Judge, family reflect on 'Superman' adoption

LAS CRUCES - In the more than 700 adoptions that have been finalized by Chief District Judge Fernando R. Macias in 3rd Judicial District Court, one case stands out among his adoption caseload, which goes back 10 years and will come to an end this year.

It involved a 5-year-old boy named Michael Angelo Chacón-Maldonado, who shares Macias’ love of Superman.

Michael was formally adopted by his mothers, Jessica Chacón and Liza Maldonado, on Aug. 1 after he had been in their care for more than two years as a foster child.

The boy's final adoption hearing began in typical fashion, Macias recalled in an interview last month. But it soon became anything but ordinary.

Underneath matching white button-down shirts, the family of six – including Michael, his two brothers, Zoilo and Noah, and his soon-to-be-adopted sister, Sarah – wore bright blue T-shirts printed with the classic red-and-yellow Superman emblem, in the style of Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego.

Not long after the hearing began in his crowded courtroom, Macias, a fan of Superman since his childhood and an avid collector of Superman figurines, which are kept enshrined in his chambers, noticed the family’s coordinating outfits.

Jokingly, he asked if they were a bowling team, but he then realized that the family had all come dressed as his favorite superhero. And so when the time came for one of Michael’s mothers to testify, he spontaneously administered a Superman-themed oath, based on the opening credits of the 1950s TV series “Adventures of Superman.”

Macias asked Maldonado to raise her right hand and instructed her to say: “Do you swear to be faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and do you promise to be able to jump over buildings in a single leap, and further do you promise to follow truth, justice and the American way?”

Maldonado went along with the playful oath, and the rest of the hearing became a light-hearted, “superfamily” affair that turned into one of Macias’ most memorable adoption cases.

“This was the very first time in 10 years of doing these cases that someone was imaginative enough to turn it into a theme,” he said. “The foster parents were so enthusiastic and the kids associated were having such a good time that they made kind of a very special moment.”

He said he had “no clue” about the family’s plan to wear matching Superman T-shirts beforehand. Had he known, he said, he would have worn a Superman shirt underneath his robes.

After the hearing, Macias said he invited the family into his chambers and showed off his Superman collection. In talking with Chacón and Maldonado, he said, he was able to better understand why they had decided to have a Superman-themed adoption for Michael.

“He asked: Why Superman? and I explained to him that Superman was adopted,” Chacón recalled.

“I like to think I know a quite a bit of the trivia, but I still didn’t understand the theme until they told me Superman was adopted,” Macias said. “I said, yes, well of course, that’s why he’s Clark Kent. He was adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent.”

After reflecting on Michael’s adoption, Macias said he was able to finder a deeper meaning in the Superman theme. “There’s a lot of children in foster care, and they need families to come forward to adopt them,” he said. “And with proper parenting, many of these children who are at risk could be the next Superman or Superwoman.”

Given Macias’ admiration for Superman, it is fitting that Michael’s adoption will be one of his last adoption cases.

After 10 years of presiding over adoptions, Macias is expected to finalize his last cases before the end of the year. New cases are being assigned to District Judge Marci E. Beyer, he said. But he will continue to handle a majority of the court's felony cases. Last year, he estimated, he presided over about 1,300 felony cases.

“With as heavy a volume of criminal cases that I’m handling, I just felt like I was giving (adoption) cases less and less time,” he said.

So Macias transferred the adoption caseload to Beyer, who is now also handling the court's abuse and neglect cases, which largely result in children being placed in protective custody and up for adoption. “I only felt that it was fair that there a continuation of the underlying case,” he said.

Over the years, Macias said he strived to make adoptions less “mundane.” It was one of his many priorities when he was appointed to the bench in September 2006.

“We turned it into more of a celebration,” he said, “and made it more of an enjoyable experience in court.”

He added: “Once I got a sense of how the traditional approach was, and I realized all we were is just a continuing cycle of children coming into the juvenile delinquency or abuse and neglect system, I just wanted to make a lot of changes.”

He said his festive approach also serves as a way to get community members interested in adopting and fostering children in need.

“We need more members of the community, more parents to step up,” he said. “We need to have a 100 percent success rate in having children who are available for adoption placed (in permanent homes).”

Currently, there are 142 children in Doña Ana County who are in protective custody and are seeking to be adopted, according to Theresa Gonzales, a county office manager for the Children, Youth and Families Department. Of the 142 children, 69 have an adoption plan in place, she said.

Gonzales said the need for more foster parents across the state is great. “Our goal for our children is always one placement to permanency,” she said. “Our hope is to build our pool of foster parents that are willing to adopt. We would hope foster homes would become permanent, adoptive homes, and that would accomplish that goal of one placement to permanency.”

The process of becoming a foster parents take about four months to complete, Gonzales said. It involves home studies, interviews and background checks, among other requirements. “Once that’s completed, then we move forward to issue a license and begin to place foster kids into those homes,” she said.

For Chacón and Maldonado, becoming foster parents was a natural choice. They first became foster parents to Michael, then 2, in February 2014. They said he had been abandoned by his mother in October 2013, and his father, who remains incarnated in Texas, was unable to care for the boy.

By the summer of 2014, they began fostering their youngest child, Zoilo, 2, who they adopted in November 2015. And they are in the process of adopting their third foster child, Sarah, 16. Their family also includes Chacón’s biological son, Noah, also 16.

“I’ve always wanted to be a parent through fostering or adopting,” Maldonado said. “But it didn’t click until I met Jess.”

Chacón said she felt the same way. “Since I was younger, I always knew I wanted to be a foster parent,” she said. “There’s lots of kids in state custody that really need stable homes.”

The couple, who have been together since 2010, plan to adopt more children. “We don’t have a number, but we want to as many as we can,” Chacón said.

Next month, CYFD will celebrate National Adoption Day, which is Nov. 19, by hosting a special finalization hearing on Nov. 21 in 3rd Judicial District Court.

For more information about becoming a foster parent, contact the local CYFD office at 575-373-6600 or call 800-432-2075.

Carlos Andres López can be reached 575-541-5453, carlopez@lcsun-news.com or @carlopez_los on Twitter.