Word: florida
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...flips through old photographs of her brother Joseph O'Dell. It's hardly a typical family album. There's Bubba, as she calls him, in a schoolboy outfit, leaning up against his baby sister. Then a grownup Bubba hugging her when she visited him on Christmas Day at a Florida prison. And finally Bubba shortly before the Commonwealth of Virginia executed him by lethal injection. Knox believes they killed the wrong man. And she knows the state now has the tools to prove whether or not she is right. Says Knox, fighting tears: "I want closure...
...began to fight and, like so many couples these days, decided to break up. And now the woman who gave birth to Zoey is blocking her former partner from seeing the five-year-old child. The other woman is suing for custody rights. And a state appeals court in Florida is struggling with some heart-rending questions. Who exactly qualifies as a child's parent in the eyes of the law? Can a woman who behaves as a mother to a child be kept away from that child just because the woman is homosexual...
That's the proposition that Kazmierazak has placed before the Florida appeals judges. Much of her evidence is stuffed into a scrapbook that she hugged to her chest during a court hearing last month. It includes a sperm-donor list, the stick from an early pregnancy test that still shows the positive lines indicating a baby had been conceived, ultrasound pictures of Zoey in the womb and a letter from Kazmierazak's former partner. It reads: "Thank you for having our beautiful little girl with me...You are her mommy and will always be. I will never do anything...
...caring for her ailing mother. She and her lawyer have not argued the facts of the case so much as the law--and the law, so far, has been on their side. When Kazmierazak first sought custody rights, the trial court ruled she had no standing in the case. Florida law recognizes parental rights of custody only for biological or adoptive parents and grandparents. Kazmierazak is none of these...
Most states allow what is called a second-parent adoption, which allows a person to adopt the children of his or her partner without ending the partner's parental status. But Florida is not one of those states. So Kazmierazak and her lawyers are, in essence, asking the appeals court to interpret the law broadly and consider her role as a parent and the best interests of the child...