Pregnant by Jesus or Abducted for Adoption?

The story of Gilbert Deya, and his "miracle" babies, was first aired on the BBC Radio 4's Face the Facts. Apparently women are traveling from the UK to Nairobi to give "birth" to children in slum clinics. According to a BBC investigation, Kenyan-born Deya prays over the childless women, some post-menopausal, and they are pronounced pregnant by Jesus. One woman gave birth every four months to a total of eleven children. Talk about faith-based initiatives! When the British authorities did DNA tests on one of the "miracle" babies, however, the child was found to have no link to the alleged mother. The church itself says it is not surprised that the ...

States Clash Over Same-Sex Parental Rights

Four years ago, when courts in Vermont began recognizing the legality of same-sex civil unions, it was only a matter of time before cases came along to test whether sister states would give full faith and credit to those decisions. The time has come. One of the earliest cases to raise that issue is a same-sex parental rights challenge that has provoked a jurisdictional debate between Virginia and Vermont. According to an attorney for New York-based Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, it is also one of the earliest cases to test how state courts will respond to orders that derive from the legality of civil unions. The main legal issue is ...

The Circle School v. Pappert

Pennsylvania law mandates that all public, private, and parochial schools display the national flag in every classroom and provide for the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or the national anthem at the beginning of each school day. Like similar statutes in other states, the law allows private and parochial schools to opt out of its requirements on religious grounds, and gives students the option of refraining from participating in the recitation and saluting the national flag on religious or personal grounds. However, it also requires school supervising officials to notify, in writing, parents or guardians of those students who have declined ...

State v. Nguyen

In this Oregon case, the parents appealed a judgment terminating their parental rights in their three-year-old son Matthew. They argued that the state failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that they are unfit parents, that reintegration into their home is improbable within a reasonable time because they are unlikely to change, and that termination of their parental rights was in Matthew's best interest. The TPR was filed after one of the parents inflicted serious abuse on Matthew's sibling, four-month old Martha, repeatedly breaking her limbs and fracturing her skull. The lower court found that the other parent was aware of that conduct ...

Adoptive Mother Abandons Children in Africa

In one of the more bizarre stories I've encountered, seven adopted American children, ages 8 to 17, were recently discovered in an African orphanage. The adoptive mother, Mercury Denise Liggins, had apparently left the children with a relative in Nigeria while she went to work for Haliburton in Iraq. After the children were discovered by a passing missionary, House Majority Speaker Tom DeLay, Senator John Cornyn and State Department officials intervened to return the children to Houston. The children, who were born and raised in Texas, were placed with Liggins by Houston Child Protective Services when their biological parents' rights were terminated. ...

Doe v. Little Rock School District

This case required the court to decide whether the practice of the Little Rock School District that subjects secondary public school students to random, suspicionless searches of their persons and belongings by school officials is unconstitutional. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that such searches violate the students' fourth amendment rights because they unreasonably invade their legitimate expectations of privacy.

Wong v. Regents of the University of California

In this rare but increasingly common Section 504 educational accommodation case, the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a successful but learning disabled student was not entitled to special accommodations. The student, whose reading comprehension scores when allowed to read without time limits were at the 99.5 percentile, but under time constraints at the eighth grade level, was deemed not disabled under Section 504. Highlights from the court's decision follow: "That is not to say that a successful student by definition cannot qualify as “disabled” under the Acts. A blind student is properly considered to be disabled, ...

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