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By Robert Davis, USA TODAY
Five years ago today, two Chinese immigrants, plagued with legal and financial problems, gave their infant daughter to a Memphis couple they say promised to care for the child until the parents could get back on their feet.
Shaoqiang and Qin Luo He, who go by American names Jack and Casey, did get back on their feet, but they didn't get their daughter. What followed was a bitter fight for custody between the Hes and the couple who want to adopt her, Jerry and Louise Baker. Today the war over this little girl might finally be coming to an end in a Memphis courtroom as both birth and foster parents try to convince a judge that they should raise her. Casey, 36, with her limited English, and Jack, 39, with his low-paying restaurant job, face a couple fighting desperately to keep the girl they have raised since she was 1 month old. To protect her privacy, the Hes have asked that the child's first name be withheld from this story. The Bakers refuse to speak publicly about the child. They have said in the past that publicity will only make the child's situation more painful. But their lawyer, former Memphis prosecutor Larry Parrish, says they are loving parents who have raised her as if she were their own daughter. News of this case has spread around the world through media reports and family-rights activists' Web sites. The Hes have a following of sympathizers, some of whom routinely show up in Memphis courtrooms wearing ribbons to show their support. "There is a sense of frustration in the whole Chinese community in North America," says Zhaoyang Li, a San Francisco attorney who has helped the Hes. "We want to see justice." Qian Zhou of the Chinese Embassy says: "We are concerned for the Hes. This kind of case should be finished. This is too long."
Some time was lost as the Hes changed lawyers. Most of their current team signed up to work free after USA TODAY published a story in January 2002 about the case. The Hes' situation is complicated, and their lawyers have fought for them on three fronts: criminal defense, custody and immigration. Jack He came to the University of Memphis as a visiting professor to pursue a doctorate in economics. But in 1998, when Casey was pregnant with their daughter, Jack was accused by a fellow student of sexual assault. The charge was the first in a series of events that eventually led to the placement of the Hes' baby with the Bakers. Jack was dismissed by the university and lost his financial aid. The baby was born prematurely three months later, on Jan. 28, 1999, two months after Casey was assaulted in a grocery store and suffered vaginal bleeding. The difficult delivery left Casey weak, and the couple was in financial trouble. They accepted help through their church from Mid-South Christian Services to have a couple take the child until their legal and health problems were resolved. The girl was supposed to stay with the Bakers only for 90 days. But Jack was just beginning what would become a four-year battle to prove his innocence on the assault charge. He went through several defense lawyers who resigned when he refused to take plea deals. They feared that he wouldn't win a he said/she said case and that he did not fully understand his legal risk. "Even though I was in a very disadvantaged situation, I was very confident that the truth was on my side," Jack says. Danny Ellis, a lawyer in Jackson, Tenn., drove 88 miles to Memphis to defend him after reading about the case in USA TODAY. A jury acquitted Jack on Feb. 22, 2003. Three months after the Hes left their baby with the Bakers, while Jack was still fighting the assault charges, the Bakers said they could continue to care for the child beyond the agreed time. But according to the Hes, the Bakers said they needed legal custody to enroll the baby in their health insurance. The Hes signed a custody agreement and insisted later that the Bakers promised they could have their daughter back. Parrish, the Bakers' lawyer, calls that version "total malarkey." The birth parents continued to visit the little girl. On April 3, 2000, the Hes filed the first of two petitions with Juvenile Court requesting the return of their child. The court turned them down, citing the criminal proceedings and the couple's financial problems. Things came to a head on the girl's second birthday, in January 2001, when Casey refused to leave the Baker home without her daughter. The Bakers called the police. The Hes say the officers told them they would be arrested if they returned. Within five months — on June 20, 2001 — the Bakers went to court and claimed that the Hes had abandoned the child. The Bakers sought to have the Hes' parental rights revoked. They wanted to adopt her. Parrish says his clients, who have four biological children, believe they can provide a better, more stable environment than the Hes can. He says Jerry Baker "tears up" whenever he talks about the girl. The Bakers say they have never treated her differently from their other children, and their extended family of grandparents, aunt, uncles and cousins would be "devastated" if they lose custody. But did they know all along that the Hes wanted their daughter back? That's the question at hand. No matter what happens, there will be plenty of pain to go around. "The courts are never a good place to resolve custody," says David Levy, president of the Children's Rights Council, a non-profit children's advocacy group. He says the system is not equipped to deal with the array of increasingly complicated custody cases. Shared parenting by the "four adults who love this child" would be the ideal, he says, but he acknowledges that this seems unlikely in this case. The danger of such an acrimonious custody dispute is that the child will have lasting emotional damage, he says. Tennessee law says such cases should be accelerated to limit the effect on the child and decided within two years. But two years and three months after the Bakers filed their petition, Chancery Court Judge D.J. Alissandratos made his second decision to postpone the trial — this time indefinitely. A judicial complaint alleging bias was filed by Zhaoyang Li, the San Francisco attorney, and Alissandratos withdrew from the case in November. The judge had ruled against the Hes a number of times over a 19-month pretrial period, including ordering Casey's arrest for disrupting his court when she refused to leave without learning the location of the Bakers' new home in the area. She was later released. Parrish says Jack is a liar and Casey "acts like an animal." He says the Hes tried to grab the little girl on Dec. 1 when they saw her with the Baker family at a Wal-Mart. The police were again called, and the child left with the Bakers. The Hes have not been allowed to see the child legally since a supervised visit Sept. 23. The immigration case While all this was going on, the Bakers began looking into the Hes' immigration status. Because Jack has a student visa, he was no longer in the USA legally after the university fired him. Parrish issued subpoenas to the Chinese restaurants where the Hes worked, seeking documents about their immigration status. Casey lost her job and has not worked since. Jack left Red Sun Buffet and worked at other restaurants. All of them received subpoenas. Memphis immigration lawyer Lynn Susser, who also worked for the Hes free after reading the USA TODAY story, persuaded an immigration judge in December to postpone a decision on deportation until custody is decided. Zhou of the Chinese Embassy praised the decision as "strongly humanitarian." Parrish says the failure of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport the Hes is "mind-boggling." In October, Jack went back to the Red Sun Buffet, where he works as a host or as a waiter. He says he brings home $2,200 a month. The couple lives in a sparsely furnished apartment with their two other children, Andy, 3, and Avita, 17 months. But they say they won't leave without undoing what they did five years ago by giving their daughter to the Bakers. Today, Circuit Court Judge Robert Childers begins the trial that could end this saga. |
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