Foster parents in Tenn. custody fight over Chinese girl seek U.S. Supreme Court appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to hear the case of an American couple trying to prevent an 8-year-old girl they raised since infancy from being returned to her Chinese parents.

Jerry and Louise Baker filed their appeal request May 10 to the nation's highest court, asking it to block a Tennessee Supreme Court ruling that ordered the reunion of Anna Mae He with parents Shaoqiang and Qin Luo He.

The request is a long shot, and the U.S. Supreme Court has traditionally left family law disputes to the states, said Bruce Boyer, director of the Loyola University ChildLaw Clinic in Chicago.

"The chances that they are going to seriously consider the (appeal) petition are remote," Boyer said Wednesday.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens refused last week to delay the reunion pending consideration of the Bakers' appeal request. The Hes have notified the court they will have no response to the request, for which there is no timetable for a decision.

In their petition, the Bakers, who took Anna Mae into their home when she was less than a month old, contend the reunion order violates the youngster's "fundamental constitutional liberty right not to be forced by a court to suffer substantial harm."

The Bakers contend that removing her from the only family she has known will harm her emotionally.

The girl "contends that she has been dealt with by the decision as if she were property (e.g., an animal or, worse still, a pre-Civil War slave)," says the petition filed by Larry Parrish, the Bakers' lawyer.

After a seven-year custody fight through the state courts, the state Supreme Court ruled in January that the Hes put their first-born child in temporary foster care in 1999 to get medical insurance they could not afford and lost custody because of an ignorance of American law.

The state Supreme Court decision overturned a ruling by a Memphis judge who took away the Hes' parental rights in 2004 on grounds of abandonment, opening the way for the Bakers to adopt Anna Mae.

Under court supervision, the Hes began a series of meetings with their daughter in March to work toward gaining full custody, perhaps within several months. The Bakers contend the meetings have emotionally traumatized her. The Hes' lawyer says a court-appointed psychologist has reported no unexpected problems.