On "accepting services" -- The Cuban custody case

What is the story behind the following sentence, I wonder: "Cohen said Monday morning that Eig would sign a dependency order to document what occurred in court 18 months ago. That prompted a tense hourlong argument with lawyers for the girl's birth parents."

Here is the story. Synopsis: an emotional case is exploding in Miami over child custody. All natural parents want a child to live with her father in Cuba. DCF wants the child raised by a foster parent.

This catches my eye as well: "Though the transcript of a hearing read in court Monday morning by Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen shows Perez agreed to accept services from the state Department of Children & Families, the judge who was hearing the case at the time, Spencer Eig, did not sign an order declaring Perez unfit to raise the girl"

The portions quoted above suggest a sloppy dependency process that, although it is admittedly difficult to involve someone in Cuba, perhaps made insufficient efforts to determine the natural father's wishes and intentions a year and a half ago when the case first went into dependency court.

On another note, how would you like to take on all the resources of the State in this case and represent the natural father for the whopping flat fee of $1,000?

Here's another chunk of the developing story:

Cohen at first declined to discuss the missing documents.

''Can we be heard?'' asked Ira Kurzban, a lawyer for Rafael Izquierdo, the girl's birth father. ``This is outrageous. This is Alice in Wonderland.''

Cohen read long passages from the transcript of the Feb. 21, 2006, hearing, in which Perez described in detail her struggles in the United States after she legally emigrated from Cuba with her two children.

...
Perez said she called 911 because she desperately needed help. [ed: Many of my nightmare dependency cases start with a parent voluntarily asking authorities for "help".]

''I did this looking for protection for my children,'' she said.

Both Kurzban and Greer Wallace, Perez's lawyer, said the transcript shows Perez did not give up custody voluntarily. For one thing, they said, Perez did not have a court interpreter. A relative of Perez's estranged husband, who may have had motives of his own, they said, translated.

The transcript shows Perez appeared confused: ''It's just that I don't understand,'' she said at one point.

Kurzban asked Cohen to stop the proceedings Monday morning to give him time to ask a Miami appeals court to overrule her decision to allow the missing record to be re-created.