the only parents she has known for the last eight years.

[Demit]

5. Looks like the Hes have been trying to get her back since May 2000.

The foster parents have been fighting it, claiming they had an oral agreement with the Hes to raise her. Sad story.

http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/2004/05/more_on_the_he.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/02/16/national/a153611S62.DTL

[LiberalFighter]

8. The original judge was responsible in delaying justice

Took longer than the 2 year limitation and did not allow any type of contact with the child by the parents.

The Bakers used police to keep the parents away from the child.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Notwithstanding the concept of "best interests of the child",

the only way to prevent a natural parent from exercising his/her right to the child is for the court to legally find that parent to be "unfit", i.e., deleterious and/or a danger to the welfare of the child.

[charlottelouise]

4. Not in this particular case....

The He family were told and believed that this was a temporary foster care arrangement. The Baker "family" immediately started efforts to keep the little girl permanently. They went so far as to call the police to eject the He family when they were attempting to visit their daughter (this is their grounds for claiming "abandonment" -- the child's parents stayed away when ordered by the police to do so !).

The Juvenile Court referee told the Bakers right at the very beginning (when the little girl was, I think, about a year old) that they had no right to keep the child and that they should begin to transfer custody back to her parents. This is when these Baker people tapped into the local fundie network and got the custody case taken to a friendly judge in Chancery Court (where the case did not belong). The He family has spent the last seven years in a non-stop struggle to have their daughter returned to them.

[LiberalFighter]

6. More Detail here

Details

kidjacked

[LiberalFighter]

7. Both Robert Childers and original judge should be disbarred

and lose their pension. Looks to me there was bribery involved.