justice on october twenty fifth as she stated that one of her priorities is of course children's cases and dealing with these types of issues and i know that any judge in her position your position thinks these types of cases very seriously this is a case in w this young lady is in limbo and has a lot to face so it's a very very important cases i'm sure they all are for this court this case involves the future of a nine year old girl who has lived this far a very tragic life for example a father's ceased to look at their mother who was a prostitute at drug and alcohol problems she was in and out of the home her mother moved frequently and so she said extremely rough life i suppose one particular case in january almost a year ago her mother died and this best as we can tell she lived for one to two days in the house with her deceased mother so if her life wasn't rough enough before that it certainly was aggravated by that development her mother's nearest relatives her mother's mother has since deceased and has one remaining sister of which the record will show as a very serious health problems grandfather jessica the mother's father has been divorced from mary for several years or so years i guess with houses in the west coast and in the east coast she's been somewhat in and out of the family of these people were in a position to take the minor in show that there was a report and then the person was subpoenaed and there was a motion to quash the subpoena and judge whatever said he wasn't going to consider anything related to that reporter that person's opinion but other than that what is there as far as evidence that the state was involved i mean as i recall it the child reached out to the foster mother come due to the circumstances with her mother being unable to awaken and her talking to a neighbor or someone who  come over to check on things in basically the sister the mother sister and the mother's mother determined that the child should go with the former foster parents i mean is there some evidence of anything other than that being the way things after she had physical custody of the minor besides didn't write multi page report that would indicate that that was a proper placement and they were the best place for her to be so that's out october they had already had the child that was after they had the trial that testimony did establish that she was involved after the miners mother died and had some involvement in basically approving the arrangement the family there to have permission or to know testimony at the hearing and in my opinion this whole notion out there was some conspiracy or the state was somehow acting to make sure that the foster parents that is times don't think really is we're not  wrong well it would be nice if we had more of a record it would be nice if the trial court would order besides to testify and turn over her file we knew more or probably knows that there's an adoption contest contest now in macon county and set to testify or will testify and there's more evidence really concerning that involvement now i realize that records are not before it so there's kind of a thorough after there after she's placed with the davi s and she writes this report in support of their petition for guardianship of any further evidence and they're involved but i know the family wasn't sure what the state was going to do there are federal and state mandates so if the statements  priority even federal funding is based on going to considering federal considering blood relatives who consider emplacement improper priority in this particular case what i mean by ratified  going to go to trial court broad latitude in these types of cases and it's going to support the trial court decision unless it's clear abuse of discretion and i read an interesting opinion that i just came across the last couple days sheridan which was published on october thirteenth two thousand and thirteen manifest weight of the evidence when it appears that these stand for the manifest witness point in another direction i realize there are all kinds of factors to be applied by the court depending on what juvenile court accurately on marriage and dissolution of marriage act in this particular case the factors outlined in the line of cases in the statute governing adoption and guardianship are more political as the supreme court stated in actually hey the bottom line of course is that this court asked to make the determination whether the trial court's decision was in the best interests of the minor my argument in this case is the clearly the record pointed for the opposite conclusion for the following reason number one the proud court failed to adequately weigh in consider that the shearers are blood relatives of the trial court ultimately concluded oh that was some debate over whether they were first cousins or second even the trial court is back to work included that they were probably first cousins once removed illinois law prefers that as do the federal mandates placing rather child with relatives if they were available  this court it doesn't appear like the court if sufficient weight to the fact that the shooters were related in the davidsons are not as a matter of fact that they've been since did very little at that point to encourage any relationship with a minor  against the manifest weight of the evidence is the court failed to consider this young lady's racial background her father was african american and her mother was five days or a wife that is exactly the composition of my client that directly the composition will say is that her her placement in her personal situation with their foster family or what used to be her foster family was the best possible placement for but the other way to address this is the fact that any issues that may result as  either in regards to problems that she has a result of her experience or wanting to relate to people with similar backgrounds or to deal with the fact that she is in a situation in which t may have difficulty relating to either side of her background because she may not be fully accepted those issues are necessarily manifest state manifested today so these are issues you have to deal with she goes she gets older she gets into of the one of the ways that the davidsons propose that the minor good works through these types of issues to be able to relate to her younger brother and i think that testimony was refuted by jack wilshere was certified as an expert in social whether he was african american but certainly there would be some relationship there i have no doubt so i mentioned the racial background and the blood flow so the religious background assures testified that their entire indicated that jessica the minors mother was raised in the roman catholic church but it's not a far stretch and i don't mean that in a condescending way it's not a far stretch if she have so many sociological problems or drug abuse and establish that when she was living with the davidsons previously she attended their church when she was i don't recall whether the evidence indicated that she did when she was placed there by the foster family it's quite possible that she did i know the evidence indicated she does now and has since replacement junior the other issue is this weight of expert testimony in terms of adding to the other issues that we've already discussed dr william sure you may particularly in children's issues dr scherer testified in this was or refute it that there was a complete need to have this young lady evaluated psychologically girl that's been raised in this will circumstances read her life may be more stable at the moment but the history is not there and we had no idea what psychological issues remain what counseling issues may remain or need to be dealt with based on exposure or something that's happening in the environment project what will happen to the public or what will happen with public health that's exactly the situation here and many of the recommendations are based on assumptions regarding possible consequences from the mother's lifestyle that it's possible since she was a drug user the child may have been exposed to the mothering gaging in prostitution or may have possibly been exposed to the fairies individuals present in the home acting appropriately with the child but all this kind of based on assumptions regarding the mother's lifestyle and what's the easiest way to address those issues i mean you're exactly right it would have been an easy st for either the davis assumes or the court to permit access to permit a physical or an a mental evaluation and to have that as a baseline i think you point back to an issue that points to a deficiency in the court's decision here and also indicated that when she complained of problems with their vegetables that they took her to a general practitioner who is as i understand it an examiner that basically said it's probably price i want to ask a question reviewed my brief this morning and i don't have a great deal of things to say is not already in them i would just comment that we if we start with the judge had found herself in that circumstance which was very difficult and traumatic who had already spent as the judge said a third of her life with the quite recall off the top of my head what the racial background of the three year old child was but i can tell you that i and i meant that they would since to like working as a contract attorney with twenty third of january of the sheer last year basically hit the lottery her family made a wise decision to have the child go stay with a stable family that she knew and the involvement of lindsey weiss in placing her  grandmother mary shear and that the aunt sister was the child's mother to place the child with the davidsons because she knew them and this would relieve the child from having circumstances and place her in a somewhere that could see what where she would be able to deal with her grief and her loss and to basically live life and that's what she was doing from from that point forward to today i don't think a child is as it is a q b dollar can be picked apart and analyzed and unscrew taken apart put back together again by extremist think that the thing to do with a child in this circumstance is to place or in a stable environment see what see what comes next and integrated into the family or reintegrated into the family and some into place or in a place where people already care about and for th credit guardianship in this case were set in the child being removed torn from that environment where she knows her church activities and her church friends  family and her school mates and her brothers and sisters and her foster parents and transporter twenty five hundred miles away to a new place with new people that she's never met or well lot she does it doesn't need to be dissected and cut apart and put back together and she is very well  are the way to deal with that children are very flexible they have a remarkable depth ability to recover from what we adults perceive as as a s an insoluble set of circumstances and in this child done just exactly to to risk her future on the unknown's of being transplanted to  california and placed in a as an again was an elite once again an only child with two working parents and being taken care in of in school and then in  daycare and so on so forth reza opposed to being taken care of by emily davidson who's a stay at home mom and has where she has brothers and sisters to play with and she has dates and i say that the decision of the family to place her with that they had since that day was nothing less than that of the godson of this child and that's really all i have to say about this and i really do think that the that we know that she is at risk given her background and we know that she was moved from the house twice because she was afraid we don't have to speculate so we have a world famous pediatrician and four levels of  term of obtaining scientific evidence that will tell us whether or not she's a risk the trial court discounted all the expert testimony and said i can't see any problems now and so i'm going to avoid and not play that factor very heavily i would argue that this court should do the exact opposite if no other issue in this case of relative racial background religious preference ways as heavily as th allow us not speculate on the future of an atlas everest track the support and the davidsons the record will show prior to the guardianship hearing they have done very low they have any kind of evaluation or any kind of analysis affirmed such a decision that basically will move before this decision while ignoring any possibility that with the state of medicine and science we could learn what this young lady really needs what she really wants and what is really in they want mr mr dr shear testified that the child was a second cousin watcher and that is all that he's a good show and i don't think there's any record any evidence in the record whatsoever to the contrary and no challengers has made to his claim that the child is a second cousin once removed and all these charts do show just demonstrate that is correct so there there probably isn't i didn't really make it focus on that i'm just addressing the i just addressed it case today and in terms of the merits of the judge