Baby Richard

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday refused to delay an Illinois court order transferring custody of a 3-year-old adopted boy to the biological father he has never met. The action marked the fourth time that the high court or one of its justices has considered the "Baby Richard" case, but it did not end the bitter dispute between the biological father and the couple that has had custody since the boy was 4 days old.

A 27-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the beating death of his live-in girlfriend's 1-year-old boy, a San Diego County Sheriff's Department spokesman said Sunday. Deputies went to a home in the 11000 block of Woodside Avenue in Santee about 3:30 p.m. Saturday after paramedics were called to help a baby who had stopped breathing, the spokesman said. The baby, Richard White, was placed on life support at Children's Hospital with numerous internal injuries, and died about 10 p.m.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens refused Saturday to block an Illinois Supreme Court ruling that gave custody of a boy known as Baby Richard to the biological father he has never met. Stevens issued a two-page ruling denying emergency stay requests by lawyers for the boy, who is almost 4, and for the couple who adopted him. Stevens rejected their claim that they were entitled to a hearing before the full court.

Police arrested a Sylmar woman in the death of a 6-month-old boy who was killed Wednesday when a cottage in which he had been left alone erupted in flames, fire officials said. An off-duty city firefighter and a neighbor tried in vain to rescue the baby, Richard Robles, from the 9:48 a.m. blaze in the 13500 block of Borden Avenue, said Mike Little, a city Fire Department spokesman. The men were unable to get into the two-room dwelling, which had barred windows that opened from the inside.

I am so thrilled to see another television show based on the myth that there are only white people in the world ("Suddenly, O.C. Leads the Hip Parade," July 19). Forget the fact that Asians, blacks and Hispanics surf, attend school and work in Orange County. Forget the fact that some cities in Orange County are predominately minority. Instead, write and produce a comforting myth that ensures work for melanin-deprived people. It is chilling how the media shape perception. It is chilling that so many people in the industry are blind to the other hues working and studying right beside them.

While the Baby Jessica and Baby Richard cases moved through the courts and the tabloids, a group of judges and lawyers crafted a model law they hope will prevent similarly agonizing adoption cases. "The act is radical. It places the welfare of children at its center," said Joan Heifetz Hollinger, the act's drafter and a law professor at the UC Berkeley.

For a second time, the Illinois Supreme Court on Wednesday gave custody of Baby Richard to the biological father he has never met, taking the child from the adoptive parents who have reared him all of his 3 1/2 years. The ruling was the latest round in a heart-wrenching legal battle that raised troubling questions about the finality of adoptions and the rights of biological parents. It also drew the state Supreme Court, Gov. Jim Edgar and the Legislature into a fierce public dispute.

Andres Martinez missed a crucial point in his Feb. 9 commentary, "A Natural for the White House." Arnold Schwarzenegger holds dual citizenship with Austria, his country of birth, and the United States of America, his chosen place of residence to earn mega-millions. Schwarzenegger can't have it both ways and have the Constitution amended so he can run for president of this country. Schwarzenegger can run for Dianne Feinstein's Senate seat if he's so inclined, but to amend the Constitution for just this one man?

A boy at the center of a four-year custody battle was taken sobbing and whimpering from his adoptive parents Sunday by the mother who had given him up and the father he had never met. Otakar and Daniela Kirchner picked up the 4-year-old boy, identified in court records only as Baby Richard, from the adoptive parents' home in suburban Chicago where he had lived since he was 4 days old.