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Full-Text Articles in Juvenile Law
Fighting The Establishment: The Need For Procedural Reform Of Our Paternity Laws, Caroline Rogus
Fighting The Establishment: The Need For Procedural Reform Of Our Paternity Laws, Caroline Rogus
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Every state and the District of Columbia use voluntary acknowledgments of paternity. Created pursuant to federal law, the acknowledgment is signed by the purported biological parents and establishes paternity without requiring court involvement. Intended to be a “simple civil process” to establish paternity where the parents are unmarried, the acknowledgment is used by state governments to expedite child support litigation. But federal policy and state laws governing the acknowledgments do not sufficiently protect the interests of those men who have signed acknowledgments and who subsequently discover that they lack genetic ties to the children in question. A signatory who learns …
Displaced Mothers, Absent And Unnatural Fathers: Lgbt Transracial Adoption, Kim H. Pearson
Displaced Mothers, Absent And Unnatural Fathers: Lgbt Transracial Adoption, Kim H. Pearson
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
While some might believe that Black versus gay discourse only surfaces in highly politicized settings like the military and marriage, it holds sway in the area of LGBT transracial adoption. LGBT transracial adoptions are a relatively small percentage of all adoptions, which include private adoptions, LGBT second-parent adoptions, and step-parent adoptions, but they are an important site for interrogating the Black versus gay discourse because adoption and custody decisions often address parent-child transmission. When claims intersect, as they do in a case where a White LGBT foster parent and a Black maternal grandmother dispute the adoption of a Black child, …
The Rights Of Putative Fathers To Their Infant Children In Contested Adoptions: Strengthening State Laws That Currently Deny Adequate Protection, Robbin Pott Gonzalez
The Rights Of Putative Fathers To Their Infant Children In Contested Adoptions: Strengthening State Laws That Currently Deny Adequate Protection, Robbin Pott Gonzalez
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This paper argues that states need to strengthen protection of putative fathers' rights to their infant children when the mother wishes for the child to be adopted. Part I frames the discussion around established parental rights through constitutional case law. To do this, the paper addresses both the Supreme Court's parental rights doctrine and its biology-plus doctrine, which requires unwed fathers to show that in addition to being the biological father they also have taken responsibility for their children. Part II describes common state statutes that affect putative fathers, including putative father registries, safe haven laws, and laws granting custody …
Parens Patriae And A Modest Proposal For The Twenty-First Century: Legal Philosophy And A New Look At Children's Welfare, Natalie Loder Clark
Parens Patriae And A Modest Proposal For The Twenty-First Century: Legal Philosophy And A New Look At Children's Welfare, Natalie Loder Clark
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This paper will turn to philosophy to seek material for limiting the exercise of parens patriae power. A significant reduction of the government's role will better serve the modern concern for child rearing which is this century's re-definition of best interests.
Second-Parent Adoption: Overcoming Barriers To Lesbian Family Rights, Maxwell S. Peltz
Second-Parent Adoption: Overcoming Barriers To Lesbian Family Rights, Maxwell S. Peltz
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Part I of this Article will discuss some of the legal difficulties associated with co-parenting and why lesbian couples have sought second-parent adoptions. Part II will examine the particular statutory obstacles to second-parent adoptions and then analyze the various ways courts in several states have overcome these obstacles. Finally, Part III will discuss the implications of these decisions in terms of their creation of legal and social norms.
Damned For Using Daycare: Appellate Brief Of Jennifer Ireland In Ireland V. Smith, Julie Kunce Field
Damned For Using Daycare: Appellate Brief Of Jennifer Ireland In Ireland V. Smith, Julie Kunce Field
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
At issue is custody of three-and-a-half-year-old Maranda (date of birth: April 22, 1991). The trial court found that Maranda had an established custodial environment with her mother, Jennifer Ireland, but then nominally ordered custody changed to Steven Smith. The court's order changing custody was based on a determination that day care is an inappropriate choice for care of a preschool child, and that no one effectively can be a single parent and a student at the same time. Those findings have no factual basis in the record, no legal basis under Michigan law, and no logical or even common sense …