Another Utah/ A Act of Love Domestic Adoption Debacle UPDATED

By on 9-09-2011 in A Act of Love, Father's Rights, Florida, Larry Jenkins, Ramsey Shaud, Utah

Another Utah/ A Act of Love Domestic Adoption Debacle UPDATED

One guess on who is representing the adoption agency….

This time the biological mother and father are from Florida. The biological father registered on the Putative Father registry in Florida. When he heard that his pregnant girlfriend was going to “travel” to Arizona and Utah near the birth of his child, he registered in Arizona and attempted to register in Utah. Read on…

“A Florida man’s court fight to gain custody of his daughter, given up for adoption after her January 2010 birth, may hinge on whether he is allowed to argue a state employee’s delay in registering his paternity notice violated his due process rights.

The Utah Supreme Court is now considering whether Ramsey Shaud, of Crestview, Fla., adequately argued in a lower court that his constitutional rights were violated by the delay at the Office of Vital Records and Statistics, caused in part by the state’s four-day workweek and a legal holiday.
Shaud is the latest in a string of unmarried fathers from across the country to make his way to Utah in hopes of undoing an adoption — in this case, of a child referred to as “Baby Girl T.” It will likely be months before the justices issue their opinion.
Shaud, now 24, had a casual relationship with Shasta B. Tew, also of Crestview, Fla., in 2009 and learned in June that Tew was pregnant and due in February 2010. Shaud told Tew and her mother he was fully capable of and willing to raise the child; he objected when Tew said  she planned to have an abortion and when she backed out of the procedure and wanted to place the baby for adoption. Shaud filed with Florida’s Putative Father Registry a month after learning of the pregnancy and later refused to sign off on adoption paperwork. In mid-December, Shaud received a handwritten note from Tew informing him she planned to travel to Arizona and Utah for the holidays and would “stay on in Utah for awhile.”
Shaud immediately filed with Arizona’s Putative Father Registry but said he was unable to locate information on government websites about what he needed to do to protect his rights in Utah. He hired a Utah attorney, who on Jan. 12, 2010, filed a paternity petition and faxed a notice of paternity to the state records office.
Daniel Drage, Shaud’s attorney, also mailed a notice that day to the records office, which marked it received on Jan. 14. With the baby due in February, Shaud thought he was acting in plenty of time.
But Tew gave premature birth to a baby girl on Jan. 15.
The records office happened to be closed that day, a Friday, because of the state’s four-day work schedule, and was closed the following Monday, which was a federal holiday. A clerk filed Shaud’s paternity notice on Jan. 20, a day after Tew relinquished her rights and the infant was placed with adoptive parents through A Act of Love Adoptions.
A trial court judge ruled Shaud had failed to met a statutory deadline and had no right to object to the adoption. Drage argued the lower court improperly refused to let Shaud submit evidence detailing his filings.
“In this case, Mr. Shaud ran this race, ran through the maze and initiated his paternity proceedings and filed his notice prior to the birth of his child,” his appeal states. But, the office failed to act in a timely manner, a failure that was “unquestionably the result of gross negligence.
“To bar Mr. Shaud from asserting his biological right to his daughter in these circumstances contravenes all notions of fairness and due process,” Shaud’s petition states.
But the justices questioned Drage about whether he had properly preserved a constitutional claim by raising it in the trial court proceedings, something Drage maintained he did in oral arguments.
Larry S. Jenkins, the attorney representing the adoption agency, said it is “irrelevant” when Shaud sent his notice to the records office; what matters is when it was entered into the record, and that didn’t happen until the birth mother had already consented to the adoption.
The Utah Legislature purposefully set the time of filing to coincide with when a claim is entered into the Putatitve Father Registry to further “important policy interests,” Jenkins said in his court filing — namely, a clear-cut deadline that a birth mother, adoptive parents and adoption agencies could rely on and a “compelling interest in providing stable and permanent homes for adoptive children in a prompt manner.”
Shaud also failed to submit a copy of his court-filed paternity petition to the records office, which Jenkins argues is required by Utah’s adoption statute but Drage said is “discretionary.”
By officially accepting a paternity notice, the records office is signing off on a filing as complete, with a verified paternity petition and no conflicting paternity claims, Jenkins said. Shaud is simply trying to shift blame for not filing his notice sooner to the records office.

Did Utah four-day work week cost dad rights to his child?
[The Salt Lake City Tribune 9/7/11 by Brooke Adams]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: “In a 3-2 decision, the Utah Supreme Court has found that Utah’s adoption law was “constitutionally defective” in depriving a Florida father a “meaningful chance” to develop a relationship with his child after a notice of paternity he filed was not recorded in a timely manner because of the state’s then four-day workweek and a federal holiday.

The high court reversed a decision by a trial judge who found that Ramsey Shaud had acted too late to stop the adoption of his daughter, born in January 2010. The justices sent the case back to the lower court to reconsider whether the Utah Office Vital Records and Statistics received Shaud’s paternity notice before the child’s mother placed her for adoption.

Shaud alleges, the court noted, that he attempted to protect his parental rights in a timely fashion but that the office “negligently delayed” entry of his notice in the state’s paternity registry, which the trial judge used as a basis of finding he had moved too late to have any say in his daughter’s adoption.

“We conclude that the district court’s interpretation of the [adoption act’s] strict compliance standard poses an unacceptable risk of erroneous deprivation of unwed fathers’ rights,” the court said. It also said that protecting the state’s compelling interest in timely adoption decisions did not require that a paternity petition be considered filed only at the time it was entered into the registry.

“Rather, we hold that Mr. Shaud’s notice must be considered filed when Vital Records received it, because, at that point, Mr. Shaud had done all that he could to strictly comply with the act,” the court said.

The opinion was written by Justice Christine Durham, who was joined by Justices Ronald Nehring and Jill Parrish. Chief Justice Matthew Durrant and Justice Thomas Lee dissented.

The court heard oral arguments in the case in September 2011. It issued the decision Friday, but it was not posted on the court’s website until Tuesday after The Salt Lake Tribune inquired about the ruling.

“I honestly never thought this day would come!” Shaud said Tuesday. “All I can do is smile. … [It has] restored my faith in the judicial system out there, and I look forward to getting our case going in the lower court.”

Daniel Drage, his attorney, praised the justices for thoroughly considering the constitutional implications and due-process pitfalls of Utah’s current adoption law. Drage said he and his client were looking forward to getting back in court for a hearing to “establish that he has perfected his rights as a father, that notice was timely received by the Bureau of Vital Records and that he will have an opportunity to be a father to his daughter.”

While the decision assures Shaud, 26, a shot at making the argument that he acted in time to protect his parental rights, it does not guarantee he’ll get to parent his child — a matter that will likely involve numerous additional court hearings in which his fitness as a parent will be weighed against those of the child’s adoptive parents and what is in the child’s best interests.”

Florida Allegations

Shaud is involved in another case in Florida that may impact his bid to get his daughter back. “Ramsey Shaud faces an additional legal battle in his home state of Florida, where he was charged this summer with false imprisonment and battery after an argument with a girlfriend.

According to a warrant, the woman chucked a shoe at Shaud after he questioned her fidelity. He then responded by grabbing her and pushing her against a wall. The police report says Shaud also punched her cheek. She broke free, ran into a bedroom and tried to climb out a window but Shaud stopped her.

A struggle continued and the woman alleges Shaud punched her in the head several more times before she was able to escape again to a bathroom, the report states. She then managed to talk Shuad into allowing her to leave and later filed a police report about the altercation.

Shaud was arrested Sept. 25, booked into jail and then released on bond. Shaud was later charged with contempt of court for violating his bond conditions after exchanging text messages with the woman. He has pleaded not guilty. A court hearing is set for next month.

Shaud declined to speak at length about the incident because the case is still pending, but he denied hitting the woman.

“I do maintain my innocence,” he said. “I am not guilty of the charges I’m accused of. I didn’t do that.”

Utah Supreme Court: Florida man gets a shot at being a dad

[Salt Lake Tribune 11/27/12 by Brooke Adams]

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