Baby Richard Trial: 1991-95 - Father Attempts To Gain Custody
court kirchner rizzi illinois
Kirchner, meanwhile, aware of the due date, had returned from Europe and tried to learn of Richard's fate, checking with area hospitals, searching public records for evidence of the birth or death, and frequenting Daniella's neighborhood. However, he apparently did not try to contact Daniella or her doctor directly, or consult an attorney. Despite being told of the baby's death, he kept up his efforts to find out what had happened. Two months after Richard was born, a friend of Daniella's told him the truth, and Kirchner intervened in the adoption proceedings to gain custody of his son.
The ensuing litigation spawned a number of strongly worded judicial opinions, several appeals to state and federal courts, and a great public outcry over Richard's fate. The Illinois Court of Appeals decided the case on the basis of the baby's best interests, which Illinois adoption laws dictated. Judge Dom Rizzi ruled that the interests of the baby would best be served if Richard remained with the Warburtons, since by that time he had been with them for nearly two and a half years, and his biological parents were now utter strangers to him. Rizzi also found that Kirchner was an unfit parent in light of what the judge characterized as feeble efforts to learn the truth about Richard. "There comes a point," stated Rizzi, "when we should not be ignorant as judges of what we know as men and women."
However, the Illinois Supreme Court, in a terse opinion, reversed the court of appeals and Judge Rizzi's ruling and invalidated the adoption, awarding custody instead to Kirchner. Rizzi, the court determined, had done things backwards: under Illinois law, the courts could not even begin to consider Richard's best interests until they first found Kirchner to be an unfit parent, thus terminating his parental rights. One justice noted the public furor surrounding the case and the irresponsibility of the press in stirring up outrage against the courts; he accused one Chicago columnist in particular of "character assassination" and "journalistic terrorism" against the court system.
User Comments
over 2 years ago
helen
God you chicks are stupid and clearly not mothers (or very poor ones). I hope you and the justices who ordered these beauftiful and precious children from their homes (not to mention the selfish birth parents) all burn in hell for at least 1,000 years, and just then you will maybe have an inkling of the pain that these self-focused bastards inflicted on the adoptive families. I say again, you are all very, very stupid for buying into the propaganda, and you are probably equally as selfish and useless as the birth parents.
over 2 years ago
These kids are returned to homes full of love where people have fought years to get them back home and rember these are their natural blood parents and family members!
NOT STRANGERS!..the birth bond soon begins! Any discomfort the child may have felt does soon subside! once those adults STOP carrying on and screaming and crying doing the big mourning face in front of the cameras and in front of the child!
Baby Richard and Baby Jessica are both proof of that!! as they are both now of legal age and are both happy and trama free and both have said that they are very happy that they were ordered returned to their blood parents and natural family by the court system and neither are seeking any contact with the past adopted couples as legal adults! We should be burdened with the poor kids in foster care with no family to love them!! not the tug of war babies!
almost 3 years ago
CARRIE
I read that he is very happy and well adjusted and very close to his parents and mainly mother.That he says that he rembers very little about his 4 years with the adopted family and some things he feels he rembers was abusive to him. He still claims the adopted family told him negative things about the people he was going with that day to make sure he was scared enough for the cameras on the day he left!
and that his real birth parents treated him and cared for him much better with more love and personal attention then he ever got from his adopted parents and their son.I also read that he said that he had no desire to see or contact his adopted family in the future that after he understood about blood and birth and who his real parents were and how they fought to get him back home, that he was very happy he was given back to his real family and thought of his adopted parents as only caregivers of him not anyone he had a connection with to be involved with in his life! and he felt anger toward the adopted family that they held him from his blood parents all those years!
over 3 years ago
The baby Richard case is one along with Baby Jessica that I have never forgotten.
How is Danny? He's got to be 17 and a senior in high school( same age as Jessica( Anna Schmidt) I read the book written about Richard's case but I never bought into what Karen M wrote. Someday when Danny is away from the hand that feeds him maybe he'll tell his story and maybe reunite with his first parents( the ones that raised him for 4 yrs)
God Bless Danny
over 4 years ago
What has happened to baby Richard( Danny)
He is now 16.