State’s high court hears arguments in triplets case

“I know in my heart how I feel,” Cindy Culpepper said after Friday’s hearing. “I know in my heart I’m my children’s mother.”

Charles Galiwango, the father and an emergency room doctor, was working and did not attend the hearing.

Culpepper and Galiwango never married and are no longer together, which brought about the custody battle that began in Williamson County Juvenile Court.

Lower court rulings have favored Culpepper’s argument that even if she doesn’t share DNA with the children, she is their mother in the eyes of the law and deserves joint custody.

Galiwango claims that under state law the legal mother is the “biological mother” and Culpepper has no genetic claim to the children.

Most of the justices’ questions revolved around the concept of the “intent test,” a deciding factor when the state Court of Appeals considered the case last year.

The lower court found the couple initiated the chain of events that caused the triplets to be born and that those steps included signing paperwork and making arrangements to undergo the necessary medical procedures.

In doing so, Galiwango agreed in writing that Culpepper would be the children’s mother, the state appeals court ruled.

Culpepper attorney Pam Spicer told the justices to look at a similar case in California, and also argued that the courts need to consider Culpepper’s complete role, not genetic links.

“It is no less important that she carried the children to term,” Spicer said.

Galiwango’s attorney, Larry Hayes Jr., countered that state law gives a clear biological basis to determining parenthood, and it was developed after in vitro fertilization became common.

Hayes said this situation was different because science had surpassed the law.

“Intent is just a dangerous, dangerous precedent” and would open an entirely new type of paternity defense, he told the justices.

The justices asked Hayes about the documents the couple signed at the Nashville fertility clinic indicating that Culpepper agreed to be the mother.

“You can’t change your essence because you write it down,” Hayes said.

Justices didn’t give an indication of when they might rule, but attorneys expect a decision in about three months.