Custody case in appeals court today

Web posted February 26, 1998

By Tara Meyer
Associated Press

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -- Christine Lops kissed her daughter Carmen's forehead before the goldenhaired child tromped outside to bounce her ball, warning her to stay in sight.

``It makes me feel better to know where they are,'' said Ms. Lops, a German woman who has been in the United States since November fighting to return home with her two daughters.

Ms. Lops said the girls were snatched in 1995 by her husband, whom she later divorced. Michael Lops argues that he had no choice but to bring the girls to this country because their mother abandoned them.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will hear arguments today in what has become an international dispute involving the Hague Convention and state and federal courts in Augusta and Aiken.

The case highlights the way some judges routinely misunderstand the Hague Convention's role in protecting children, legal experts said.

Ms. Lops sought help from the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a treaty that provides for the speedy return of children taken from their home country.

The treaty, ratified by the United States in 1988, does not ask judges to decide custody but to return abducted children to their home country so courts there can take up the issue.

``Some courts don't have the faintest idea what this is,'' said Bill Hilton, an attorney in Santa Clara, Calif., who specializes in international abduction cases. ``They tend to want to handle this as a custody dispute.''

On Nov. 5, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation seized Carmen, 7, and Claire, 6, from the home of their grandmother, Anne Harrington, in Martinez.

The father had been living in North Augusta with the girls, but his mother often kept them at her home in Martinez.

Ms. Lops filed petitions in Aiken County Family Court and in federal court in Augusta, asking to be allowed to return to Germany with her daughters.

In December, U.S. District Judge Dudley H. Bowen Jr. in Augusta agreed that the girls had been wrongfully taken and ordered that they be allowed to return to Germany with their mother.

AP-CS-02-25-98 1754EST