Retired Chief Judge Judith Kaye of the New York Court of Appeals died on January 7, 2016, at age 77. Most accounts of her passing mentioned her dissenting opinion in the case of Hernandez v. Robles, 7 N.Y.3d 338 (2006), the case in which the state’s highest court voted against the claim that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, as one of her most notable opinions, but this was merely the capstone of … <Read More>
second-parent adoptions
Lesbian Mom’s Case Closer To Supreme Court Review
A lesbian mother’s quest for joint custody of the children she had adopted in Georgia and raised together with her former same-sex partner took a step closer to the Supreme Court on Monday, December 14, when the Court granted her “Application for Recall and Stay of Certificate of Judgment of Alabama Supreme Court.” V.L. v. E.L., No. 15-648. V.L. is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a September 18 ruling by the Alabama Supreme … <Read More>
Rogue Alabama Supreme Court Refuses to Recognize Georgia Co-Parent Adoption
Under the United States Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, a state court is supposed to recognize the judgments of courts from other states unless those courts did not have jurisdiction over the parties or the subject matter of the case. Asked to rule on whether an Alabama court must recognize a Georgia adoption decree involving a same-sex couple, however, the Alabama Supreme Court manufactured a jurisdictional issue in order to reverse a ruling by … <Read More>
Schizophrenic Michigan Family Law – Out-of-State Adoption is Stronger than Out-of-State Same-Sex Marriage in Custody Disputes
On October 17, two different panels of the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in cases where lesbian co-parents were battling over child custody. In one, a birth mother prevailed because the court refused to recognize the couple’s Canadian same-sex marriage. In the other, however, the court found that the state’s full-faith-and-credit obligation required recognition of an out-of-state second-parent adoption that could not have been done in-state, and affirmed a sole custody award to the second … <Read More>