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Newville v. State8/29/1994
lems of the type caused by abuse. Adoptive placement was further complicated because any adoptive placement had to comply with the provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act 25 U.S.C. ยง 1915.
Following a series of events beginning when Dennis Kuipers heard from a friend that R.M. was available for adoption, the Department placed R.M. in foster care with Dennis and Martha Kuipers (the Kuipers) of Belgrade, Montana, with the intent that the Kuipers would adopt her if they were qualified by the Department as adoptive parents. This was done in September 1988 after the Department investigated the Kuipers. This placement was referred to by the Department as a "fos/adopt" placement.
Dennis Kuipers is of American Indian ancestry and thus better qualified to adopt R.M. under the Indian Child Welfare Act than a non-Indian person. Dennis Kuipers himself had been adopted by a non-Indian family at a young age after being abused, neglected and abandoned. He wanted to adopt R.M. because of the positive experience of his own adoption. The Kuipers were foster parents at all times during this action as the adoption was never completed.
Testimony was presented at trial which indicated that the Department did not conduct a proper investigation prior to placing R.M. in the Kuipers' home. For example, in response to a request for recommendation for adoption, the Kuipers' counselor, Edna Goodwin, wrote that Dennis Kuipers was "working on his issues of rage" and that "there was previously an issue of abuse by Dennis to his wife and to one of their two children." The Department did not contact Edna Goodwin about her comments in her letter despite permission from the Kuipers to do so. Other testimony was presented which indicated that the Department also did not follow up on other reports of abuse or check its own records for reports of abuse by Dennis Kuipers.
Ed Neuman, a Department employee, supervised the "fos/adopt" placement during the two months after R.M. was placed with the Kuipers. On October 2, 1988, just three weeks after R.M. was placed in the Kuipers' home, witnesses stated that Dennis Kuipers beat R.M. outside the Rax restaurant in Bozeman, Montana, partly in view of restaurant patrons and partly concealed within the family van. Dennis Kuipers became upset with R.M. because she had wet her pants. When he brought R.M. into the restaurant, she had black marks on her cheeks, and was described as having a fixed stare as though she were in shock. One witness testified that she looked like a "zombie."
These descriptions came from two couples who observed the incident from a location inside the Rax restaurant very near to where the Kuipers' van was parked. One witness, Salvatore Provenzano, telephoned the Bozeman police from the restaurant to report the incident. Salvatore Provenzano and his wife, Joy Provenzano, went to the police station at the request of the officers to provide the Bozeman Police Department with a written report. By the time the officers had arrived at the restaurant, however, the other witnessing couple, the Stewarts, had left the restaurant. The Stewarts provided the Bozeman police with a written statement later that same week.
Two officers responded to Salvatore Provenzano's report and came to the restaurant to investigate. Officer Linda Sanem took Martha Kuipers aside and asked her numerous questions. During that interview, Martha Kuipers was holding R.M. Martha Kuipers believed at that time that no abuse had occurred. She apparently had been in the rest room and also behind a partition in the restaurant ordering food during the abuse incident. She testified that up until the time of Dennis Kuipers' plea agreement when
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Montana Personal Injury Attorneys
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