Judge grants postponement of order to jail Corneaus

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court intervened late yesterday in the case of two Attleboro religious sect members facing jail if they do not turn over their newborn to a Juvenile Court judge.

In a flurry of legal filings and rulings yesterday and late Wednesday, sect members Rebecca A. and David P. Corneau were first denied, then granted, an order that will prevent Juvenile Court Judge Kenneth P. Nasif from locking them up this afternoon. Nasif had set a 2 p.m. deadline for the Corneaus to hand over their newborn or go to jail.

Nasif initially ordered the Corneaus jailed on Jan. 17, but postponed enforcement of that order until Wednesday to allow the Corneaus time to appeal.

Massachusetts has two levels of appellate courts, the Massachusetts Appeals Court, which usually is the first court to hear an appeal, and the Supreme Judicial Court, which is the state's highest court.

In matters in which parties seek emergency orders to block action in a lower court, the process gets more complex. The case first goes to a single justice of the Appeals Court, who can issue an emergency order to the lower court. The next step is to a full three-judge panel of the Appeals Court. After that, parties can appeal to a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, then to the full seven-member Supreme Judicial Court.

The Corneaus are now at step three of the appeals process, a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court.

Just after New Year's, the state Department of Social Services initiated a "care and protection" proceeding seeking temporary custody of a baby the department believed Rebecca Corneau had in November or December.

Fourteen other children -- including the Corneaus' four daughters – have been taken in similar proceedings after Nasif found the sect members unfit as parents. Factors in that decision included sect members not seeking medical care for their children, not sending them to school and using a paddle to punish them for behavior such as soiling a diaper.

Three sect members have been charged in the 1999 starvation death of 1-year-old Samuel Robidoux. Prosecutors investigated, but did not file charges, in the 1999 death of the Corneaus' son, Jeremiah, who investigators believe died shortly after birth of a complication that could have been treated through modern medicine.

Under state law, all children who are subject to a care and protection proceeding must be presented to the court. But the Corneaus have refused to present their newborn. In fact, they have refused to confirm whether a baby was born. They have cited their protections in the state and federal constitutions aginst being forced to implicate themselves in a crime.

Nasif ruled those protections do not shield the Corneaus from turning over their baby.

On Wednesday, Justice Janis M. Berry of the Appeals Court upheld Nasif's ruling, but extended the stay keeping the Corneaus out of jail until today to allow further appeal.

Late Wednesday, the Corneaus sought an additional stay from a three-judge Appeals Court panel. That court denied the stay yesterday afternoon, according to J.W. Carney, the Corneaus' lawyer.

The couple then filed an appeal with a single justice of the state's Supreme Judicial Court.

At about 5 p.m., Justice Roderick L. Ireland granted an indefinite stay while the Supreme Judicial Court considers the case. It is likely the case will not be heard until next week.