COURT RULES FOR ADOPTED CHILD

In a Chicago custody battle with eerie parallels to the “Baby Jessica” case, an Illinois appeals court Wednesday ruled the opposite way, saying a 2 1/2-year-old boy should stay with the parents who adopted him when he was 4 days old.

In a sharply worded 2-1 ruling, the Illinois Appellate Court said removing “Richard” from the suburban Chicago family, the only family he has ever known, and returning him to his birth parents would be “contrary to the best interest of the child.”

And in a dramatic and unusual plea for reform, the appeals court begged for changes in the court system to end the “shamefully” long time it takes to resolve adoption cases like this one.

The court ruled that although the matter was a “wrenching ordeal” for everyone, “it would be contrary to the best interest of Richard to `switch’ parents at this stage of his life.”

“To hold that a child is the property of his parents is to deny the humanity of the child . . . Richard `belongs’ to no one but himself,” Judge Dom Rizzi wrote.

“Slowly, but finally, when it comes to children even the law has rid itself of the Dred Scott mentality that a human being can be considered a piece of property `belonging’ to another human being,” Rizzi said.

Legal experts said the decision Wednesday is likely to further boost the importance judges will have to place on the best-interests question in determining custody.

It also indicates that in Illinois, unlike some other states, a child who spends at least 18 months with his adoptive parents isn’t likely to be returned to his biological mother or father.

The story of the baby called “Richard” by the court but “Jessy” by his biological parents is one of jealousy, anger, betrayal and heartache for both sets of parents.

And it is not over.

The birth father of the boy, Chicago restaurant manager Otakar Kirchner, who had been found “unfit” by a lower court, said he will ask the Illinois Supreme Court to reverse the appeals court and return his only child to him and his wife, Daniella, a beautician.

Slovak emigres from the former Czechoslovakia, the couple said they cannot understand why courts in Iowa and Michigan returned Jessica to her birth parents but the Illinois court did the opposite.

The answer is that different states have different laws. In Illinois, adoption laws are substantially stricter for birth parents and it is harder for a birth father to gain custody.

In addition, a new Illinois law requires judges to take a closer look at the best interests of the child in deciding who gets the baby.

Jessica was returned to her birth parents earlier this month after a two-year separation.

But the black-and-white legal aspects of the case belie the human circumstances beneath both sides. “I would like to kill myself. It’s all my fault,” Daniella Kirchner said in an interview Wednesday night.

The case has been anguishing, too, for the parents who adopted “Richard,” said their attorney, Richard Lifshitz. The couple have been fighting to keep the child since the birth father first surfaced in court proceedings in June 1991, more than two months after the child was placed in their home.

The story began in January 1991, when Otakar, or “Otto,” Kirchner left Chicago and his fiance-then seven months pregnant-to return to visit his gravely ill grandmother in Bratislava.

Up to that point, the couple had lived happily together on the North Side, taken out a marriage license, and Otto Kirchner had paid for all the prenatal care while she attended beauty school.

But during his 13-day stay with his grandmother, he angered his Slovakian aunt in a dispute over money, he said, and the woman phoned Daniella in Chicago, telling her that her fiance had married and was now honeymooning with his former Slovakian girlfriend.

Though Otto said it was untrue, his fiance didn’t believe him. “I hated him,” Daniella said.

Otto returned home to an empty apartment and their marriage license torn up on in small pieces on the table.

Daniella told him she never wanted to see him again and moved into a shelter for women where she knew her location would be kept secret. She put the child up for adoption.

“The baby always needs two people,” Daniella said.

Daniella, 26, said she steadfastly refused to tell the adopting couple or their lawyer the father’s last name-she identified him only as Otto-and warned them that “as soon as he finds out where the baby is, he will do anything to get the baby back.”

Otto, 36, said as much in an interview Wednesday night, emotionally saying, “If I see my child, I will take him.” He then recanted, saying he would abide by the court rulings.

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On March 20, 1991, four days after the child was born, Daniella signed a “final and irrevocable consent to adoption” and told Otto that the baby was dead.

The appeals court opinion, written by Rizzi and joined by Judge David Cerda, even notes that Daniella tried to obtain a fake death certificate for the baby.

Meanwhile, Otto contends that he tried to find out the truth, driving by the Hillside home where Daniella was living with her Uncle Joe, even pawing through the garbage looking for old diapers. But, he said, he only came to know the truth when he came home from work on Mother’s Day in May 1991 and found Daniella sleeping in the bed they once shared. “I always loved him. My anger went away, and I realized I could not live without him,” she explained.

She confessed that the baby was alive, adopted by a family that already had one child.

On May 18, more than two months after Richard was born, Otto contacted a lawyer, Loren Heinemann, for the first time. On June 6, Otto filed documents trying to enter the adoption proceeding and get back his son. That September, the couple married. Otto said he has never seen the child and does not know the names of the adoptive parents.

The adoption trial began 14 months after the baby was born, and a lower court ruled that Otto “had failed to demonstrate a reasonable degree of interest, concern or responsibility as to the welfare of the newborn child during the first 30 days after the birth.”

The baby would stay with the its adoptive parents, known as Jane and John Doe, that court said. On Wednesday, the appeals court agreed, saying Otto should have done much more, such as personally confronting Daniella rather than just trying to get her to come to the phone.

Otto disagreed vociferously, contending “no one could do more” and saying that the adoptive parents were “not parents. They’re baby-sitters.”

Daniella, asked if she sympathized with the Does, said no, that though the baby was now 2 1/2, he would not recall the trauma if he were taken from them now.

In a blistering dissent, Judge John Tully said the adoption was illegal and that Otto “did everything a reasonable person could have done except obtain the services of an attorney.”

“The charade of terming the father `unfit’ because he failed to immediately seek legal advice is preposterous,” said Tully, accusing the other two judges of assuming a “sacrosanct role formerly reserved for Divine Providence.”

Some experts said the significance of the decision Wednesday is that it boosts the importance judges will have to place on the best-interests question.