Colorado Supreme Court to Hear Appeal Involving Indian Child Welfare Act

The Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to tackle a case that will decide one aspect of how far counties must go to ensure a child's federal protections under the Indian Child Welfare Act. In the case to be heard by the state Supreme Court, a county juvenile court judge relied on information from previous court proceedings involving the mother in which two tribes that had been notified said the woman had no known tribal ties. On that basis, Juvenile Court Judge Pax Moultrie terminated the parent-child relationship. The mother appealed, saying the judge failed to notify the tribes about the custody case and late last year, a three-judge panel for Colorado's Court of Appeals agreed with the mother. The appellate court also noted that the child welfare agency had learned that the child might have ties to yet a third tribe - a possibility it never checked into.