Absentee Shawnee Tribe seeks return of girl in South Carolina

Friday, September 13, 2013  

The Absentee Shawnee Tribe will be asking the South Carolina courts to recognize an Oklahoma court order in an Indian Child Welfare Act dispute.

The tribe asserted jurisdiction after learning that a newborn girl whose biological mother is Absentee Shawnee was adopted by a non-Indian couple and taken to South Carolina. The woman consented but the biological father, who is non-Indian, did not.

A judge in Oklahoma this week called for the girl to be returned to Oklahoma so that the tribe can determine her placement. The next step will be to ask the South Carolina courts to "domesticate" the order, an attorney for the tribe said.

“It’s going to set up an interesting dynamic,” attorney Shannon Jones, who is representing the tribe in South Carolina, told The Charleston Post and Courier. “The couple is refusing to honor the Oklahoma court order.”

The girl was born in May in Oklahoma.

Get the Story:
Oklahoma, South Carolina families at odds in adoption dispute mirroring Veronica case (The Charleston Post-Courier 9/13)

Oklahoma court backs Absentee Shawnee Tribe in ICWA case (9/12)
Same attorneys worked on adoptions for two Indian babies (08/30)