Here (h/t How Appealing).
An excerpt:
The late justice Robert H. Jackson famously wrote of his colleagues on the high court: “We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.”
But sometimes the court is final only in the narrow question of law before it. That question decided, it sends the case back to lower courts, where sometimes the whole process starts anew.
Such is the fate of Veronica’s case. If anything, the Supreme Court’s decision has only heightened the stakes surrounding the rights of birth parents, the legal standing of adoptive parents and the sovereignty of Native American tribes.
Here.
Response from the U.S. Mission to the UN here.
GENEVA (10 September 2013) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, today called on the relevant state, federal and tribal authorities in the United States of America to take all necessary measures to ensure the wellbeing and human rights of ‘Veronica,’ an almost four year old Cherokee child at the center of a highly contentious custody dispute.
“Veronica’s human rights as a child and as member of the Cherokee Nation, an indigenous people, should be fully and adequately considered in the ongoing judicial and administrative proceedings that will determine her future upbringing,” Mr. Anaya stressed. “The individual and collective rights of all indigenous children, their families and indigenous peoples must be protected throughout the United States.”
Veronica is currently facing judicially ordered removal from her Cherokee family and community. In June of this year the US Supreme Court ruled that certain protections of the Indian Child Welfare Act did not apply to proceedings in which a non-Cherokee couple sought to adopt Veronica, given the particular circumstances of the case. The high court, however, it did not make an ultimate determination of the disposition of the adoption proceedings.
Following the Supreme Court decision, a South Carolina state court awarded custody of Veronica to the non-Cherokee couple, but it did so without a determination of whether her transfer away from her Cherokee family would be in her best interests in light of her current situation and Cherokee heritage. Although Veronica lived with the non-Cherokee couple in South Carolina for the first two years of her life, she has now resided with her father and extended indigenous family in Cherokee territory in the state of Oklahoma for nearly two years.
South Carolina authorities have attempted to force Veronica’s father to release custody of her, charging him with custodial interference for his refusal to do so. On 3 September 2013 the Oklahoma Supreme Court took up the case, granting a temporary stay of an enforcement order and allowing the father to keep Veronica pending further proceedings.
“I urge the relevant authorities, as well as all parties involved in the custody dispute, to ensure the best interests of Veronica, fully taking into account her rights to maintain her cultural identity and to maintain relations with her indigenous family and people,” said the UN Special Rapporteur.
The independent expert pointed out that these rights are guaranteed by various international instruments subscribed to or endorsed by the US, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
In his 2012 report* on the situation of indigenous peoples in the US, the Special Rapporteur noted that the removal and separation of Indian children from indigenous environments is an issue of longstanding and ongoing concern. “While past practices of removal of Indian children from their families and communities have been partially blunted by passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, this law continues to face barriers to its implementation,” Mr. Anaya stated.
“I encourage the United States to work with indigenous peoples, state authorities and other interested parties to investigate the current state of affairs relating to the practices of foster care and adoption of indigenous children, and to develop procedures for ensuring that the rights of these children are adequately protected,” the UN Special Rapporteur said.
The UN Human Rights Council appointed S. James Anaya as Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples in March 2008. Mr. Anaya is a Regents Professor and the James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy at the University of Arizona (United States). As Special Rapporteur, he is independent from any government or organization and serves in his individual capacity. Learn more, log on to: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IPeoples/SRIndigenousPeoples/Pages/SRIPeoplesIndex.aspx
(*) Check the Special Rapporteur’s 2012 report on the USA: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session21/Pages/ListReports.aspx
See the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open&DS=A/RES/61/295&Lang=E
UN Human Rights Country Page – United States of America: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/ENACARegion/Pages/USIndex.aspx
For more information and media inquiries, please contact Maia Campbell (+ 41 22 917 9314 / mcampbell@ohchr.org) or write to indigenous@ohchr.org.
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:
Xabier Celaya, OHCHR Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / xcelaya@ohchr.org)
Thanks to How Appealing:
“To Oklahoma’s American Indian tribes, Veronica is a battle cry for cultures”: This article appears today in The Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina. And today’s edition of The Tulsa World contains an article headlined “Baby Veronica case: Victory unlikely for either side as mediation begins.”
From SCOTUSblog.
An excerpt:
The adoption of the little girl known in a child custody saga as “Baby Veronica” has been approved by a family court in Charleston, South Carolina, the child’s biological father notified the Supreme Court on Thursday. Attorneys for Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation, disclosed the family court’s action in the final filing in the Court in his attempt to postpone the child’s adoption by anyone other than him or his family.The action by the state court, giving full legal custody to the child to Matt and Melanie Capobianco, a non-Indian couple living near Charleston, came yesterday at a closed hearing. All of the materials of that proceeding, including the final adoption and custody order, are under seal, by state law. The family court also approved a “transition plan,” the details of which are also secret, that will mean the child — living with her father in Oklahoma for about nineteen months — will not be transferred immediately to her new home. A counseling arrangement apparently is part of the transition plan. “Baby Veronica” will be four years old next month.
***
All of the legal filings that appear to be reaching the Court in this round of the dispute have now been logged in, including a brief opposing the father’s efforts, by a South Carolina woman, Jo M. Prowell, who was appointed by the family court as the guardian of “Baby Veronica” during the legal proceedings — including the review of the case by the Supreme Court, leading to a decision against the father’s adoption prospects on June 25.
Complaint here.
NCAI press release:
Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit Filed on Behalf of Veronica Brown
Statement of Support Issued by Tribal Governments and Leading Native American, Civil Rights, Child Welfare and Legal Advocates along with Arizona and New Mexico State Attorneys General to Stop Violation of “Baby Veronica’s” Civil Rights by South Carolina Courts
Washington, DC (July 31, 2013) – Today, the Native American Rights Fund filed a complaint in the United States District Court in South Carolina to protect the civil rights of Veronica Brown, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who has been denied due process in the South Carolina courts. The filing comes after the South Carolina Supreme Court issued two controversial orders to the state’s family court on July 17 and 24, calling for the removal of Veronica from her father and a transfer her to the adoptive couple without a hearing of best interest.
The lawsuit was supported in a national statement released today by a broad coalition of civil rights, child welfare, adoption advocates, legal authorities, tribal governments, and Native American advocacy groups. These groups and individuals joined with the National Congress of American Indians, Native American Rights Fund, and National Indian Child Welfare Association in releasing the national statement of support for Veronica’s civil rights, and the rights of all children, to a hearing of best interest.
The litigation was filed on behalf of Veronica, by Angel Smith, an attorney appointed as counsel for the child by the courts of the Cherokee Nation, in U.S. District Court in South Carolina, and asks the Court to determine whether Veronica has a constitutionally protected right to a meaningful hearing in the state courts to determine what is in her best interests. Furthermore, the litigation asserts that Veronica, as an “Indian child” under the Indian Child Welfare Act, has a federally protected right to have the state courts fully consider and appropriately weigh her best interests as an Indian child. Daniel E. Martin, Jr., the judge for the family court system of South Carolina, is named as the defendant in the suit.
According to the filing, Veronica “doubtless has a liberty interest in remaining with her father and such an interest justifies at a minimum a plenary hearing on her current status, her relationships with others and her genuine need for stability… Despite the finding of the family court and the implicit assumption by the Supreme Court of South Carolina that [Veronica’s] best interest would be served by being with her father, two years later the court now determines, despite the passage of time and [Veronica’s] stage of development at age four, that her ‘best’ interests will now be served by being removed from him and given back to the adoptive couple. Again, this order is without any consideration to the present circumstances, psychological and emotional well-being, and future impact on [Veronica]. This is an arbitrary result, depriving [Veronica] of any opportunity to be heard on her own behalf, irrespective of the competing interests of the adult litigants in her young life.”
Click to download the Complaint.
Broad National Support for the Litigation
Also today, on behalf of broad coalition of civil rights, child welfare, legal authorities, tribal governments and Native American advocacy groups, the National Congress of American Indians, along with the Native American Rights Fund and the National Indian Child Welfare Association released a national statement of support for Veronica’s civil rights to be upheld. The statement of support has been endorsed by a broad coalition of tribal governments, state and federal legal authorities including two state attorneys general – Arizona and New Mexico – civil rights institutions such as the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, child welfare and adoption organizations including the Child Welfare League of America, and leading national and regional Native advocacy organizations representing the interests of almost every tribe located within the United States (see full list below).
According to the letter:
[T]he rights promised to our children are being compromised in the courts of the State of South Carolina … The recent [South Carolina Supreme Court] ruling in the case denies the basic fundamental right of an almost four-year-old Indian child to a hearing of her ‘best interests’ before removing her from her biological father after almost two years of child-rearing, bonding and establishing a loving home environment. Plainly stated, this is a denial of Veronica’s human rights and constitutional rights to due process as a citizen of the United States.
The following organizations and individuals have signed on to the letter of support for the civil rights lawsuit being filed on behalf of Veronica:
From SCOTUS Blog:
UPDATED Monday 11:30 a.m. The Chief Justice has called for a response to the application; it is to be filed by 2 p.m. on Friday of this week.
The application is here.
Here is the complaint in Maldonado v. Holder (D. S.C.):
Wonder whether Baby Veronica’s birth mother has any Article III injury, since she’s given up parental rights to her daughter. I really don’t know.
There is a second plaintiff, described in the complaint as “a Caucasian woman who resides in Minnesota and who believes she may be 1/64th Cherokee,” who has chosen non-Indian parents to adopt her child.
Still waiting on the promised civil rights complaint on behalf of Baby Veronica.
Turtle Talk 
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