Fred and Linda Bullock are now officially the parents of "J.J.," a 5 1/2-year-old whose custody battle has gathered headlines and sparked changes in how the Division of Family Services handles foster-care placements.
"I feel great, like I won a $10 million settlement," said L. Zane Gill, the attorney who represented the Bullocks in a 16-month battle with Family Services. "Her name is now Jana Bullock."The Division of Family Services is out of the picture and the Juvenile Court is out of the picture."
A church welfare agency placed the child in the Bullocks' care when she was tiny, after she apparently had been abused. The division became involved when the Bullocks asked the state for some financial assistance.
Almost immediately, it notified the Bullocks that it had found a permanent adoptive home for the child and would remove her immediately from their home. When the Bullocks said they wanted to adopt her, division staff said they could not approve the adoption.
The Bullocks appealed the decision of a judge who said that an adoption could not take place if the state agency opposed it. The Utah Court of Appeals ruled that the Juvenile Court had jurisdiction.
But before the Juvenile Court judge could rule on the case, the Division of Family Services hired an independent psychologist to do an evaluation. The psychologist's report was favorable to the Bullocks and said the child had been with them as long as she could remember and considered the Bullocks as her family. With that report, the division withdrew its opposition to the adoption.
On March 12 a Juvenile Court judge signed the papers giving the child a permanent place in the Bullocks' home.
The Bullock case sparked an internal review of the state's adoption policy and a decision that no child would be placed in a foster home that would not get the state's approval for adoption.