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MOM WHO KILLED DAUGHTER DOESN'T LOSE PARENTAL RIGHTS

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Author: BYLINE: Virginia Rybin Staff Writer

The legal rights of Janet Ostlund as parent of her 4-year-old son should not be terminated because of her conviction for shaking her 2-year-old adopted daughter to death, the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled.

In a decision to be filed today, the seven-member court unanimously reversed a 2-1 ruling by a panel of the state Court of Appeals. The panel, reversing a lower court ruling, ordered termination of Ostlund's parental rights.

``Janet Ostlund may not be the picture of a model parent,'' Chief Justice Peter Popovich wrote for the court. ``Yet, few children would be reared by natural parents if model parents were the standard.''

The focus, Popovich said, must be the best interests of the child balanced against parental rights. He said the best interests of the boy ``are in maintaining a nurturing relationship and bonding with the natural mother.''

If the Court of Appeals had been upheld, Ostlund would have had no visitation privileges with her son and no right to input in his upbringing. The Supreme Court's reversal does not necessarily mean Ostlund will have custody of the boy when she is released from prison; that could be the subject of another court battle.

The boy, identified only as M.D.O. in court papers, is in the custody of his father. He has been allowed to visit Ostlund at the Minnesota Women's Prison in Shakopee.

Ostlund's daughter, Maria, died on July 15, 1986 of severe brain injuries. Ostlund has maintained that the child fell and struck her head on the floor. Prosecutors charged that the injuries resulted from her mother's intentional shaking. Ostlund's boy was born two months after Maria died.

In January 1987, a jury convicted Ostlund of second-degree murder. The Robbinsdale woman was sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison.

In July 1987, Hennepin County petitioned to end Ostlund's parental rights regarding her other child. At the trial on that issue, a physician testified that Ostlund was a habitual abusive parent, responsible for Maria's broken arm, the child's failure to thrive and ultimately her death. The doctor and other witnesses said Ostlund's failure to admit her guilt in Maria's death meant therapy to change her destructive behavior would be ineffective.

Hennepin County District Judge John Sommerville dismissed the county's petition. The Supreme Court said Sommerville found that Ostlund's conduct toward Maria ``showed incidents of abuse, but not a consistent pattern of abuse.'' He also said admission of responsibility, though ultimately necessary, need not be a first step in therapy.

The Supreme Court said the Court of Appeals exceeded the appropriate standard of review for an appellate court by ignoring Sommerville's findings of fact and substituting its judgment regarding the best interests of the child.

Hennepin County Attorney Tom Johnson said he was deeply disappointed with the decision, and his office will ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the case.

``What the decision stands for is that murdering your child is not alone enough to disqualify you from raising other children,'' Johnson said.

Ostlund cared for other children in an unlicensed day-care center in her home. Johnson said there was evidence she abused some of those children.

He conceded there was evidence that Ostlund ``was being a fine mother'' when the boy visited her in prison but said this has little bearing on what kind of mother she would be outside prison.

1990 Nov 2