By Margaret Ryznar, Associate professor of law, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
Many parents embroiled in child custody cases might only dream of bringing their cases to the highest court in the land, yet this became reality for Army Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey Lee Chafin last week, when oral arguments were heard by the United States Supreme Court in his case, Chafin v. Chafin, 11-1347.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case by granting rare mid-summer cert in the case in 2012. Chafin is further unique because only approximately 1 percent of all cases presented to the Supreme Court are heard, and among those, few are family law cases, which are ordinarily heard in the state courts. However, a circuit split between the American federal appellate courts on Hague Convention return cases such as this one provided Sergeant Chafin with a compelling question to bring to the United States Supreme Court.
The question is whether American federal appellate courts have the authority to review, after that child has left the United States, a district court’s order returning the child to her habitual residence under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. The Hague Convention aims to determine the proper country for child custody proceedings.
In the case at bar, which arises from an international custody dispute, the father is American and the mother is Scottish. Their five-year-old daughter was born in Germany with dual United States and United Kingdom citizenship. While the father was deployed to Afghanistan, the mother and the child moved to Scotland, establishing a residence there. When the father was transferred to Alabama, the family moved to Alabama to reunite.
