Raven Laws is about 5 percent Indian, according to genetic testing that the Bessingers commissioned last year (at a cost of about $7,000, according to court records).
But the Cherokee River Indian Community isn't a recognized tribe. It explains on its Web site (www.cric.org) that it isn't "a social club or a tribe, but a community of American Indian people who desire to build a better life for themselves and their children."
Laura Segall
The Bessingers attorney, Greg Riebesehl: "Its very sad what happened."
Shelly Walters begged the judge to give her a chance to be a real mom to Raven.
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That alone should have spelled the end of any legal intervention by the community in Raven's case at the Maricopa County courthouse. Also, Raven Laws' natural parents have no known connection with anyIndian tribe, recognized or not.
Undaunted, the Alabama group "enrolled" the little girl on November 15, 2006, the day after Judge Flores had ordered Raven's immediate return to Walters. More important, nothing stopped the two Native American women representing the group from taking Raven.
According to Steve Bison, a former Phoenix resident who is the CRIC's director of emergency services, school superintendent, court clerk, fire chief and, yes, head horse trainer, the community numbers about 60 people who live on private land in north Alabama's Lawrence County, about 1,700 miles from Arizona.
He says the Cherokee River community has its own constitution, bylaws, volunteer fire department, tribal council, and court system.
"We're legitimate," the affable Bison tells New Timesby phone. "We just want what's best for Raven, and that's the honest truth. I was shocked when the ladies went in and picked up that little girl. It wasn't supposed to happen like that. It was an administrative error, and we're sorry for that."
Bison says his group got involved in the Laws case because of the Bessingers.
"We learned about the situation and did our homework," he says. "I went out to Arizona to the [Bessingers'] home and spoke with the kids there, to get a feeling of how they were being treated. It went from there."
The Native American women kept Raven at a west Phoenix home for two days, until police tracked her down on the evening of January 24 after getting a tip.
The girl was unharmed, and authorities immediately returned her to her mother in Apache Junction.
Brenda Byers and Iva Marie Badoni, both Phoenix residents, were charged with kidnapping and custodial interference.
The media soon went away.
But the profound issues raised during this quirky case decidedly did not.
If history is any indicator, the odds of Shelly Walters holding it together — staying off meth, keeping a job, and following through on CPS services — may be slim.
She is a twice-divorced 40-year-old (she and Marty Laws never married) whose drug troubles often have overwhelmed her ability to adequately parent her three children, Raven and two teens.
But Walters has fared surprisingly well since getting Raven back from the Bessingers in November, according to available child-welfare reports.
As for the Bessingers, they also have much to answer for, especially their role in Raven's kidnapping. But at heart, they seem to be guilty mostly of having exercised poor judgment about their evolving role in Raven's life.
"It is clear that Raven is well-cared for and very much loved by [the Bessingers]," an attorney appointed as a court adviser in the case told Judge Flores last year.
But, as the judge recently noted, "the Bessingers are not the parents. It is not an equal situation. They are not on equal footing with the mom."
The judge made a critical distinction.
Arizona and federal law make it difficult for judges to terminate parental rights, even when a case involves parents who seem unfit to care for anything.
The entrenched concept of "family preservation" means child-welfare officials must make "reasonable efforts" to give natural parents every opportunity to win back their children.
For example, on November 14, the same day Flores ordered Raven back into the custody of Shelly Walters, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed termination of a mother's parental rights involving her two children.
A trial judge had ruled earlier that the mother showed "poor parenting skills, poor decision-making and inadequate protection of children."
But the appellate court said "the best-interest standard does not permit termination because a child might be better off living elsewhere. Termination should not be used to merely reallocate children to better and more prosperous parents."
How to balance "family reunification" with a child's health and safety is a slippery slope for state legislatures, governors and judges. For starters, it can be political suicide to oppose anything with the word "family" attached to it (with the exception of the Manson Family).
By law, CPS must investigate when it learns of alleged wrongdoing against a child by a parent or guardian, whether it's neglect or outright abuse. But the agency doesn't just grab kids willy-nilly on the sole basis of an allegation and spirit them away into mysterious foster-care homes.
CPS files "dependency petitions" only if it finds evidence of immediate danger to a child and if the parents seem unable or unwilling to provide minimally adequate care.
But terminating the rights of parents in Arizona and elsewhere remains the exception rather than the rule, according to the Child Welfare League of America.
