L.K.

*55 Opinion

In many ways, this case represents a mother’s worst nightmare come horrifyingly to life. Five years after her husband disappeared with their infant son (Z.K.) from Las Vegas, Nevada, the child’s mother (L.K.)—who had returned to her home state of Ohio but had never stopped looking for her son—discovered over the Internet that the child was in Tehama County, California, where her husband had been arrested and the child placed in foster care. The mother (mother) immediately contacted the Tehama County Department of Social Services (the department) to request custody. Presumably because of mother’s meager financial circumstances (she was on government aid as she pursued a college degree), she could not arrange for an immediate reunion with the minor, but she clearly expressed that she desperately wanted him back.

Unfortunately, by the time mother managed to locate Z.K., the dependency proceedings had already progressed to the stage of the hearing to select a permanent plan for the child (Welf. & Inst. Code, 1 § 366.26)—which in this case was adoption by the current foster mother. Despite this fact, under the law mother had a constitutional right to custody of her child…