Girl in Adoption Dispute Gets Permanent Home

Girl in Adoption Dispute Gets Permanent Home

For the first two years of her life, Veronica lived in South Carolina with her two adoptive parents. For the next two, she was in the custody of her Native American father in Oklahoma.

Now, at 4, the young Cherokee girl is heading to a permanent home following the resolution of a years-long custody dispute involving questions of jurisdiction and tribal sovereignty in both Native American and U.S. courts.

Late Monday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court declined to uphold a stay keeping Veronica with her father, Dusten Brown, and ordered that custody be turned over to the adoptive parents, Matt and Melanie Capobianco, of Charleston.

When the Capobiancos complete the long drive from Oklahoma to South Carolina, their topmost priority should be creating the stable life that Veronica has lacked in her first four years of life, experts say.

"The saga she's been through really seems to be this tragic tale of law and adults who talk about the best interest of the child but don't seem to be doing what's in the best interest of the child," said Dr. Naranjan Karnik, a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry at Chicago's Rush University. "Kids always know when there's uncertainty in the air. To not know where your home is going to be is the most unsettling thing."

Dr. Philip Fisher, a psychologist specializing in childhood trauma at the University of Oregon, agrees.

Fisher notes that children who have been in unsettled home environments, such as shuttling between different houses or families, can suffer. At 4 years old, traumatic changes can actually hamper development in the part of the brain that helps someone make good decisions, Fisher said.

Veronica was born Sept. 15, 2009, to an unwed, non-Native American mother in Oklahoma who decided to give her up for adoption and chose the Capobiancos in South Carolina as her adoptive parents.

But Brown also had petitioned for custody shortly after her birth, and in December 2011, after Veronica had lived with the Capobiancos for a little more than two years, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled in the father's favor. The court said that under the Indian Child Welfare Act, it was in the little girl's best interest to be raised by her biological father because of his Native American heritage. Consequently, Veronica went to live with Brown in Oklahoma.

Two more years passed, and this past summer, the tables turned again: The U.S. Supreme Court — responding to a challenge from the Capobiancos to the South Carolina court's decision — ruled that the Indian Child Welfare Act did not apply in this case because Brown had been absent from the child's life. The South Carolina courts finalized the couple's adoption and ordered Brown to hand Veronica over. Two Oklahoma courts certified the order.

But Brown wasn't done. He was still hoping that the Oklahoma Supreme Court would refuse to lift a stay that was in place to keep Veronica with him. The court declined the request, and Veronica was transferred Monday night to the Capobiancos.

Justice Noma Gurich dissented.

"We cannot ignore the fact that (Veronica), at the age of 27 months, has already been moved from one set of 'parents' to another, after lengthy judicial consideration of her best interests," Gurich wrote. "Under the issues present to this court, an immediate change of custody without any consideration of her best interests will require a four-year-old child to resolve her feelings of loss and grief for a second time."