Opinion ID: 2123883
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: supplemental opinions upon denial of rehearing

Text: Justice HEIPLE, writing in support of the denial of rehearing: On Thursday, June 16, 1994, this court reversed a decision by a divided appellate court which had affirmed certain adoption proceedings in the circuit court of Cook County. Our reversal was the result of the failure of the courts below to correctly apply Illinois law in terminating the natural father's parental rights. This cause is now before the court on petitions for rehearing filed by the adoptive parents and the guardian ad litem for the child. The following is offered in support of today's order denying rehearing. I have been a judge for over 23 years. In that time, I have seldom before worked on a case that involved the spread of so much misinformation, nor one which dealt with as straightforward an application of law to fact. As was made clear in the majority opinion, a conspiracy was undertaken to deny the natural father any knowledge of his son's existence. It began when the biological mother, 8½ months pregnant, was misinformed that the father, her fiance, had left her for another woman. She left their shared home and, at the encouragement of a social worker, agreed to give up her child. The social worker called her personal attorney, who contacted the adoptive mother (that attorney's friend and employee). At the behest of the adoptive parents and their attorney, the mother gave birth at a different hospital than she and the father had planned to avoid the father's intervention; the mother surrendered the baby to strangers four days after his birth; and then falsely told the father that the child had died. All of this occurred in the space of less than three weeks. The father did not believe the mother, and he immediately began an intensive and persistent search and inquiry to learn the truth and locate the child. On the 57th day following the child's birth, the father learned of his son's existence and of the pending adoption. On that day, he hired a lawyer and contested the adoption of his son by strangers. One may reasonably ask, What more could he have done? What more should he have done? The answer is that he did all that he could and should do. The majority opinion pointed out that the adoptive parents should have relinquished the baby at that time. That is to say, on the 57th day. Instead of that, however, they were able to procure an entirely erroneous ruling from a trial judge that allowed the adoption to go forward. The father's only remedy at that stage was a legal appeal which he took. He is not the cause of the delay in this case. It was the adoptive parents' decision to prolong this litigation through a long and ultimately fruitless appeal. Now, the view has been expressed that the passage of time warrants their retention of the child; that it would not be fair to the child to return him to his natural parents, now married to each other, after the adoptive parents have delayed justice past the child's third birthday. For a fuller and more detailed account of the father's efforts and the underlying facts, one may refer to the dissenting opinion authored by Justice Tully in the appellate court decision rendered below. (254 Ill.App.3d 405, 418, 194 Ill.Dec. 311, 627 N.E.2d 648 (Tully, P.J., dissenting).) As noted by Justice Tully, Justice Rizzi, writing the majority opinion for himself and Justice Cerda, patently distorted and slanted the facts on a number of important points. I would further add that Justice Rizzi grossly misstated the law. If, as stated by Justice Rizzi, the best interests of the child is to be the determining factor in child custody cases (254 Ill.App.3d at 412, 194 Ill.Dec. 311, 627 N.E.2d 648), persons seeking babies to adopt might profitably frequent grocery stores and snatch babies from carts when the parent is looking the other way. Then, if custody proceedings can be delayed long enough, they can assert that they have a nicer home, a superior education, a better job or whatever, and that the best interests of the child are with the baby snatchers. Children of parents living in public housing or other conditions deemed less than affluent and children with single parents might be considered particularly fair game. The law, thankfully, is otherwise. In 1972, the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Stanley v. Illinois (1972), 405 U.S. 645, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 ruled that unmarried fathers cannot be treated differently than unmarried mothers or married parents when determining their rights to the custody of their children. ( Stanley, 405 U.S. at 658, 92 S.Ct. at 1216, 31 L.Ed.2d at 562-63.) The courts of Illinois are bound by that decision. Subsequently, in 1990, a unanimous Illinois Supreme Court pointed out that when ruling on parental unfitness, a court is not to consider the child's best interests, since the child's welfare is not relevant in judging the fitness of the natural parent; that only after the parent is found by clear and convincing evidence to be unfit does the court proceed to consider the child's best interest and whether that interest would be served if the child were adopted by the petitioners. In re Adoption of Syck (1990), 138 Ill.2d 255, 276-78, 149 Ill.Dec. 710, 562 N.E.2d 174. Under Illinois law, a parent may be divested of his parental rights either voluntarily ( e.g., consenting to an adoption (see Ill.Rev. Stat.1991, ch. 40, par. 1513)) or involuntarily ( e.g., finding of abuse, abandonment, neglect or lack of sufficient interest (see Ill.Rev.Stat. 1991, ch. 40, par. 1510)). As noted in the majority opinion, the adoption laws of Illinois are neither complex nor difficult of application. These laws intentionally place the burden of proof on the adoptive parents. In addition, Illinois law requires a good-faith effort to notify the natural father of the adoption proceedings. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1991, ch. 40, par. 1509.) We call this due process of law. In the case at hand, both the adoptive parents and their attorney knew that a real father existed whose name was known to the mother but who refused to disclose it. Under these circumstances, the adoptive parents proceeded at their peril. The best interest of the child standard is not to be denigrated. It is real. However, it is not triggered until it has been validly determined that the child is available for adoption. And, a child is not available for adoption until the rights of his natural parents have been properly terminated. Any judge, lawyer, or guardian ad litem who has even the most cursory familiarity with adoption laws knows that. Justice Rizzi, if he is to be taken at face value, does not know that. Columnist Bob Greene apparently does not care. Rather, columnist Greene has used this unfortunate controversy to stimulate readership and generate a series of syndicated newspaper columns in the Chicago Tribune and other papers that are both false and misleading. In so doing, he has wrongfully cried fire in a crowded theatre, and has needlessly alarmed other adoptive parents into ill-founded concerns that their own adoption proceedings may be in jeopardy. In support of his position, Greene has stirred up contempt against the Supreme Court as an institution, concluding one of his columns by referring to all of the Justices with the curse, Damn them all. Chicago Tribune, June 19, 1994, Tempo Section, page 1. Greene's implicit objective is to secure justice for a child. With that ethical and moral imperative, of course, no one could disagree. Greene, however, elevates himself above the facts, above the law, and above the Supreme Court of Illinois. He arrogates to himself the right to decide the case. In support of his objective, Greene brings to bear the tools of the demagogue, namely, incomplete information, falsity, half-truths, character assassination and spurious argumentation. He has conducted a steady assault on my abilities as a judge, headlining one of his columns The Sloppiness of Justice Heiple. Another was entitled Supreme Injustice for a Little Boy. He has shown my picture in his columns with bylines reading, respectively, Justice Heiple: Ruling takes boy from home, and James D. Heiple: No justice for a child. References to, respectively, Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1994, Tempo Section, page 1; June 19, 1994, Tempo Section, page 1; June 26, 1994, Tempo Section, page 1; June 19, 1994, Tempo Section, page 1. Make no mistake about it. These are acts of journalistic terrorism. These columns are designed to discredit me as a judge and the Supreme Court as a dispenser of justice by stirring up disrespect and hatred among the general population. Lest we forget the place from which he comes, let us remind ourselves that Greene is a journalist with a product to sell. He writes columns for a living. His income is dependent on writing and selling his columns to newspapers. He cannot secure either sales or earnings by writing on subjects that lack impact or drama. So, he must seek out subjects that are capable of generating wide public interest. An adoption case involving two sets of parents contesting for the custody of a three-year-old boy is a ready-made subject for this type of journalist. So far, so good. The trouble with Greene's treatment of the subject, however, is that his columns have been biased, false and misleading. They have also been destructive to the cause of justice both in this case and in the wider perspective. Part of Greene's fury may be attributable to the fact that he staked out his views on this case in a published column that appeared on August 22, 1993. (Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1993, Tempo Section, page 1.) Subsequently, on June 16, 1994, the Supreme Court had the audacity to base its decision on the law rather than on his newspaper column. So much for his self-professed moralizing. That Greene has succeeded to a limited degree cannot be denied. I have, indeed, received several pieces of hate mail with such epithets as idiot, jerk, etc. The Governor, in a crass political move, announced his attempt to intervene in the case. And the General Assembly, without meaningful debate or consideration, rushed into law a constitutionally infirm statute with the goal of changing the Supreme Court's decision. Both the Governor and the members of the General Assembly who supported this bill might be well advised to return to the classroom and take up Civics 101. The Governor, for his part, has no understanding of this case and no interest either public or private in its outcome. The legislature is not given the authority to decide private disputes between litigants. Neither does it sit as a super court to review unpopular decisions of the Supreme Court. We have three branches of government in this land. They are designated as the legislative, the executive and the judicial. Legislative adjudication of private disputes went by the wayside generations ago. Moreover, this case cannot be decided by public clamor generated by an irresponsible journalist. Neither can it be decided by its popularity or lack thereof. This case can only be decided by a court of law. That is a judicial function pure and simple. For the Supreme Court to surrender to this assault would be to surrender its independence, its integrity and its reason for being. In so doing, neither justice to the litigants nor the public interest would be served. Under the circumstances, this case looms even larger than the child or the two sets of contesting parents. Many law suits are painful matters. This case is no exception. Capital cases, for instance, demand the forfeiture of the life of the defendant. Damage suits take money away from some people and give it to others. No one ever claimed that both sides walk away from a law suit with smiles on their faces. No member of this court ever entertained any thought that the decision it rendered in this case would be easy to accept by the losing litigants. Such an event would be incredible. As for the child, age three, it is to be expected that there would be an initial shock, even a longing for a time in the absence of the persons whom he had viewed as parents. This trauma will be overcome, however, as it is every day across this land by children who suddenly find their parents separated by divorce or lost to them through death. It will not be an insurmountable trauma for a three-year-old child to be returned, at last, to his natural parents who want to raise him as their own. It will work itself out in the fullness of time. As for the adoptive parents, they will have to live with their pain and the knowledge that they wrongfully deprived a father of his child past the child's third birthday. They and their lawyer brought it on themselves. This much is clear. Adoptive parents who comply with the law may feel secure in their adoptions. Natural parents may feel secure in their right to raise their own children. If there is a tragedy in this case, as has been suggested, then that tragedy is the wrongful breakup of a natural family and the keeping of a child by strangers without right. We must remember that the purpose of an adoption is to provide a home for a child, not a child for a home. Justice FREEMAN, also writing in support of the denial of rehearing: I wholeheartedly concur in the court's decision to deny rehearing in this case. In the weeks since the publication of this court's opinion in this case, there has been a tremendous public outcry. In light of the immediate consequences to all concerned, such was to be expected. We are, nonetheless, no less focused or certain of our mandate. We are constrained to interpret and apply the law as it is enacted by our legislature. This remains so, even in the midst of strong public opinion, media attention, and legislative action which comes now, only in the wake of what has been popularly deemed an unpopular decision. Our role is clear, and we possess no authority to deviate from our mandate. To now entreat and, further, require that we either rewrite or apply a law enacted based upon the testing of public opinion, results in an unworkable restructuring of the three branches of government. To avoid what promises to be an emotionally difficult transition for this child, public sentiment would have us find that it is in his best interest to validate this adoption. For as much as this child has been received, loved and cared for by his adoptive parents, we may not rule oblivious to and in total disregard of the rights of his natural parents. As petitioner correctly concedes, we are constrained to determine the issue of unfitness prior to engaging in any determination of the child's best interest. This we have done. We have reviewed the particularly unique set of facts in this case. And, based upon that review, we have determined that a conclusion opposite that which the trial and appellate courts reached is clearly evident. Petitioner asserts that in that our review, we have inappropriately reweighed the evidence, and, in effect, substituted our judgment for that of the trial court. Our consideration of the evidence necessarily requires some sifting to determine its adequacy. Such a review, though not without limitation, is clearly within our province and requires more than a mere perfunctory examination. In light of our findings, no purpose can be served by allowing rehearing in this case. The only thing to be gained by such unwarranted action is further, and still further, delay. Such delay can only serve to increase the difficulty already attendant the pending separation of this youngster from his adoptive parents. Equally as important a concern, however, is the avoidance of any unnecessary delay in the unification of this child and his natural parents and his assimilation process into his birth family. For these reasons, I concur in the denial of the petition for rehearing.