Essential Question: Is the Constitution a perfect document?

Lesson Title: Interstate Relations and the Full Faith and Credit Clause Subject: Government, Jim Nilles Knoxville High School.

Grade: 12

Topic: The “Baby Jessica” case.

Essential Question: Is the Constitution a perfect document?

Connection to Students’ Lives: The Baby Jessica case is an Iowa adoption case that looks at the rights of biological parents compared to adoptive parents. The time that it takes to complete the case will create debate in the class over those rights.

Procedures:

1. Hand out Full Faith and Credit reading. After reading the hand out divide students into groups to discuss the following questions.

! a. Why do you the Framers of the Constitution included the Full Faith and Credit ! Clause in the Constitution?

! b. How might your life be different if Full Faith and Credit was not a part of the ! Constitution?

Bring students back together in large group and have groups report on their discussions.

2. Give students a copy of 600A, Iowa Code. Call on students to take turns reading the hand out stopping for discussion and definitions of terms as needed. When finished ask students:

! In Iowa law, whose rights are considered more important, biological or adoptive parents?

3. Give students the case summary. After reading the summary students should turn to their “elbow partner” and discuss the case and predict how long it took for the case to progress through the court system of both states and the outcome of the case.

4. Give students the 4 handouts describing the outcome of the case, make sure your poor readers are given Handout #4b “Baby Jessica case”. After reading the case, students should answer these questions.

! a. How long did the case take?

! b. What was the outcome of the case?

! c. What role did the Full Faith and Credit clause play in the decision? Student Evidence:

Students will write a reflections paper on the Baby Jessica case demonstrating

understanding of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution. They must explain if they agree or disagree with the decision and if they would make any changes to Iowa’s parental rights law.

Higher Order thinking:

Students will analyze the the Full Faith and Credit clause as it applies to the Baby Jessica case.

Students will make predictions based on readings from the Baby Jessica case. Students will evaluate the decision in the Baby Jessica case and decide on any changes they might make to the Iowa code concerning parental rights.

Styles of Learning:

Mastery/CS: Students will be using the readings on Iowa law and Full Faith and Credit to learn about each and they will find the facts from the case in the reading.

Interpersonal/AR: Students will be working with a real case with real people. Students will work in small groups and with a partner.

Understanding/AS: Students will be able to form their own opinions on the case and and discuss the opinions with others. The reflection paper is completed by each student. Self-Expressive/CR: Students will be creative when predicting the outcome of the case from the case summary. Students are working with a real world situation.

Handout #1 Full Faith and Credit

“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each state to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” Article VI, Section 1

! The U.S. Constitution includes Full Faith and Credit as the way States must treat each other under Federalism.

! The term public acts refers to the laws of a State. Records refers to such documents as birth certificates, marriage licenses, deeds to property, car registrations and the like. The words judicial proceedings relate to the outcome of court actions such as damage awards, the probating of wills, and divorce decrees.

! The Full Faith and Credit Clause most often comes into play in court matters. For example Allen sues Bill in Florida, and the Florida court awards Allen $50,000 in

damages. Bill cannot escape payment of the damages by moving to Iowa, because Allen could simply ask the Iowa courts to enforce the damage award from Florida. ! The Full Faith and Credit Clause has two exceptions. First it applies to civil, not criminal cases. One State can not enforce the laws of another State, criminal trials are held in the State where the crime takes place.

! The second exception deals with divorce cases, was the person who obtains the divorce in fact a resident of the State that granted the divorce?

Handout #2

Iowa Law, the rights of parents. 600A.1 Iowa Code

This chapter shall be construed liberally. The best interest of the child subject to the proceedings of this chapter shall be the paramount consideration in interpreting this

chapter. However, the interests of the parents of this child or any natural person standing in the place of the parents to this child shall be given due consideration in this interpretation. The best interest of a child requires that each

biological parent affirmatively assume the duties encompassed by the role of being a parent. In determining whether a parent has affirmatively assumed the duties of a parent, the court shall consider, but is not limited to consideration of, the

fulfillment of financial obligations, demonstration of continued interest in the child, demonstration of a genuine effort to

maintain communication with the child, and demonstration of the establishment and maintenance of a place of importance in the child's life. Application of this chapter is limited to

termination of parental rights proceedings and shall not apply to actions to establish paternity or to overcome established paternity.

600A.4 RELATIONSHIP UNALTERED -- RELEASE OF CUSTODY -- VOLUNTARINESS OF RELEASE.

1. A parent shall not permanently alter the parent-child relationship, except as ordered by a juvenile court or court...

2. A release of custody:

a. Shall be accepted only by an agency or a person making an independent placement.

b. Shall not be accepted by a person who in any way intends to adopt the child who is the subject of the release. c. Shall be in writing.

d. Shall contain written acknowledgment of the

biological parents that after the birth of the child three hours of counseling have been offered to the biological parents by the agency, the person making an independent placement, an

investigator as defined in section 600.2, or other qualified counselor regarding the decision to release custody and the alternatives available to the biological parents. The release of custody shall also contain written acknowledgment of the acceptance or refusal of the counseling. If accepted, the

counseling shall be provided after the birth of the child and prior to the signing of a release of custody or the filing of a petition for termination of parental rights as applicable. If counseling is accepted, the counselor shall provide an

affidavit, which shall be attached to the release of custody, when practicable, certifying that the counselor has provided the biological parent with the requested counseling and

documentation that the person is qualified to provide the requested counseling as prescribed by this paragraph.

Handout #3

! The "Baby Jessica" case, was a well-publicized custody battle in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early 1990s between Jan and Roberta DeBoer, the couple who attempting to adopt the child, and her biological parents, Dan Schmidt and Cara Clausen. The case was widely publicized as the "Baby Jessica" case after the name given her by the DeBoers.

! Jessica was born in 1991 to Cara Clausen, who placed her for adoption with Jan and Roberta DeBoer without telling Schmidt that he was the father; she also put a different man's name on the birth certificate, further obscuring

paternity. The adoption process was handled by the DeBoer's attorney, whom Clausen erroneously thought was also her attorney. Five days after the birth, Clausen changed her mind, informed Schmidt of his paternity, and told the DeBoers that she wanted to cancel the adoption. Clausen and Schmidt later married, and Schmidt went to court to get Anna back, arguing that he had not given up his parental rights to his daughter. The DeBoers battled to keep the child for 2½ years while the case went from district court to appeals court to the state supreme court. The U.S. Supreme Court turned the case down.

! The argument used by Dan Schmidt in the Iowa courts was that he had never given up his rights as the biological father of the baby that he would have named Anna. The argument used by the DeBoer’s in the Michigan courts was that so much time had past that it was in the best interest of the child to remain with the DeBoer family, she would be harmed if she was taken from the only parents that she had ever known.

Handout #4a

The Battle for Baby Jessica

A Toddler's Future Hangs in the Balance Amid a Bitter Struggle

Over Her Adoption

AS BEST SHE CAN, ROBERTA DEBOER, 35, tries to maintain a semblance of

normality around her home in Ann Arbor, Mich. Each weekday, after her husband, Jan, 40, sets out for work as a printer, she plays with Jessica, the 28-month-old girl she hopes to adopt. Other times the toddler loves frolicking with the family's golden retriever, Miles. In the afternoons, Robby, as she is known, usually puts Jessica down for a nap. But while the little girl sleeps, it is Robby who tries to ward off a nightmare—poring over legal documents in a desperate attempt to prevent authorities from taking away the baby she calls her own. "She is my child," Robby has said. "I did not birth her, but in every respect she is my child. When she cries, I am there. When she is happy, I'm a part of that happiness."

The way things look now, however, there may be precious little happiness ahead for the DeBoers. After more than two years of legal wrangling, one of the most closely watched —and agonizing—adoption cases ever seems to be moving to a climax. Last March an appeals court in Michigan ruled that the DeBoers must return Jessica, whom they have raised since she was a week old, to the girl's biological mother and father, Cara

Schmidt, 30, and her husband, Dan, 41, of Blairstown, Iowa. The Schmidt’s have waged a fierce campaign to win back the daughter they call Anna, who they contend was

unfairly taken from them. "This is like a death," said Robby at the time of the decision. The Schmidt’s, who are expecting another child in June, pronounced themselves "overjoyed."

Yet for both sides in this painful dispute, the misery goes back a long way. In January 1991, after years of looking for a baby to adopt because she was unable to have children herself, Robby got a call from a friend who worked as an attorney in Iowa, telling her about a single woman named Cara Clausen, then 28, who lived in the tiny farming community of Blairstown, near Cedar Rapids, and worked at a nearby trucking company. Cara was pregnant and wanted to put her child up for adoption because she didn't feel equipped to care for it on her own. The DeBoers hired a local lawyer, John Monroe, who made contact with Cara and worked out the necessary details to have the baby handed over at birth. Six days after the child was born, on Feb. 14, Robby and her mother drove through a heavy snowstorm to Cedar Rapids to pick up her new daughter. Holding the little girl—whom she had decided to name Jessica—for the first time, Robby felt blessed. "I just fell in love with her immediately," she said in an interview. "She was gorgeous." At a court hearing on Feb. 25, attorney Monroe presented a judge with Cara's signed release of custody. Monroe also handed over a signed release from Scott

Seefeldt, whom Cara had identified as the baby's father. The judge officially terminated Clausen and Seefeldt's parental rights, and within five days the elated DeBoers had become the legal guardians of Jessica and returned to Ann Arbor.

Their bliss lasted exactly one week. On March 8 a lawyer called to tell them that Cara had changed her mind and wanted her baby back. As Cara later explained, the whole pregnancy had been enormously stressful for her. Fearful that her parents, who also live in Blairstown, would disapprove, she had not even told them she was expecting a child until three days before the birth. It turned out that her parents were strongly supportive and wanted her to keep the baby. More to the point, in court papers filed to win back her child, Cara also claimed that she had thought that Monroe had been working for her, not for the DeBoers, and that when he brought her papers to sign hours after the birth she was still in a daze.

But the real bombshell came a few days later when Dan Schmidt, a local truck driver and former boyfriend of Cara's, came forward, declared that he was Jessica's biological father and sued to establish his parental rights. (Tests have confirmed Schmidt's

paternity.) Since then Schmidt and Clausen have married. Why Cara had originally named Seefeldt as the father is unclear. Whatever the reason, though, the net effect was plain enough: The paternal rights of the biological father had not been signed away after all. Thus the DeBoers were presented with the terrible dilemma of whether or not to hand back the child they had obtained in good faith.

Quickly they decided to fight. And so began the bitter custody battle that has seesawed back and forth—while Jessica has grown more aware of her world and more vulnerable to the trauma of dislocation. After a raft of appeals and rulings in both Michigan and Iowa, the DeBoers won what appeared to be a crucial victory last February when Michigan Judge William Ager Jr., stressing the best interests of the child over the traditional rights of biological parents, decreed that they should get custody of Jessica. Handing down his decision, he implored the Schmidts to abandon any further appeals, in order to spare Jessica.

Certainly both couples have taken their share of emotional hits as embarrassing and occasionally troubling details surfaced about them. It emerged, for instance, that in his youth, Jan, who was born in the Netherlands, had been in several scrapes with the law, including a conviction for illegal entry. Meanwhile some people in Blairstown looked askance at Cara and Dan's newly minted family values. "[She was] a woman who did her own thing, who lived her whole life just like she wanted," local resident Nancy Stults told a reporter from Ann Arbor. As for Dan, a former girlfriend, Barbara Schlicht, finds it strange that he should suddenly express such paternal concern for Jessica when he has all but ignored Amanda, the 13-year-old daughter they had together out of wedlock. "He says he wanted visitation with Jessica, when Mandy was only 25 miles from him her whole life," says Schlicht. As a measure of opinion in Iowa, a recent poll by a Cedar Rapids television station showed those surveyed favoring the DeBoers by a 2-to-1 margin over the Schmidts.

Handout #4b

The "Baby Jessica" case, was a well-publicized custody battle in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early 1990s between Jan and Roberta DeBoer, the couple who attempted to adopt the child, and her biological parents, Dan Schmidt and Cara Clausen. In August, 1993, the supreme courts of Iowa and Michigan ordered her returned to Schmidt, who named her Anna Jacqueline Schmidt. The case was widely publicized as the "Baby Jessica" case after the name given her by the DeBoers.

Anna was born in 1991 to Cara Clausen, who placed her for adoption with Jan and Roberta DeBoer without telling Schmidt that he was the father; she also put a different man's name on the birth certificate, further obscuring paternity. The adoption process was handled by the DeBoer's attorney, whom Clausen erroneously thought was also her attorney. Five days after the birth, Clausen changed her mind, informed Schmidt of his paternity, and told the DeBoers that she wanted to cancel the adoption. Clausen and Schmidt later married, and Schmidt went to court to get Anna back, arguing that he had not given up his parental rights to his daughter. The DeBoers, who had named the baby "Jessica", battled to keep the child for 2½ years, but ultimately lost their fight. Roberta

"Robby" DeBoer later wrote a book called Losing Jessica about the case and the DeBoers established a child advocacy group called Hear My Voice that

advocates for children involved in difficult custody cases, with a pro adoptive parent angle. A TV movie, Whose Child Is This? The War for Baby Jessica was produced, dramatizing the events, but was heavily tilted in favor of the DeBoer's perspective. In the film, the DeBoers, who were better educated than the

Schmidts and in a better financial position, were portrayed as the ideal family living in affluence, and the Schmidts were portrayed as low-class, unsuitable parents living under squalid conditions.

Anna said in 2003 that she has no memory of the DeBoers and was doing well with her biological family.

Handout #4c This week, Mathis talks with Marian Faupel.

By Jo Mathis Legal News

Marian Faupel gained national fame back in the 1990s when she represented the biological parents in the Baby Jessica custody case in Ann Arbor.

Mathis: It's been about 20 years since you helped reunite Baby Jessica/Anna with her biological parents in Iowa. Since then, both couples involved in that case were divorced. Were you surprised? Any regrets about that case?

Faupel: I don't have any regrets at all. I'm not surprised the couples got a divorce because that kind of attention and pressure and expense would burden any marriage. And that's one of the reasons the law does not normally permit third parties to petition for custody of children because they don't want parents to have to go through that sort of litigation.

Mathis: Do you feel the case was reported fairly in the press at the time?

Faupel: I do feel parts of the media made a tremendous effort to be fair at the time. The local reporters who had access to the trial files and were able to speak with me did do a good job reporting what it was about legally. Unfortunately the mainstream media across the country did not completely understand the issues. They never understood that it was not about adoption. In Michigan, the DeBoers only sought custody since their Iowa petition for adoption had been dismissed two years earlier. Unfortunately, all sorts of adoptive families were terrorized by the thought that two years after an adoption was finalized, the birth parents could just "change their minds." That never occurred in this case.

Mathis: Even though you won, you actually lost a lot of money taking on that case, didn't you?

Faupel: I not only lost a lot of money, but I had to borrow $50,000 that year to keep my firm afloat. That's something I tell new lawyers about the case: When you are called on to represent people in cases like this with significant constitutional importance, you may be called on to do more than just show up in court.

Mathis: Had you known from the start how much it would cost you, would you have taken it on?

Faupel: I probably would have, but I am passionate about parental rights and

attorney, you're probably not called on to borrow money, but you are called on to make decisions without regard to money. So it's a wiggly line.

Fortunately I have a thriving business and I was able to recover from that. But for about a year, the Baby Jessica case was the focus of my practice, and it wasn't a profitable focus. It took me a long time to recover financially.

Mathis: What lasting effect-- if any--did the Baby Jessica case have on family law? Faupel: It ultimately influenced decisions in other states.

At the same time there was a Baby Richard case going on in Chicago. There were adoption cases going on in Florida. It clearly became the landmark case, not only in Michigan, but across the country.

The Baby Jessica case is known as In re Clausen because Cara Schmidt's last name was "Clausen" when the baby was born, and that is how this case is cited now in the law. The case is cited repeatedly by other courts in Michigan for the principle that natural, fit parents have superior rights to any third party and that third parties don't have standing.

It was a privilege to be involved in a case with that sort of importance. I was not surprised by the outcome of that case because every time the U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in on parental rights, it's always decided in favor of natural, fit parents.

Handout #4d

The War for Baby Jessica

I watched the true movie called 'Who's Child Is This? The War for Baby Jessica.' After watching it I had quite mixed emotions. On the one hand I cried when I saw the little girl being taken away from all that she knows (The DeBoer's), but I also felt for the birth mother who was fighting to get her baby back, so I started to research the real story behind the film. As we all know films are never fully honest with the facts, because that is not what pulls the viewers in, so here is what I found out.

Robbie DeBoer got a infection which resulted in her having to have a hysterectomy. This was obviously very traumatic for Robbie, as it meant she would never be able to

become pregnant. Later, Robbie heard from friends in Iowa that a woman named Cara was pregnant, she was told that Cara didn't want the baby, and so Robbie and her husband Jan began proceedings to adopt the baby from birth. On February 8th 1991 Cara gave birth to a baby girl, a delighted Robbie along with her mother, drove up to Iowa to see the baby and start the adoption ball rolling. Robbie received signed parental release forms from both Cara and the baby's apparent father Scott. The DeBoer's were ecstatic as they finally had the baby they always wanted. The DeBoer's called their new baby Jessica. A few days later, they received a letter from birth mother Cara saying "I know you will treasure her and surround her with love, god bless you all." but just days after receiving the letter, it all started to go very wrong.

Cara who was 25 at the time, had lied about who the babies father was. Cara had

originally said it was a man named Scott, but the father of baby Jessica was actually her ex boyfriend Dan Schmidt. After giving her baby to the DeBoer's, Cara went to see Dan, and told him what had happened. So on March 6th 1991 when Jessica was just under three weeks old, Cara filed a motion to get her daughter back. A week later Dan also filed a motion to get his baby back.

This all came as a big shock to the Deboer's, who believed they had done everything right. They had signed all the relevant forms, and believed Jessica was officially their daughter. Then they discovered that they may lose the baby, they had already bonded with. Before a decision could be made, the courts had to first prove that Dan Schmidt was in fact baby Jessica's real father. However the paternity test results took six months to come back, meaning The DeBoer's bonded more with Jessica. In the meantime, birth mother Cara missed out on more of her daughters life. A lot of people say that the DeBoer's should have given Jessica back to her mother at the very start, but by law the court could have placed Jessica into foster care, until the paternity test results came back in. Surely neither party, wanted that for the baby girl. When the test results proved that Dan Schmidt was indeed the babies father, the whole adoption case was voided because Dan had never signed a release form. On the 27th December 1991 The DeBoer's were ordered by the Iowa court to hand baby Jessica back to her natural parents.

It didn't stop there though, instead of handing Jessica over while she was still a baby, the DeBoer's decided to fight to keep Jessica. In doing so, they were legally allowed to keep Jessica while the appeals proceeded. The DeBoer's argued that Dan was not a fit father as he already had two children that he doesn't see, so they couldn't understand why he all of a sudden wanted to be a father to Jessica. In January 1992 Iowa heard the case, but the appeals dragged on for months, during this time Dan and Cara got

married and just wanted their baby girl home. When the case went forward, Iowa court upheld the lower court hearing, stating that although Dan Schmidt's fitness as a parent was questionable, and the court was tempted to leave Jessica with the DeBoer's for the sake of the child, Dan's rights had priority over Jessica's, and so the child must be handed back to the Schmidt's with immediate effect.

But even then the DeBoer's refused to give baby Jessica back, and moved their case to Michigan where they won their first victory. In February 1993 when Jessica was two years old, the Michigan Court ruled that Jessica should stay where she was as they believed moving her from the only parents she had ever known would have a terrible effect on her. The Judge then told the Schmidt's, that if they gave Jessica up they would become heroes, sacrificing their hearts desire for their child's well-being. However the Schmidt's declined to give up the fight for their little girl, and in March 1993 the state appeals court threw out the Michigan Judges ruling, stating that they had no right to ignore the first Iowa ruling, that was already in place. On July 1st 1993 the states highest court confirmed that Jessica would be returned to the Schmidt's in a month. The Schmidt's went to visit Jessica at the DeBoer's eight times before she was handed back, and little Jessica was last seen screaming and crying when she was taken from her adoptive parents The DeBoer's. They were at the time, the only family and home that Jessica had ever known. But just six months later, and back with her birth parents and baby sister Chloe, Jessica seemed very healthy and happy.This was a far cry from what the courts and the DeBoer's, said would happen to this little girl, if she was

returned to her natural parents. Today

Anna (Jessica) Schmidt now 19, is doing really well and living with her Mom Cara and partner, and her younger sister Chloe. Anna still see's her father Dan on a regular basis. Anna says she has no memories of her time with the DeBoer's. To this day, the

Schmidt's still don't have any baby photo's of their daughter, they are all owned by the DeBoer's. Anna says she has no wish to contact the DeBoers and finds it creepy that Jan DeBoer keeps a portrait of her on his mantelpiece.

The DeBoer's adopted a little boy after loosing Jessica (Anna) but they said the strain of losing her caused them to divorce.They later remarried but then divorced each other again, and still remain apart.