by Susan Goldsmith

About the author: Susan Goldsmith is an award-winning journalist for New Times Los Angeles.

On a February morning in 1994, Wayne Coombs, a Christian minister from Rancho Palos Verdes [California], drove to downtown Los Angeles with his wife, Jan, for a court hearing that would determine if they could become permanent legal guardians of a four-year-old foster child named Adam. The boy, who had been in the Coombses care since the age of six weeks, had been born addicted to cocaine and was taken away from his biological mother by L.A. County social workers because of her drug habit.

The Coombses expected no trouble in obtaining the guardianship; indeed, their attorney, Ron Stoddard, told them he had prepared little for the hearing. Stoddard said winning guardianship of Adam was a “slam dunk,” given his mother...