Oklahoma HR 2442 & HR 3011 UPDATED

Then, just when the new family was ready to go off happily ever after, the father wanted custody.

In Veronica’s case, the court battles raged across two states and reached the U.S. Supreme Court, with the little girl uprooted twice in less than four years.

Rousselot’s adoption went faster, with a notary public tracking down the biological father in California and persuading him to sign the necessary papers.

That experience, Rousselot said, makes him “the least likely person” in the Legislature to introduce an adoption reform bill that some advocates have nicknamed “Veronica’s Law.”

“I felt some — what’s the word for it? — apprehension, at first,” Rousselot said, sitting down last week at his Wagoner County Farm Bureau office.

“It would have made my own situation a little more complicated.

“But I thought about it very hard, and I’m going ahead with it because it’s the right thing to do. ”

House Bill 2442, officially called the Oklahoma Truth in Adoption Act, would require biological fathers to appear in front of a judge to relinquish parental rights before an adoption could proceed.

In one of the most contentious parts of the Baby Veronica case, the biological father signed an “Acceptance of Service” document, stating that he was not contesting the adoption.

Dusten Brown believed it would give custody to the birth mother while allowing him to have a role in Veronica’s life, according to his trial testimony in 2011.

When he found out about the adoption, he sought advice from attorneys and filed a lawsuit.

Courts in South Carolina, where the adoptive parents were from, eventually ruled that Brown hadn’t given “voluntary consent.”

But the adoptive parents always pointed at the document he signed as evidence that Brown hadn’t wanted his daughter.

Rousselot’s reform would remove any doubt, he said.

“This makes it crystal clear that we won’t have another Dusten Brown,” Rousselot said. “A judge would make it very plain. ‘Young man, you do understand what you’re doing, don’t you?’ ”

In Veronica’s case, however, the adoptive parents successfully argued that the biological father’s consent wasn’t necessary because he didn’t have custody at birth and hadn’t provided significant help to the birth mother during the pregnancy.

Even if Rousselot’s reform becomes law, adoptive parents could still raise a similar argument in future cases, said Linda Kats, a professional counselor and an advocate for adoption reforms [ http://www.breakthrough-counseling.com/]who helped Rousselot draft the bill.

Under Oklahoma law, a biological father would still need to be married to a birth mother, or live with her or provide significant help during pregnancy, to be considered a legal parent.

Nonetheless, the bill — if it had been law last year — would have helped Brown’s case by giving rights to Veronica herself, Kats said.

“The child or minor has a basic fundamental human right to be connected with biological family members,” the bill states.

That language would have strengthened Browns’ argument in court that Veronica deserved a “best interest” hearing before changing custody, Kats said.

With 4-year-old Veronica irrevocably in South Carolina with her adoptive parents now, Rousselot’s reform would make no difference for her.

But it might have an immediate impact on other custody disputes that are still in front of the courts, including the Baby Desirai case, which reads like a mirror image of Veronica’s.

Instead of a South Carolina court demanding a girl back from Oklahoma, an Oklahoma court is demanding a girl back from South Carolina, where she was allegedly taken for adoption without her father’s consent, according to sources familiar with the case.

“Men basically have no say in adoption as it is right now,” Kats said. “And the best interest of the child is very subjective, very vague. This bill is addressing both of those flaws in the current law.”

It’s not clear how much support the reforms will find in the Legislature, especially since Rousselot is a Democrat in a House controlled by Republicans.

But Republican Rep. Sean Roberts, whose district includes parts of Osage and Tulsa counties, has introduced similar legislation.

House Bill 3011 would terminate an adoption proceeding and grant sole custody to a father if he objects to the adoption and if the mother has already surrendered her rights.

The American Academy of Adoption Attorneys didn’t respond to a request for comments for this story.

The reforms would add yet more steps to what is already a lengthy process to place children in adoptive homes, Kats said.

But it would give peace of mind to adoptive parents, who wouldn’t have to worry about a legal challenge popping up months or years down the road, she said.

In Rep. Rousselot’s situation, he and his wife wouldn’t have faced the agonizing uncertainty over their adoption because the biological father’s consent would have been obtained upfront, Kats said, suggesting that Rousselot wasn’t “the least likely person” to submit the bill after all.

“You’re not going to be ripping children away from their fathers,” she said. “But you’re not going to be ripping the rug out from under adoptive parents, either.”

Linda Kats, a professional counselor who helped draft House Bill 2442, doesn’t like the nickname.

“This is about the bigger issue of how adoptions are viewed and handled,” she told a group of about 20 lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the issue. “This isn’t really about Veronica.”

Yet the bill is designed, in part, to prevent the kind of situation that started Veronica’s saga. Her biological father fought for custody — and temporarily won it — after arguing that he was tricked into signing away his rights.

HB 2442, officially named the Oklahoma Truth in Adoption Act, would require biological fathers to appear in front of a judge to relinquish rights before an adoption could proceed.

“If this becomes law, you’re not going to have adoptions in Oklahoma,” said Noel Tucker, one of the adoption attorneys who helped Matt and Melanie Capobianco ultimately regain custody and take Veronica home last September.

Birth mothers will leave the state to arrange adoptions, or maybe seek abortions rather than risk letting the biological fathers gain custody, Tucker said.

“Abortion is going to be chosen more often,” she said. “It’s a discussion we hear in our offices every day.”

Other opponents of the bill suggested that more children will wind up in state custody as birth mothers keep babies who then become mistreated or neglected.

“I hope you’re prepared to spend more money on foster care,” one adoption advocate told legislators.

Rep. Wade Rousselot, a Wagoner Democrat who sponsored the bill, organized the meeting but said very little.

“We’re here to listen,” he said, gesturing toward Republican Rep. Sean Roberts of Tulsa, who has proposed a separate but similar adoption reform bill.

Neither piece of legislation seems likely to reach the House floor in its current form, Roberts said.

“Until it is signed into law, every bill is a work in progress,” he said. “This is just a starting point.”

The Legislature will probably form a study group that will push a vote on the issue into next year, he said.

Adoption attorneys could support stricter requirements on giving notice to biological fathers, said Paul Swain, another attorney for Baby Veronica’s adoptive parents.

But to require biological fathers to appear in court “would just be absurd,” Swain said.

“Even if you can find these guys, they aren’t going to cooperate,” he said, noting that he has 27 years of adoption experience.

“Most often, the response we get is, ‘I don’t care. Leave me alone.’ ”

Oklahoma’s proposed legislation, however, follows the wording of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which requires a biological father to appear in front of a judge if the adoption involves a Native American child.

“It happens every day,” said Chrissi Nimmo, an assistant attorney general for the Cherokee Nation who fought to keep Veronica with the tribe in Oklahoma. “And there’s no evidence at all that the abortion rate is higher for tribal populations because of this, either.”

She rejected the stereotypes of biological fathers. Some are unwilling or unfit to raise a child, and in those cases the courts should take away their parental rights, she said.

“But I see the other side of it, too,” Nimmo said. “There are fathers who are more than willing and more than capable of raising their children, and their children are being taken away from them. What good does it do?”