Judge’s remarks take forefront in Wheaton abandonment case
A DuPage County judge will decide Wednesday whether another judge, presiding over the battle between a 2-year-old boy’s foster parents and the mother who left him in a Wheaton yard after giving birth, should be replaced.
Attorneys for Nunu Sung, whose son was found with his umbilical cord still attached under a bush on June 12, 2009, said at a juvenile court hearing Tuesday that Judge C. Stanley Austin has made “inaccurate and prejudicial” statements at previous hearings. In a motion filed Sept. 1, attorney Jennifer Wiesner said that Austin could no longer be considered objective after saying that he was not “particularly concerned with what’s in the mother’s best interests.”
Also, when Austin said on May 4, 2010, that he could not see Sung as “anything other than unfit and unable at this time to care for this kid,” it showed that his mind had been made up, Wiesner said.
According to the motion, Austin also said that the child would be dead if not for the accidental finding of the newborn. All of these conclusions came, Wiesner said, without hearing Sung’s side of the story, a side Wiesner said will come out at the October hearing regardless of the judge.
Although a team of attorneys representing the foster family and the state argued that the motion took the statements out of context, Wiesner said no context would make them appropriate for a presiding judge.
“(It) makes us fearful of being able to (convince him),” she said. “He appears to no longer be objective.”
An Oct. 19 hearing is scheduled that could end Sung’s parental rights. But Wiesner said after Tuesday’s hearing she would prove that the Myanmar native remains fit to raise the child.
“We will fight zealously against that petition to terminate (parental rights) and present every reason why she is absolutely a fit and proper mother,” Wiesner said.
At the hearing Tuesday, the boy’s court-appointed legal guardian, Kathleen Anderson, said the motion took Austin’s comments about Sung being unfit out of context. She also said the statements about the mother’s best interests are completely compatible with the juvenile court’s responsibility.
“The court and your honor is aware that, in fact, the juvenile court is tasked with doing what’s in the minor’s best interests,” she said.
Sung is serving a three-year sentence for lying to police about her son’s June 2009 birth after striking a plea agreement in October 2010 in order to have hopes of some day gaining custody, according to her lawyer at the time. But the petition to terminate her parental rights would make that impossible, Wiesner said. Sung is eligible for parole in January.
The diminutive Sung appeared in court shackled and wearing a white prison smock and listened to an interpreter relay the arguments. She will remain in DuPage County overnight and will likely be returned to the downstate Lincoln Correctional Facility after Wednesday’s ruling.
Police say Sung gave birth behind a garage near Crescent Street in Wheaton. A neighbor called 911 after he and his dog discovered the newborn nude and covered in dirt.
DuPage County Circuit Judge Robert Anderson said he would weigh the arguments about Judge Austin and issue a decision Wednesday.