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mother became suspicious of the pregnancy only a few days prior to the
infant’s birth.… Petitioner was contacted and he agreed to deliver the child
and to cooperate with the adoption plans in secrecy. He insisted that the
child be placed with Steinberg, his attorney and business associate.
Petitioner had been treating Steinberg and Nussbaum for infertility for
some time.… Petitioner did not seek or receive a fee for delivering or
placing the boy and this was the only time he had ever participated in
arrangements for an adoption. Petitioner told Smigiel that Steinberg and
Nussbaum were a “wonderful couple” and the baby would be well taken
care of. Petitioner learned otherwise when Steinberg was arrested and
ultimately convicted of manslaughter in connection with the death of
Steinberg’s other illegally adopted child, Lisa.…
In connection with the criminal charge against petitioner, Criminal Court of
the City of New York sentenced petitioner, an individual with no criminal
history, to three years of probation, 100 hours of community service and a
$1,000 fine. In its decision, the court noted that, although many physicians
in New York were unfamiliar with Social Services Law sec. 374(2) and sec.
389 and may have unwittingly violated these provisions, “ignorance of the
law is no excuse.” Based on this criminal conviction, the Office of
Professional Medical Conduct initiated a disciplinary proceeding against
petitioner charging him with professional misconduct for having been
convicted of an act constituting a crime.… The report by the Regents
Review Committee…recommended…that petitioner’s license to practice
medicine be suspended for three years, with the last 30 months of said
suspension to be stayed at which time petitioner would be placed on
probation for 30 months. [Sarosi v. Sobol, 155 A.D.2d 125, 553 N.Y.S.2d
517 (N.Y.A.D. 3 Dept. 1990).]
The Board of Regents (the medical licensing board in New York State) went
beyond the committee’s recommendation. Taking “a more serious view of
petitioner’s misconduct,” it revoked the physician’s license to practice medicine.
The physician appealed this sanction, and the court found that the revocation was
unnecessarily harsh, given the criminal sentence and adverse publicity that the
physician had already endured. The court reiterated, however, that the defendant’s
good intentions and lack of knowledge of the technical requirements of the law
were no defense to the charges. They served only to mitigate the physician’s
punishment.
b) Matchmaking
In most states, the adoption laws provide that potential adoptive parents must be
screened to determine if they will be fit parents. Unlike parental rights, which arise
in the common law’s overriding concern with the preservation of families, adoption
has no common law heritage to give rise to special protections for the rights of
potential adoptive parents. The states are free to establish strict criteria for
evaluating prospective parents. Whereas these criteria must not violate
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