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7-year custody fight ends with reunion

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published February 15, 2007

MEMPHIS - Qin Luo He said that rich Americans were stealing her baby.

But it took almost seven years before Tennessee courts agreed to return the child to her.

Now, 8-year-old Anna Mae must leave the family she has lived with nearly her entire life and return to parents she barely knows.

In 1999, Shaoqiang and Qin Luo He, Chinese citizens living in Memphis, put their 1-month-old daughter in foster care with an American couple, Jerry and Louise Baker.

Shaoqiang He, who was a graduate student at the University of Memphis at the time, lost his scholarship after being accused of sexually assaulting another student. He was acquitted.

The Bakers later contended the Hes had abandoned their baby; a judge stripped the Hes of their parental rights.

The Tennessee Supreme Court last month sided with the Hes, saying they had given up Anna Mae only temporarily so she could get medical insurance.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay an order transferring custody.

The high court said the Chinese couple had been penalized because they did not understand the American legal system. It found no evidence the Hes had harmed their daughter.

State law urges judges to move quickly on parental rights petitions, but the fight raged on for years, fueled by arguments over where Anna Mae would have a better life - in middle-class America with the Bakers, or in China with her biological family.

The Bakers, who have four biological children, argued in court that Anna Mae would be devastated by taking her from them after so many years.

"But if the Bakers were allowed to profit by delays," said David Siegel, the Hes' lawyer, "you're saying all you have to do is prolong the proceedings and show that the child is now fully attached to you."

The Memphis Juvenile Court is under orders to draw up a plan for reuniting Anna Mae with her parents in such a way as to limit the emotional trauma and loosen her ties to the Bakers. The transition is expected to take months.

[Last modified February 15, 2007, 01:32:52]