Idaho judges fail to do what is best for baby

I am an adoptee. So is the 7-month-old infant Utahns have come to know as Baby Harvey.

For now.

He belongs with his parents in American Fork but, sadly, a pair of Idaho judges are fouling off some pretty easy legal pitches that have put his future in doubt.

After Baby Harvey was born June 24, Jed and Cally Nielson hurried north to Kootenai County, Idaho, to hold their first child in their arms. The routine adoption already had been arranged by LDS Family Services.

That's where the story should have ended, with the Nielsons living happily ever after through diaper changes, teething, potty training, Junior Jazz and those wonderfully wacky and ever awkward teenage years.

Instead, Jed and Cally say they have spent $25,000 trying to stop a late bid by the birth father to take away Baby Harvey. Sadly, the birth father is being aided and abetted by these two Idaho magistrates who have failed to follow the first moral obligation of an adoption: Do what is best for the child.

Not only is that a moral obligation, it's also Idaho state law. Baby Harvey doesn't need a Solomon. Judge Judy could get this one right. The intent of the Idaho legislature couldn't possibly have been any clearer when it passed the set of adoption laws that begin with this phrase: "The state has a compelling interest in providing stable and permanent homes for adoptive children in a prompt manner, in preventing the disruption of adoptive placements, and in holding parents accountable for meeting the needs of children. ... "

Unfortunately, Kootenai County magistrates Robert Burton and Barry Watson have spent the past couple of months disrupting the placement of Baby Harvey in the stable home of a loving mother and father.

Burton somehow found the birth father, Matt Tenneson, had some parental rights, though the 20-year-old Hollywood Video employee didn't follow the clear steps laid out by state law for declaring paternity. Then, just before Christmas, of all Dickensian things, Watson went a step farther and awarded temporary primary custody to the birth father.

The Nielsons refused to obey Watson's order because they don't believe he has jurisdiction in Utah. Good for them. LDS Family Services filed an appeal of Tenneson's order. This week, a judge set the hearing on the appeal for April 10.

I know fathers get the short end of the stick in many cases. This isn't one of them. The birth father has proved one thing based on Idaho state law: He isn't ready to be a father.