Baby Richard case
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The Baby Richard case was a highly publicized custody battle that took place over Danny Kirchner, a young child whose adoption was revoked when his biological father, Otakar Kirchner, won custody in a case that was decided in 1995 by the Illinois Supreme Court. The child became known as "Baby Richard" in widespread media coverage.
[edit] Events of the custody battle
The child was brought home four days after his March 16, 1991 birth by Jay and Kim Warburton of Schaumburg, Illinois, who pursued his adoption with the consent of biological mother, Daniela Janikova. Under Illinois law, a biological father has 30 days to fight an adoption; Kirchner filed a request to block the adoption more than 30 days after the child's birth, which is what caused the controversy. He did not show adequate interest in the child under Illinois state Adoption Law, under Article I.
The mother, Daniella, had been living with the father, Otakar, until a few weeks before the birth of the child when she moved out following an argument. She then decided to place her child for adoption. Shortly after the anticipated birth date, and after having learned that Daniela had given birth, Otakar began a search to learn what had become of the child. He retained legal counsel and filed a challenge to the adoption.
The Warburtons fought to keep the child. The Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois upheld Kirchner's paternity of the child and his right to intervene in December 1991, but a subsequent ruling declared him an unfit parent and permitted the adoption to proceed. The court's basis for finding Otakar "unfit" was that, in the court's opinion, he had not made sufficient efforts to locate the child following the birth. Otakar filed an appeal with the Illinois Appellate Court. The Circuit Court ruling was upheld. An appeal was filed with the Illinois Supreme Court who agreed to hear the case.
Three years after the birth of the child, in June 1994, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the Circuit Court of Cook County and the Illinois Appellate Court had wrongly terminated Kirchner's parental rights and the adoption was improper. Under Illinois law, courts can only consider a child's best interests if a biological parent is determined to be unfit. The Warburtons filed petitions with the United States Supreme Court seeking to stay and overturn the enforcement of the Illinois Supreme Court decision, however, these petitions were denied.
[edit] Following the Supreme Court ruling
In January 1995, Otakar, seeking enforcement of the Illinois Supreme Court's ruling, filed a Petition for Habeas Corpus. The petition was granted. On April 30, 1995, Danny Warburton / Kirchner was transferred from the Warburtons to the care of his father as television and print reporters documented the event.
Shortly following the transfer, Otakar and Daniela (having married in 1992) moved from their apartment into a small home in the south suburbs of Chicago. The couple went on to have two other children.
Karen Moriarty, a therapist for the biological parents, told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2003 that Danny has adjusted well to life after the custody battle. She documented the case in the book Baby Richard -- A Four-Year-Old Comes Home. Moriarty decried the media's treatment of the parents, claiming that columnist and author Bob Greene never spoke to Kirchner or Janikova in spite of writing so frequently on the case. However, during the four and a half years it took for the case to wend its way through the system and to be fully concluded, Greene did make numerous requests to interview Otakar. Following the transfer, Otakar filed a lawsuit against Greene and the Chicago Tribune claiming defamation. The case against Greene and the Chicago Tribune was dismissed entirely by an Illinois Court on February 6, 1998. See: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=il&vol=1963497&invol=1
