By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled in favor of Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who had been caring for the girl they named Veronica until a family court ordered them to turn her over to her biological father Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation.
Brown had argued that the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, intended to curb practices that caused many Native American children to be separated from their families, entitled him to custody of the girl, who was 3/256th Cherokee.
He took custody at the end of 2011 when the girl was just over 2 years old, and South Carolina’s highest court later upheld his custody.
But conservative Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the Supreme Court majority, concluded that the law did not bar the termination of Brown’s parental rights.
