These are the most recent articles:
By: Karyn Spencer, Midlands News Service
11/25/2008
In a rare decision, a Douglas County judge closed a court hearing Monday in a case related to the Nebraska safe haven law.
The hearing was for a 14-year-old boy whose mother left him Sept. 1 at the Omaha Police Department, mistakenly thinking that it qualified as a “safe haven.”
His mother [...]
Filed on November 25, 2008
Not designated for permanent publication
A-08-651, A-08-652
SUMMARY: The motions to transfer to tribal court were properly denied for good cause because the child were not Indian Children under ICWA at the time of the hearing and because the tribal social service agencies did not have appropriate and necessary services available for the [...]
Scott Patterson
OMAHA (KPTM)- Three days is not enough. That’s what child welfare experts told members of the legislature’s judiciary committee on Monday, so the committee sent a bill to the full Unicameral calling for a 30-day age limit instead.
During a public hearing, senators got an earful about the effects of Nebraska’s safe haven law, [...]
By Shon T. Lieske
If you are like myself and, as I suspect, most attorneys practicing in the area of Juvenile Law, the ICPC is something you have heard of, and maybe even dealt with on occasion, but for the most part, is something that simply slips into the morass of other acronyms that you have some vague understanding of what it stands for, and less understanding of how it applies. In my three years as a practicing juvenile law attorney, I have had one case involving the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC), and following the “receiving state’s” completion of the home study, my client in that case decided to relinquish her parental rights, and so any further placement issues under the ICPC thereafter, quickly dissolved. Following that experience, I have simply been fortunate that no other case has yet to test my limited knowledge of the ICPC, and how to handle placement under this compact…
By JoANNE YOUNG / Lincoln Journal Star
Sunday, Nov 16, 2008
One important thing needs to be said at Monday’s safe haven public hearing, the chairman of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee said Saturday.
Omaha Sen. Brad Ashford wants to hear officials of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services — an integral agency in the protection [...]
BY RICK RUGGLES
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Thirteen-month-old Jayce Wilson sat in his dad’s lap Saturday and ate tiny pieces of chocolate chip cookie.
An hour earlier, with a nod from Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Wadie Thomas, Jayce’s position in life changed from the temporary, tenuous status of foster care to the permanence of adoption.
Jayce and his parents, [...]
By Lucy Wilkins
BBC News
With the best intentions in the world, Nebraska lawmakers wanted to prevent harm coming to unwanted babies abandoned by their parents, the so-called “dumpster babies”.
So, following other US states, they voted for a “safe haven” law.
They passed the briefest of legislation - just two sentences - protecting parents from [...]
By Lisa Munger
The Grand Island Independent
Posted Nov 13, 2008 @ 10:27 PM
GRAND ISLAND — State senators convene today in Lincoln to address Nebraska’s unique safe-haven law, which allows guardians to leave children as old as 17 at hospitals without legal consequences. Thirty-three children have been abandoned under the law. None of the 33 are infants.
Though [...]
By Claire Suddath Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008
On July 18, 2008, Nebraska became the last state to institute a “safe haven law,” decriminalizing the act of abandoning an infant at a state hospital. Only five lines long, the law had one glaring omission — the government never defined an age limit. Since July, 30 children, most [...]
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 [...]
