Opinion ID: 1172030
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The scope of the court's review

Text: The mother's jurisdictional challenge goes to the very heart of the court's power over the child's status rather than to the correctness of an in-trial ruling and that power is subject to invalidation because of failure to give adequate notice at the critical preliminary state of the proceeding. She brings a direct attack for want of a jurisdictional element  the power of the court to act. She argues that he procedure by which the power over her child first came to be asserted was fatally flawed. When jurisdiction over a judicial proceeding is acquired by a facially defective process, want of an objection interposed in the trial court is not a barrier to appellate review in the absence of a waiver. This is particularly so when the court gives no opportunity to challenge the tainted process by a hearing. [12] We can presume neither the presence of jurisdictional prerequisites not their waiver from a silent record. [13] The record here does not reflect that an affidavit was attached either to the 1984 or the 1986 emergency order. Neither is there any record trial of a show-cause hearing afforded the mother within 48 hours of these emergency orders. In short, the record is absolutely devoid of a showing that at the preadjudicative custody state jurisdiction was acquired by means that are constitutionally mandated. The child was taken away from the mother without the benefit of either the notice-giving affidavit or a hearing. Because the mother was not haled into court for a show-cause hearing, she had no duty to object to the defective process. There are two distinct jurisdictional prerequisites for the preadjudicative and merits stages of a deprived-status proceeding. The mother's right to due process was violated here in the initial assumption of jurisdiction over the preadjudicative state. The only fit cure of this fatal defect is to vacate the preadjudicative decision and to require an immediate post-remand hearing that will address the placement issue pending adjudication of the merits. [14]