Sunday, May 6, 2007

Indiana law for a child wanting emancipation

Put this under the category of learning new things. I was not aware that a juvenile court could emancipate a child as part of a CHINS (Child in Need of Services Proceeding) case. See IC 31-34-20-6. That adds another way of emancipating a child under Indiana law, but this one has two twists.

First, the CHINS requirement means that the county Department of Child Protection Services removed the child from its parents. Not something anyone ordinarily wants.

Second, under this statute the child must wish to be emancipated and no longer needs parental control and protection. After that, the child must show

  1. Sufficient money for the child's own support;
  2. understands the consequences of being free from parental control and protection; and
  3. has an acceptable plan for independent living.
All this explains why I have never seen this procedure used to emancipate a child.

I remain of the opinion that in the vast majority of cases only a parent has standing to ask a court to emancipate a child.

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