Native American child law not followed, court says

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that a Lancaster County judge should have applied to a child custody case a federal law that seeks to prevent the removal of Native American children from their homes.

The high court’s ruling on Friday echoed a state Appeals Court ruling, which also said Juvenile Court Judge Linda Porter had erred in deciding the Indian Child Welfare Act didn’t apply in the case of three Lancaster County children, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.

Porter found that the federal law didn’t apply because the children remained in their father’s home, despite being in the state’s custody. The act applies only in cases when Native American children are either removed from their parents’ home and placed in foster homes or when the state seeks to terminate Native Americans’ parental rights, Porter said.

The case began in January 2013 when the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services took custody of the three girls after their father’s girlfriend had slapped one of them. By March 2013 the state retained legal custody but the judge returned all three girls to their father’s home, where his girlfriend also lived. The judge said that although reasonable efforts had been made to return legal custody to the father, it was in the girls’ best interests that the state retain legal custody while the girls lived with him.

The father argued in his appeal for legal custody that the judge should have applied the Indian Child Welfare Act’s provision that said that active efforts must be taken to preserve and reunify Native American family.

The state later removed the girls again because of allegations of sexual abuse by the father and one or more of his girlfriend’s sons, court records say.

The Supreme Court acknowledged that its decision probably wouldn’t affect the case, but it decided the question of whether the Indian Child Welfare Act should apply was an important issue to resolve, the newspaper reported.

The girls’ last names are not provided in the ruling, and The Associated Press does not generally identify possible victims of sexual abuse.

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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, http://www.journalstar.com