Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Adopts New Rules to Put Appeals of Children's Cases on Fast Track
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
- Organization: Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has adopted a comprehensive set of rules changes to expedite children's cases involving dependency, custody, adoption, termination of parental rights and paternity.
The changes will move children's appeals faster as they go from county trial courts to review in the Superior Court and the Supreme Court. The order issued today takes effect in 60 days, and is the culmination of months of work by a specially designated subcommittee of the Supreme Court's Appellate Court Procedural Rules Committee (ACPRC).
Among the children the proposal is intended to help are victims of abuse or neglect who've been removed from their parents under court order and are living in foster care or in other temporary homes. The changes also impact children awaiting adoption while legal disputes play out over parental rights. Still other children are at the center of custody battles between litigious parents.
Under the new rules, all fast track cases would be identified with the notation "Children's Fast Track" in red ink to ensure that these cases are not overlooked in docketing or in the filing process. The Superior Court and the Supreme Court would be given special notice of fast track appeals.
The Children's Fast Track cases will be subject to compressed filing deadlines from the first notice that a trial judge's ruling is to be appealed and at each step of the appeals process thereafter. A separate but related effort is under way to accelerate the process of transcribing the records of lower court proceedings.
The full press release and the court order and new rules can be viewed at the link below and on the Web site of Pennsylvania's Unified Judicial System at http://www.pacourts.us/.
