Don't mess with Texas

Law may give teen dad edge in adoption case

KAREN HAYMON LONG

The Tampa Tribune

TAMPA - While baby Kara Goss' future rests in the hands of the law, the two families who said they love her are both determined to keep her.

"I hate to make them play King Solomon, but that's the way it is," Donald Carr said of the judges who will be asked to decide who should be Baby Kara's parents - he and his wife, Christine, who are trying to adopt Kara, or a young Texas man who said he is her father and wants her.

Meanwhile, legal experts are divided over whether the Carrs, who live in Tampa, took a risk by attempting to adopt Kara, now a month old, knowing William Jardina, 17, of San Leon, Texas, has said all along he will not give her up.

"Your Tampa people are dead in the water," said University of Houston law professor Eugene Smith. He said it is the same situation as the Baby Jessica case, in which a Michigan girl was returned to her biological parents last month after living most of her life with a couple trying to adopt her.

"Under Texas law, which is going to govern this thing, the consent of the father of an illegitimate child is required," said Smith, who wrote the family code in Texas. "He would have rights in Texas, which is the place of the birth of a child, and in such of a situation, Florida would recognize Texas law.

"They have not the chance of a snowball in hell," Smith said.

The baby's mother, 19-year-old college student Stacey Goss of Dickinson, Texas, agreed give Kara up for a private adoption before she was born. Jardina goes to court Wednesday in Galveston to establish he is Kara's biological father.

Since before the baby was born on July 24, he has refused to sign legal papers relinquishing his parental rights.

In Tampa, the Carrs said their attorney has advised them not to talk to the media about the case. But they said they love Kara like a daughter and have done everything legally proper in their attempt to adopt her.

Carr is a major in the Marines at MacDill Air Force Base. His wife quit her job at a brokerage firm to take care of the baby. They are attempting to adopt her through Florida courts, since they are Florida residents.

Tallahassee attorney Tann Hunt, who often handles adoptions and is active in The Florida Bar's Family Law Section, calls the situation "a great nightmare."

"If he told them all along, and they tried to adopt her, the word "risk' doesn't cover it," she said. "Risk implies an element of winning against certain odds."

Tampa attorney Martha Weed, chairwoman of the Family Law Section of the Hillsborough County Bar Association, said the opposite.

The Carrs, she said, didn't take an "unreasonable risk or an unusual risk."

"His not signing doesn't really mean, "Forget it; it's not going to happen,' because it is so common that biological fathers will not want paternity, will change their minds," she said.

Jardina, who works for his family's gravel company near Houston, said he can provide for the baby. Zana Jardina, his mother, said she and her husband will help financially and she and one of her daughters would baby-sit Kara while William is at work.

Jardina's mother said she and her husband called Goss' parents on July 13, the day after they learned Goss was pregnant, to offer to pay her medical expenses and help with other needs.

The Gosses told them their insurance would cover the medical bills, the Jardinas said.

After the baby was born, Zana Jardina said, her son sent Goss a certified letter telling her he would support the baby. She refused to accept the letter, she said.

Hunt said under Florida law, fathers who do not contribute financially or psychologically to a woman when she is pregnant, in essence, forfeit parental rights.

But, "That's not the way it is in Texas," said Nancy Gibbons, manager of the state program that licenses adoption agencies in Texas. She said a father has to sign over his rights for a child to be put up for adoption.

Thomas Oldham, another University of Houston law professor, said the Carrs could attempt to invoke Florida law by attempting to prove Kara is a Floridian, since she has lived most of her life here.

"Is she a Floridian or a Texan temporarily removed?" he said, adding that could be up to courts to decide.

Attorney Hunt said she would not have attempted to adopt a baby under the circumstances the Carrs face, nor would she advise a couple to do so.

"I would have thought there was too much risk," she said.