Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl (570 U.S. 637)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 25, 2013 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 570 U.S. 637 · 133 S. Ct. 2552
- Decided
- June 25, 2013
- Term
- October Term 2012
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Alito
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. *641 This case is about a little girl (Baby Girl) who is classified as an Indian because she is 1.2% (3/256) Cherokee. Because Baby Girl is classified in this way, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that certain provisions of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 required her to be taken, at the age of 27 months, from the only parents she had ever known and handed over to her biological father, who had attempted to relinquish his parental rights and who had no prior contact with the child. The provisions of the federal statute *2557 at issue here do not demand this result. Contrary to the State Supreme Court's ruling, we hold that 25 U.S.C. § 1912 (f) -which bars involuntary termination of a parent's rights in the absence of a heightened showing that serious harm to the Indian child is likely to result from the parent's "continued custody" of the child-does not apply when, as here, the relevant parent never had custody of the child. We further hold that § 1912(d) -which conditions involuntary termination of parental rights with respect to an Indian child on a showing that remedial efforts have been made to prevent the "breakup of the Indian family"-is inapplicable when, as here, the parent abandoned the Indian child before birth and never had custody of the child. *642 Finally, we clarify that § 1915(a), which…
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