The New Jersey Supreme Court announced that it will hear the case of a New Jersey indigent mother who lacked an attorney when when a judge ordered her 2-year-old daughter taken from her custody and placed with a “financially advantaged” foster family.
The case will address whether some New Jersey parents are "too poor" to care for their children, whether they have a constitutional right to an attorney when their custody is being challenged in court, and whether the indigent mother should be allowed to visit her daughter even without custody. The Supreme Court suspended the mother's visitation rights and ordered a trial judge to weigh the potential psychological impact on the child from having her biological mother visit after nearly two years apart.
Years ago, the mother left her daughter at the Children’s Home Society of New Jersey, a private adoption agency, for short-term foster care. After a year of irregular visits from the mother, the Children’s Home Society encouraged a foster family to file a lawsuit against the mother to terminate her parental rights. The family law judge who terminated the mother's parental rights did not find her to be negligent or abusive, a drug user, an alcoholic or mentally unfit to care for her daughter.