Opinion ID: 2284287
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The failure of due process.

Text: The record shows that the mother was served with process of the adoptive parents' petition on October 16, 2007. At the time, she was incarcerated for violating federal immigration laws, in the St. Clair County jail, 92 miles from Carthage where she was living and working at the time of her arrest. She did not, however, receive notice of the October 18, 2007, circuit court hearing transferring custody to the adoptive parents. When she did receive court documents, they were in English, the official language of Missouri. See MO. CONST. art. I, sec. 34. It appears that at least one person was available in the jail to write a letter on the mother's behalf as she wrote a letter dated October 28, 2007, asking that her son not be adopted, that he be placed in foster care and that she receive visitation. The circuit court, however, did not even note that this letter existed, either in its judgment terminating parental rights or in its judgment of adoption. Does the mother's delay in responding to the adoptive parents' petition mean, as the circuit court infers, that she has no interest in her child? Or is her delay a signal that she was trying to understand what was going on but it took time to find an interpreter and have the letter translated?