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Following is the second of a two-part series.
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While Nathaniel Ballard spends his days playing peek-a-boo, bouncing to music and playfully wrestling with the man who has raised him since birth, the legal battle between grown-ups seeking his custody has proven to be far more than child’s play.
Brad and Jennifer Ballard are fighting to retain custody of the child they’ve known the eight months of his life, as attorneys for the child’s birth father, Casey Johnson, insist Nathaniel should be returned to Johnson.
The Ballards argue Johnson is a felon with little ability to support a child, while Johnson’s attorney said his client has been kept unfairly from being with his own son.
Last month, former Nevada County Superior Court Judge M. Kathleen Butz granted Johnson legal custody of his son while dismissing a motion brought by the Ballards to terminate Johnson’s parental rights.
The Ballards, who now have temporary physical custody of Nathaniel, plan to bring the judge’s rulings before the 3rd District Court of Appeals, which could take up to a year before the cases are heard. Next month, the Ballards will appear in Nevada County Superior Court for a stay of the judge’s decision, allowing Nathaniel to be kept in their custody until the appeal is heard.
Throughout Nathaniel Ballard’s life, his prospective adoptive parents have maintained the child’s father has done little to establish contact with his son and provided little financial or emotional support during the pregnancy of the birth mother, Martina Summers.
“Their own witnesses admitted that Johnson moved out of (Summers’ residence) two weeks after he found out she was pregnant,” Jennifer Ballard said. Johnson has seen the child once briefly since the boy’s birth.
Both the Ballards and Johnson’s Marysville-based attorney John Edwards admit that Johnson reconciled with his wife, Elizabeth, and set up a nursery for the child once Johnson knew Summers was pregnant. Johnson and his wife have since filed for divorce.
The Ballards say Johnson’s spotty work history and criminal record make him unfit to raise the child.
In 2001 and 2002, Johnson, 25, was charged with felony burglary, according to court documents. In one of the cases, he reached a plea agreement in Sutter County Superior Court after writing $5,000 in bad checks. At the time of his plea, Johnson listed a Nintendo Game Boy as his only asset.
Edwards said his client has attempted to visit Nathaniel on many occasions. Edwards said Summers promised the child to the biological father and later changed her mind.
Adoption advocates and family-law attorneys admit that this case, in which an unwed father challenges an adoption, is rare in California.
“More often than not, (the father) feels like they’ve dodged a bullet when a child goes up for adoption,” said Nancy Worcester, the Auburn attorney who handled the Ballards’ private adoption proceedings until they were contested.
Worcester also helped the Ballards with their first adoption of their daughter, Riley, 5.
Years of case law and new statutes in California have theoretically tipped the scales of justice away from a bias against fathers in adoption cases.
The decision in most of these adoption cases is left to the subjective purview of mediators and judges, Nevada City family law attorney Richard Burton said.
Without commenting specifically on this case, Burton said he tries to “level the playing field” when it comes to asserting a father’s right to his child.
“In theory, it’s level, but in practice, it’s often slanted toward mom,” he said.
Burton said such a slant is especially true in adoption cases, because of the gravity of terminating one person’s right to a child.
Unlike cases involving custody or visitation rights that can be modified over time, adoption agreements are final.
“It is a total severance of the parent’s right and totally shuts the door,” Burton said.
Speaking in general terms, Sierra Adoption Services Executive Director Gail Johnson said the rules of independent adoption aren’t as strict as a foster-family adoption.
In both private and foster-family adoptions, the prospective adoptee must be placed with a family for six months before the legal adoption can take place.
In private adoptions, there isn’t a fingerprint requirement, and “there’s an assumption that the parent has personal knowledge of the people they’re being placed with,” Johnson said.
“It makes me uncomfortable,” she said of private adoptions. “You don’t know if you’re getting the same level of protection” that you would with an adoption agency.
Kim Reinhalder, development director for Sierra Adoption Services, said contesting adoptions is a rare occurrence, one that happens in less than 2 percent of all adoptions nationwide.
“It really scares people to adopt in the future. It’s tragic and can create a lot of trauma for the family,” she said.
The Ballards say they interviewed scores of Martina Summers’ relatives before entering into an adoption agreement and conducted background checks.
They’re building a new home in Alta Sierra for their family — the number of bedrooms depends on whether they can keep Nathaniel. If the infant can’t stay with the Ballards, Brad Ballard said he will petition to have the boy live with his birth mother in Texas.
If Nathaniel does stay with the couple that has raised him from birth, Brad Ballard said he’d like the infant to have a relationship with his biological father. If Ballard loses Nathaniel, he said, that’s a decision he’d have to live with.
“It would be hard, but I could understand, and I would have to agree to leave Nathaniel with his father.”
That would mean no more trips to Mammoth Pool or playing with the family dog, Buddy.
Jennifer Ballard said she believes Butz never considered the ramifications of her rulings.
“We love Nathaniel, and we have his best interests at heart,” she said. “We are the only parents he’s ever known.”
Brad and Jennifer Ballard, who were both raised in Nevada County, hope to increase awareness of the rights of adoptive parents no matter what the outcome. A Web site, www.babynate.org, is under construction.
“We have a chance to change the way the laws are written now,” Brad Ballard said. “If it comes to a situation where adults can’t settle their differences out of court, the courts should be speaking on behalf of the one person who cannot.
“Above all else, the court should be speaking in the best interests of the child.”
___
While Nathaniel Ballard spends his days playing peek-a-boo, bouncing to music and playfully wrestling with the man who has raised him since birth, the legal battle between grown-ups seeking his custody has proven to be far more than child’s play.
Brad and Jennifer Ballard are fighting to retain custody of the child they’ve known the eight months of his life, as attorneys for the child’s birth father, Casey Johnson, insist Nathaniel should be returned to Johnson.
The Ballards argue Johnson is a felon with little ability to support a child, while Johnson’s attorney said his client has been kept unfairly from being with his own son.
Last month, former Nevada County Superior Court Judge M. Kathleen Butz granted Johnson legal custody of his son while dismissing a motion brought by the Ballards to terminate Johnson’s parental rights.
The Ballards, who now have temporary physical custody of Nathaniel, plan to bring the judge’s rulings before the 3rd District Court of Appeals, which could take up to a year before the cases are heard. Next month, the Ballards will appear in Nevada County Superior Court for a stay of the judge’s decision, allowing Nathaniel to be kept in their custody until the appeal is heard.
Throughout Nathaniel Ballard’s life, his prospective adoptive parents have maintained the child’s father has done little to establish contact with his son and provided little financial or emotional support during the pregnancy of the birth mother, Martina Summers.
“Their own witnesses admitted that Johnson moved out of (Summers’ residence) two weeks after he found out she was pregnant,” Jennifer Ballard said. Johnson has seen the child once briefly since the boy’s birth.
Both the Ballards and Johnson’s Marysville-based attorney John Edwards admit that Johnson reconciled with his wife, Elizabeth, and set up a nursery for the child once Johnson knew Summers was pregnant. Johnson and his wife have since filed for divorce.
The Ballards say Johnson’s spotty work history and criminal record make him unfit to raise the child.
In 2001 and 2002, Johnson, 25, was charged with felony burglary, according to court documents. In one of the cases, he reached a plea agreement in Sutter County Superior Court after writing $5,000 in bad checks. At the time of his plea, Johnson listed a Nintendo Game Boy as his only asset.
Edwards said his client has attempted to visit Nathaniel on many occasions. Edwards said Summers promised the child to the biological father and later changed her mind.
Adoption advocates and family-law attorneys admit that this case, in which an unwed father challenges an adoption, is rare in California.
“More often than not, (the father) feels like they’ve dodged a bullet when a child goes up for adoption,” said Nancy Worcester, the Auburn attorney who handled the Ballards’ private adoption proceedings until they were contested.
Worcester also helped the Ballards with their first adoption of their daughter, Riley, 5.
Years of case law and new statutes in California have theoretically tipped the scales of justice away from a bias against fathers in adoption cases.
The decision in most of these adoption cases is left to the subjective purview of mediators and judges, Nevada City family law attorney Richard Burton said.
Without commenting specifically on this case, Burton said he tries to “level the playing field” when it comes to asserting a father’s right to his child.
“In theory, it’s level, but in practice, it’s often slanted toward mom,” he said.
Burton said such a slant is especially true in adoption cases, because of the gravity of terminating one person’s right to a child.
Unlike cases involving custody or visitation rights that can be modified over time, adoption agreements are final.
“It is a total severance of the parent’s right and totally shuts the door,” Burton said.
Speaking in general terms, Sierra Adoption Services Executive Director Gail Johnson said the rules of independent adoption aren’t as strict as a foster-family adoption.
In both private and foster-family adoptions, the prospective adoptee must be placed with a family for six months before the legal adoption can take place.
In private adoptions, there isn’t a fingerprint requirement, and “there’s an assumption that the parent has personal knowledge of the people they’re being placed with,” Johnson said.
“It makes me uncomfortable,” she said of private adoptions. “You don’t know if you’re getting the same level of protection” that you would with an adoption agency.
Kim Reinhalder, development director for Sierra Adoption Services, said contesting adoptions is a rare occurrence, one that happens in less than 2 percent of all adoptions nationwide.
“It really scares people to adopt in the future. It’s tragic and can create a lot of trauma for the family,” she said.
The Ballards say they interviewed scores of Martina Summers’ relatives before entering into an adoption agreement and conducted background checks.
They’re building a new home in Alta Sierra for their family — the number of bedrooms depends on whether they can keep Nathaniel. If the infant can’t stay with the Ballards, Brad Ballard said he will petition to have the boy live with his birth mother in Texas.
If Nathaniel does stay with the couple that has raised him from birth, Brad Ballard said he’d like the infant to have a relationship with his biological father. If Ballard loses Nathaniel, he said, that’s a decision he’d have to live with.
“It would be hard, but I could understand, and I would have to agree to leave Nathaniel with his father.”
That would mean no more trips to Mammoth Pool or playing with the family dog, Buddy.
Jennifer Ballard said she believes Butz never considered the ramifications of her rulings.
“We love Nathaniel, and we have his best interests at heart,” she said. “We are the only parents he’s ever known.”
Brad and Jennifer Ballard, who were both raised in Nevada County, hope to increase awareness of the rights of adoptive parents no matter what the outcome. A Web site, www.babynate.org, is under construction.
“We have a chance to change the way the laws are written now,” Brad Ballard said. “If it comes to a situation where adults can’t settle their differences out of court, the courts should be speaking on behalf of the one person who cannot.
“Above all else, the court should be speaking in the best interests of the child.”
