O’CONNELL, Guardian Ad Litem for BABY BOY RICHARD v. KIRCHNER

Background

A guardian ad litem and the adoptive parents of a child known as Baby Boy Richard asked Justice Stevens, sitting as the Seventh Circuit’s Circuit Justice, to recall an Illinois Supreme Court mandate and to stay a writ directing that custody be returned to the child’s natural father. The Illinois Supreme Court had already decided that the biological father was entitled to custody, and this Court had recently denied review of that decision.

Reasoning

The applicants argued that the child and the adoptive parents had a federal liberty interest in staying together and that a full, additional hearing was required before custody could change. Justice Stevens accepted that this issue had been presented to the Illinois Supreme Court and assumed federal jurisdiction, but found the claim could not succeed. He explained that Illinois courts had already conducted exhaustive proceedings and resolved custody in favor of the biological father; the habeas action at issue simply executed that prior decision and did not create new substantive rights. Under federal law, the applicants had received the process that was due.

Real world impact

Because both stay requests were denied, the Illinois order directing the adoptive parents to surrender custody was allowed to stand and to be carried out. The adoptive parents cannot obtain an emergency federal stay here, and Justice Stevens said he has no authority to second-guess the Illinois Supreme Court’s interpretation of Illinois law. The decision is a denial of emergency federal relief and does not itself reverse the state-court custody ruling.