Court win for Cuban dad in custody case

[Mika]

Source: AP

MIAMI - The father of a 5-year-old Cuban girl at the center of an international custody battle did not abandon or neglect her, so he should get her back, a judge ruled Thursday.

Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen said she would not immediately return the girl to her father, Cuban farmer Rafael Izquierdo, who wants to take her back to Cuba.

-

At a news conference held outside the courthouse, Izquierdo, a pig and potato farmer, said in Spanish: "Truth wins."
Izquierdo said the Cubases knew all along that the girl had a loving father who wanted her back and he wants to return home as soon as possible to the central Cuban town of Cabaiguan.

"I want to be with my family, be together," he said.
His lawyer Ira Kurzban said he was unaware of any cases in Florida where a father, after being found to be fit, was denied custody based on "nebulous" psychological harm a child might suffer from being separated from foster parents.
"Unless a father is unfit, he has a right to his child. Period," Kurzban said.

-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070927/ap_on_re_us/cuban_custody_dispute

---

To mods: I know that this story was posted in another thread, but this story deserves its own LBN thread so that DUers who have followed this case can see the latest breaking outcome in a thread headline.

Thanks.



-

[ret5hd]

1. Well, hell yeah. Good on 'im!

[IndianaGreen]

2. Why did Judge Cohen fail to return the girl to her father?

What's the point of the delay? What is it with those kidnappers in Florida that think they can take children away from their families?

[Judi Lynn]

3. You'd think she'd be too embarrassed to go along with this. Izquierdo's attorney Kurzban told her

it would be right to turn over the child today, immediately, it would be correct constitutionally.

This charade they're going through, having a hearing to see if separating the child, E.P.-I. from the foster parents would harm her, is an insult to anyone with brain function. Of course, it appears to please the hardliners just fine.

I think it would harm a child to be raised by a stranger who is dirty, underhanded, cruel, vicious, and has been labeled as astonishingly GREEDY,in stead of her poor, hardworking, humble, but truly loving and concerned own father.

The foster guy has been barred from being around baseball due to the horrendous things he did exploiting and outrighting extorting Cuban ballplayers, while building a reputation in Miami as a hot shot hero, since he was "stealing" Cuba's baseball players.

The baseball players, once they'd been through the Joe Cubas treatment complained of having been ripped off, of having him trick them out of large portions of their own money, and using psychological warfare against them. (He was known for pursuing the players all over the world, meeting them privately, buying them elaborate meals, getting them staggering drunk, signing them, getting them to the U.S., even bringing their families over, and then dumping them when he could no longer benefit from them to the degree he desired, or they started resisting.) Apparently they were convincing because the American baseball people have banned him from participating in any aspect of the business. He's a real estate salesman currently.

A well-balanced person would NEVER want this social deviant around any kid. His morals are out of kilter. He suffers from the "me first" syndrome.



Cubas

There are four pages of photos of Cubas, the father and his wife, the mother, the attorneys, etc. at this link:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=%3Fv%3D1%26c%3DViewImages%26k%3D2%26d%3D17A4AD9FDB9CF193C1A11C22297C79F56CAAA1A7416119A4284831B75F48EF45&imgrefurl=http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx%3Fmid%3D76345181%26epmid%3D1%26partner%3DGoogle&h=396&w=594&sz=31&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=9qkISt1cjQqvpM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3DJoe%2BCubas%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26rls%3DGGLD,GGLD:2004-37,GGLD:en

They are unavailable for copying and pasting.

[Toots]

7. He looks youg enough to be a soldier, why isn't he?

I would venture a guess he is a strong supporter of Bush*'s Occupation of Iraq..

[Mika]

8. He's busy fighting a war against Cuba, using a child as a human shield.

Of course, the US gov is not spending billions per year in the war against Cuba, only hundreds of millions per year.


-

[Judi Lynn]

4. Best wishes to all the people whose hearts are in the right place in this little drama.

That child should be sent home with her father, just as her own mother hopes for her.

It's very interesting, of course, Mika, that the State of Florida is spending over $325,000.00 on this case so far, due to its high-profile celebrity foster father who is seen as someone who must not be shown as the loser, while it has simultaneously been working on 4 OTHER cases involving Cuban children, conducted completely quietly, without a hitch.

[Mika]

5. Cuban dad wins ruling but not custody -- yet

Cuban dad wins ruling but not custody -- yet
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/253215.html

But Cohen said she will go forward with a second chapter of what has seemed at times a made-for-television courtroom drama: a hearing to decide whether taking the girl from the home of Joe and Maria Cubas, who have cared for her for 19 months, would harm her.

''We're asking you, imploring you, begging you today to transfer the child back to her father,'' said one of Izquierdo's attorneys, Ira Kurzban.

Answered Cohen: ``I am not going to return the child to Mr. Izquierdo today.''

Izquierdo and his legal team were nonetheless jubilant as they left the county courthouse Thursday, embracing on the steps before addressing reporters.

''I am eager to be home,'' Izquierdo said. ``What I want is to have my daughter with me.''

Asked if there is a possibility he would stay in Miami, he said: ``No chance.''

-

Attorneys for the Department of Children & Families maintain that taking her from the Cubas household constitutes ``endangerment.''

Cohen, who has been critical of the department's handling of the case, warned that DCF attorneys will have a tough time proving the endangerment claim at the hearing in October.

[Mika]

6. Cuban girl's rights to be next decision

Cuban girl's rights to be next decision
http://www.miamiherald.com/519/story/253216.html

The weekslong case against Rafael Izquierdo has been mired in the legal intricacies of what makes a father a fit parent and in lawyerly definitions of abandonment and neglect.

Now that a judge has ruled in his favor, a new battle is about to begin over the heart of the case: Does his right as a fit and loving father to raise his daughter trump her right not to be torn from a family she has come to love?

The noisy drama raises the specter of a collision between cherished American principles: the constitutional right of a fit parent to raise his child free of government interference versus the government's right to protect a small child from potential emotional harm.

''We are treading on very dangerous borders of the law,'' said Bernard Perlmutter, a 20-year children's advocate who heads the University of Miami Law School's Children & Youth Law Clinic. ``We have to be very careful.''

The case pits Izquierdo, who raises pigs and grows malanga in central Cuba, against foster parents Joe and Maria Cubas, a Cuban-American couple from Coral Gables, in a struggle for custody of a 5-year-old girl they both want to raise.

The Florida Department of Children & Families, together with the girl's court-appointed guardian ad litem, are asking Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen to forever strip Izquierdo of custody over his daughter by granting Joe and Maria Cubas permanent guardianship. They say the girl has so completely bonded with her half-brother and foster parents that separating from them now would endanger her emotionally.

''In this case, what it appears the state is seeking to do is create a new jurisprudence that focuses on potential harm to the child,'' Perlmutter said. ``It is very novel, and very untested.''

Florida law and the written interpretations of it handed down by appeals courts through the years offer little insight into what Cohen -- who has often lamented in the case that her hands are tied by precedent -- will do.

The state's child-welfare statute says that in a custody dispute, a judge ''shall place'' a child with a fit parent ``unless the court finds that such placement would endanger the safety, well-being, or physical, mental or emotional health of the child.''

LANDMARK RULING

A landmark 1996 Florida Supreme Court ruling that essentially abolished the notion of grandparents' rights declared that parents have a ``fundamental right under State Constitution to raise their children, except where child is threatened with harm.''

That standard allowed the First District Court of Appeal in November 2002 to let a Bay County grandmother continue raising an 8-year-old boy, even though his mother had complied with all the requirements of a parental improvement plan and wanted custody. The court said the child could be harmed because the mother showed no interest in learning how to care for his developmental disabilities, while the grandmother had been dealing with them for years.

Alan Mishael, attorney for Joe and Maria Cubas, will rely on cases such as that one and emphasize the state's right to protect a child from imminent harm.

But Ira Kurzban, Izquierdo's attorney, says that an even higher authority prohibits the state from keeping a child from a fit and loving parent: the U.S. Constitution.

''We believe the U.S. Constitution, the Florida Constitution say that parents have a God-given right to raise their children,'' said Kurzban. ``Mr. Izquierdo has been found fit. . . . He has a right to not go through another proceeding.''

Bruce A. Boyer, a law professor who heads Loyola University's children's law clinic in Chicago, called ''really, really scary'' the notion that a fit parent can be deprived of his child. ``Before a state can interfere with the relationship between a parent and child, it has to first establish that something has gone wrong.''

`DRIVE A WEDGE'

Advocates for carving out a robust framework of children's rights ''are trying to drive a wedge in the long-standing case law that derives from decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court that makes a parent's interest -- a fit parent's interest -- ultimate in the determination of custody,'' UM's Perlmutter said.

If Kurzban fails to sidetrack the inquiry, Cohen will convene a new hearing almost unprecedented in Miami's child-welfare history to decide whether moving the little girl from the Cubas home will cause her great harm.

Florida lawmakers never defined ''endangerment'' in the state's child-welfare statute. But, Perlmutter says, ``I think the term was deliberately chosen by the Legislature to make the threshold very high.''

Judge Cohen agrees. She told the state Thursday: ``You are going to have a steep mountain to climb, and you know that.''

The legal intricacies almost certainly will make the new hearing a battle of experts. Those supporting the Cubas family will try to show that the girl is far too attached to both her 13-year-old half-brother and her foster parents to risk uprooting her. Those for Izquierdo will say that small children are resilient, and that the girl already is forging a new bond with her birth dad.

Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, a law professor at the University of Florida who is completing a book on children's rights, said Florida has traditionally lagged behind other states in creating a foundation for protecting the rights of children.

That's changing, though, Woodhouse said. She said a ruling in favor of the Cubas family could help propel Florida closer to other states that emphasize children's interests over birth parents' rights.

''When there is a serious detriment to the child, that should be taken into account,'' Woodhouse said. ``You can't treat a child like a piece of property. . . . Let's not just look at blood. Let's look at actions, conduct.''

In the 5-year-old's case, Woodhouse said, the judge must consider: ``Is the child so bonded that she really doesn't have a relationship with the person claiming parenthood?''

Roey Kirk, a Miami healthcare consultant and adoptive mother who is on the board of directors of Hear My Voice, an advocacy group that supports prospective adoptive families and longtime caregivers, said she has faith that Cohen, and the state courts, ultimately will do what is best for the little girl, who has seen enough tragedy.

''Every time a bond is broken, it affects the child,'' Kirk said. ``What we would like to see everyone do is focus all their energy and love on creating an environment for this child so that she doesn't have to suffer any more loss.''

FAR FROM CERTAIN

Izquierdo's legal team will present evidence that it's far from certain the girl will be harmed by reunification with her father's family in Cuba.

''For every medical or quasi-medical professional who says the disruption will cause permanent brain damage, there are equally credible people who say children are flexible, go through trauma all the time, and recover,'' said Boyer, the Loyola professor.

''I'm not saying children are not affected, or traumatized,'' Boyer added. But the case raises the specter of ``giving judges unfettered power to decide that a child is better off being raised by some other family. A judge could simply decide a child would be happier in a nice house in the suburbs, with a swing set and a puppy -- and maybe better schools.''

``That's never, ever a reason to take a child away from a fit parent because you think they will be better off somewhere else.''

[0007]

9. Rules Committee Democrats Reject Diaz-Balart Amendment to Provide SCHIP to Legal Immigrant Children

September 25th, 2007 - Washington, D.C. - The Democratic Majority in the House Rules Committee, last night, rejected an amendment offered by Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) to the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, H.R. 976, which sought to allow states the option to provide Medicaid and SCHIP coverage to legal immigrant children and pregnant women in the U.S. The House Rules Committee rejected Congressman Diaz-Balart’s amendment on a party line 4-8 vote.

“It is irresponsible to expand health coverage while excluding legal immigrant children,” said Congressman Diaz-Balart. “The law should not discriminate against legal immigrants; health care is simply too important an issue,” concluded Diaz-Balart.

http://diaz-balart.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=121&Month=9&Year=9&ShowHeader=False

ElYuckO!!

[Mika]

10. I can't believe it! I agree with Diaz Balart on this.

Legal immigrants work and pay taxes too. Excluding their children is an obsenity.

Even a broken clock gets the time right twice a day, and as much as I can't stand this cretin I agree with his amendment.

-

[0007]

11. Things are certain backward these days, heh?

[Judi Lynn]

12. Love that photo! He looks like such a tool. Those Diaz-Balart brothers, and their associate,

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, (not to mention _Bush buddy, Senator Mel Martinez, Senator Robert Menendez, and _Bush Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez) appear to think they've got American politics down cold.

There's one true beauty in the changeover to Democratic control of the Rules Committee: Lincoln Diaz-Balart is going to have a hard time getting access to ammendments which relate to Cuba, and destroying them before they can go anywhere, as he used to do.

~~~~~~~~~~
Majority
Louise McIntosh Slaughter, Chairwoman, New York
James P. McGovern, Massachusetts
Alcee Hastings. Florida
Doris Matsui, California
Dennis Cardoza, California
Peter Welch, Vermont
Kathy Castor, Florida
Michael Arcuri, New York
Betty Sutton, Ohio

Minority
David Dreier, Ranking Member, California
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida
Doc Hastings, Washington
Pete Sessions, Texas

~~~~~~~~~~
Awwwwwwwww!

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. I have to believe there's more to the story. n/t

[tammywammy]

13. Good News!

Hopefully there won't be much delay returning the girl back to her father.

[Mika]

15. The custodial family (Joe Cubas) said they'll appeal this all the way!

Joe Cubas lawyers said they will shop for the most sympathetic venue (court) to do what they can to keep this girl from going back to Cuba.

I think that it might take a while. (I hope I'm wrong again.)

[erpowers]

16. Right Thing

I think the ruling was the right thing to do. It seems like this man really wanted his daugther. In addition, from what I have heard the man had been trying to get to his daugther for about two years.