Judge Orders Immediate Transfer of Baby Veronica

As I have previously discussed, the litigation in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl appears to be over after the U.S. Supreme Court denied the biological father’s request to postpone the state court ruling authorizing the transfer of “Baby Veronica” to her adoptive parents, the Capobiancos.

The transfer was supposed to occur gradually in a “transition plan,” however, a South Carolina family court judge has ordered the immediate transfer of the four-year-old child after hearing evidence the biological father disobeyed a court ruling by not showing up at the appropriate time and place to begin the transfer.  The judge has ordered Dusten Brown of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to turn the child over immediately to the adoptive parents, saying she “is being unlawfully withheld from her lawful parents.”

See Lyle Denniston, Speed-Up of “Baby Veronica” Transfer, SCOTUS Blog, Aug. 6, 2013.