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Nebraska Law Leaves Children in Limbo

By Dionne Searcey

The Nebraska safe-haven law that triggered the
abandonment of more than two dozen children to
local authorities will return to the state
legislature on Friday for review.

The law's ambiguous wording leaves questions
about whether the juvenile-court system has
jurisdiction in the cases, which could leave
many children without access to the help they
need. Without jurisdiction, the court can't
assign social services and the children would
be returned to the parents who left them
behind.

"One would wonder whether the ramifications of
using this law have been fully realized by
anyone, let alone the parents," said Douglas
County Juvenile Court Judge Elizabeth
Crnkovich, who is presiding over some of the
cases in Omaha.

The legal gray areas are among many problems
prompted by the state law passed by the
legislature in July. It was designed to let
troubled mothers relinquish newborns, but has
had unintended consequences because it didn't
include an age limit. Nebraska's law was
intended to emulate measures in other states,
which allow parents to drop off newborns at
hospitals or police stations without fear of
criminal prosecution.

But state officials were stunned as parents and
guardians, interpreting the measure to include
anyone under 18, abandoned at least 30 children
and teens. Some of the parents claim they acted
out of desperation, to get badly needed
services for themselves or their troubled
children in a state where they say help can be
difficult to access.

Lawmakers plan on gathering at the state
capitol in Lincoln for a special session Friday
to rewrite the law to impose an age cap.
Agreement on details of the fix, however, is
far from clear. Some lawmakers are considering
measures that would allow parents to more
easily give up older children to campus-like
settings where they could live and attend
school.

The law's shortcomings have played out in local
hospitals as workers scramble to counsel
parents who want to leave behind children, and
as Nebraska officials sort out the cases of
several parents and guardians who have driven
from out of state to drop off children. Those
children have all been returned to their home
states, their airfare paid for in some cases by
the state of Nebraska.

Some of the children left under the new law are
living with relatives. Twenty three of the
children are in the state's temporary custody
with their cases winding through the juvenile-
court system, which was designed to handle
cases of abuse and neglect. Because the statute
says neither parents nor guardians hold
criminal liability for abandoning the children,
the courts could simply send the children home,
according to Judge Crnkovich. "The legal
questions are unclear," she said.

The children in many of the cases are in need
of mental-health services or other assistance
the state could provide. Some had been living
with relatives or others because the state has
removed them from their homes in the past. Some
came from homes with histories of drug problems
and some had been hospitalized for psychiatric
reasons. Social workers worry that all of them
will have lasting effects from being abandoned
by their parents or guardians.

The reasons parents cite for leaving their
children vary from frustration at incorrigible
teens to a heat-of-the-moment decision to an
attempt to teach the child a lesson without
realizing the state would take custody, at
least temporarily.

State officials say that some parents have
arrived at hospitals to drop off children only
to be talked out of it by staff.

This week, an 18-year- old was dropped off at a
hospital in Lincoln but was deemed too old to
fall under the purview of the law. In some
cases, parents have arrived with birth
certificates and immunization records for their
children, ready to relinquish custody forever.

Some parents have told hospital workers they've
accessed the law as a shortcut to getting
services that often are available only after
long waits or are unaffordable or offered only
in emergencies.

"What the safe haven law has exposed is that
the resources we have in the community probably
are not adequate for the population base," said
Bob Storey, executive director Youth Emergency
Services, a youth shelter in Omaha.

State officials say Nebraska has ample mental
health, counseling and other social services
for sick or troubled teens and families. A
December 2007 report from the Nebraska
Children's Behavioral Task Force lauded the
services but criticized the state's system for
being fragmented and thus difficult to access.

When children are abandoned, Nebraska's
Division of Children and Family Services
assesses them to see whether they are in
immediate danger of being harmed. A judge
decides whether to send the children home or to
keep them in the juvenile court system, during
which time they would be placed with relatives
or foster care until the case is sorted out, a
process that can take weeks.

Write to Dionne Searcey at
dionne.searcey@wsj.com


— Dionne Searcey
Wall Street Journal
2008-11-12


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