Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 16, 2013 Decided June 25, 2013
Full case name	Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, a minor child under the age of fourteen years, Birth Father, and the Cherokee Nation
Docket no.	12-399
Citations	570 U.S. 637 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2552; 186 L. Ed. 2d 729; 2013 U.S. LEXIS 4916; 2013 WL 3184627; 81 U.S.L.W. 4590
Argument	Oral argument
Opinion announcement	Opinion announcement
Case history
Prior	398 S.C. 625, 731 S.E.2d 550
Holding
Held that § 1912(f) does not apply to a parent who has never had custody of the child, that § 1912(d) only applies when a relationship between parent and child already exists, and that § 1915(a)'s preferences do not apply when there are no alternative parties seeking to adopt the child.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Alito, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer
Concurrence	Thomas
Concurrence	Breyer
Dissent	Scalia
Dissent	Sotomayor, joined by Ginsburg, Kagan; Scalia (in part)
Laws applied
25 U.S.C. §§ 1901–1963

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, 570 U.S. 637 (2013), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which held that several sections of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) do not apply to Native American biological fathers who are not custodians of a Native American child.^[1] The court held that the procedures required by the ICWA to end parental rights do not apply when the child has never lived with the father. Additionally, the requirement to make extra efforts to preserve the Native American family also does not apply, nor is the preferred placement of the child in another Native American family required when no other party has formally sought to adopt the child.

In 2009, a couple from South Carolina, Matthew and Melanie Capobianco, sought to adopt a child whose father, Dusten Brown, was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, and whose mother, Christina Maldonado, was predominantly Hispanic. Brown contested the adoption on the grounds that he was not properly notified in accordance with the ICWA, and won both in trial court and on appeal to the South Carolina Supreme Court. In December 2011, Brown was given custody of the child. The case received extensive coverage in the national media, and spurred calls for Congress to review and make amendments to the 1978 law.

In October 2012, the adoptive couple petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to review the case. In January 2013, the court granted certiorari, and heard the case in April. In June, the Supreme Court issued a 5–4 decision, holding that a non-custodial father did not have rights under the ICWA, and sent the case back to the South Carolina courts for further hearings on the issue. In July 2013, the South Carolina trial court finalized the adoption of the child to the adoptive couple, but this was prohibited in August by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The stay was lifted in September 2013, and the child was turned over to the Capobiancos the same month.