Chinese parents fight adoption of girl, 6

By WOODY BAIRD
Associated Press Writer
2005-02-17

Memphis area couple claiming custody

JACKSON, Tenn. — The state Court of Appeals heard arguments yesterday over the fate of a 6-year-old Chinese girl at the center of a five-year custody fight.

David Siegel, one of the lawyers for Shaoqiang and Qin Luo He, said the Chinese parents did not understand the legal consequences of what they were doing when they left their infant daughter with an American couple while facing financial and legal problems.

Jerry and Louise Baker, residents of a Memphis suburb, have raised Anna Mae He since she was just under a month old. They are trying to adopt the child over her parents' objections.

The Hes are appealing a ruling by Circuit Judge Robert Childers of Memphis that took away all of their legal rights to Anna Mae.

Larry Parrish, the Bakers' lawyer, told a three-judge panel of the Appeals Court that the Hes wanted his clients to raise the girl until she was an adult. The Bakers contend that the Hes, who entered the United States on temporary visas, have fought to regain custody of Anna Mae in hopes that it would help them stay in the country.

Christina Zawisza of the Child Advocacy Clinic at the University of Memphis told the judges that Childers improperly conducted the hearing at which he terminated the Hes' parental rights.

Zawisza and lawyers with Loyola University in Chicago and Vanderbilt University in Nashville filed a friend-of-the-court brief, which argues that Childers was wrong to compare the parenting skills of the Bakers and the Hes and to consider whether Anna Mae would have a better life in suburban America than in China.

Judges Alan Highers, David Farmer and Holly Kirby did not say when they would issue a written ruling in the case.

Outside the courtroom, Jerry Baker described Anna Mae as an ordinary, happy child who does not completely understand the legal fight over her. Baker said he disagreed with the university lawyers that Childers' decision may have been affected by cultural bias against the Hes.

''I personally think a lot of these friends of the court are friends of the Hes,'' Baker said.

Mrs. He broke into tears as she left the courthouse, saying in broken English that her only desire is to ''take my daughter and go back to China.''

Childers ruled that the Hes were emotionally unstable and under the definition of Tennessee law abandoned their daughter by having no contact with her for four months. The Bakers say Anna Mae is part of their family and they are the only parents she has ever known.

Anna Mae was born on Jan. 28, 1999, when her father, then a graduate student at the University of Memphis, was accused of sexual assault, a charge on which he ultimately was acquitted. On Feb. 24, 1999, the Bakers took Anna Mae into their home on a 90-day foster care arrangement worked out privately with the Hes. On June 4, 1999, the Hes signed Juvenile Court papers giving custody of their daughter to the Bakers.

The Bakers have four children of their own. The Hes have had two other children, a boy and a girl, since Anna Mae's birth.