In Bianka M. v. Superior Court, the Supreme Court is reviewing a Court of Appeal decision upholding a superior court’s refusal to make orders and findings necessary for a 13-year-old girl to obtain federal special immigrant juvenile status, which protects abused, neglected, and abandoned undocumented children. (Bianka M. v. Superior Court (2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 406 [199 Cal.Rptr.3d 849].)
After Bianka’s counsel filed her opening brief on the merits, however, no party — or anyone else — stepped forward to defend the Court of Appeal’s opinion. (Bianka’s mother is technically an adverse party, but she supports Bianka’s writ petition.) That’s a very rare situation. There’s almost always someone who is more than happy to explain why the Court of Appeal got it right.
The Supreme Court doesn’t like one-sided briefing, so it went looking for help, which it found in Rachel Lerman of Barnes & Thornburg LLP (and former Horvitz & Levy attorney). Yesterday, the court designated Lerman as a court-appointed amicus curiae and invited her to brief and argue “in support of the positions that (1) a superior court may deny a child’s request for special immigrant juvenile status findings on the ground that the request for such findings was not made during an ongoing, bona fide proceeding relating to child welfare; and (2) a superior court may deny a child’s request for special immigrant juvenile status findings on the ground that the parentage of the child’s noncustodial alleged parent has not been adjudicated.”
Lerman is more than just an amicus curiae, however. The court said she “shall be treated as the respondent and her brief shall be treated as the answering brief.”