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Under Nebraska Law, Sex Offender Guaranteed Due Process in Termination of Parental Rights to Offspring From Rape of a Minor

By Janet Langjahr

Nebraska Father repeatedly rapes thirteen year old Girl (daughter of his girlfriend). Girl conceives Child.

Girl gives birth to Child. Girl voluntarily gives Child up to foster care, intending for him to be adopted.

Foster family seeks to adopt Child. But first, Father’s parental rights must be terminated.

At the termination hearing, it comes out that the state has failed to provide proper notice to the Father and otherwise to protect Father’s rights to due process.

Nebraska law draws no distinction between a father who becomes a father as a result of sexually assaulting a minor, and any other father. They are all the same and the process for terminating their parental rights is the same for all of them.

The termination process was re-started from scratch, this time, with the Father’s rights being fully respected and protected. Following the full procedures comes at the additional expense of six to eight months in the adoptive family’s and Child’s lives and thousands of dollars to taxpayers.

But it should stick, in spite of possible appeals by Father.

The foster family-turned-adoptive family are determined to do what they can to change the laws in Nebraska to streamline termination of the parental rights of a sex offender.

In this case, the Father’s parental rights were terminated as much as anything because he refused to participate in a sexual offender treatment program in jail.

Had he sat through a treatment program then, his parental rights might not have been terminated - and he might eventually have gotten custody of Child.

Nebraska is not unique among the states in this respect.

Read more in this North Platte [NE] Telegraph article: Court documents reveal mistake in adoption case.

Full post as published by Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law on October 19, 2008 (boomark / email).