INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – An attorney for a woman who's challenging her two grandsons' adoption by their other grandmother told the Indiana Supreme Court that adoption should never have been approved.
Steven Ripstra is an attorney for the boys' paternal grandmother. He told the justices Monday that a Vanderburgh County court erred last year in approving the boys' adoption by their maternal grandmother. Ripstra says the maternal grandmother's 1997 conviction of neglect of a dependent would bar her under state law from adopting children.
Julie Fox is an attorney for the maternal grandmother. She says her client's conviction never came up during the trial court's adoption hearings.
Court documents reveal neither grandmother's name.
The Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the adoptions in October. The state Supreme Court has taken the case on appeal.
