Venables v. Ayres

This is an extraordinary case that is complicated by an unusual statute. It presents to us two questions:(1) Can a dead person become an adoptive parent; i.e., is a decree of adoption valid if entered after the adoptive parent has died; and(2) If such a decree is invalid, has the Legislature nevertheless insulated it against collateral attack after the expiration of one year?

On October 21, 1975, Denward Collins Ayres, then sixty-one years old, filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Wicomico County in which he sought to adopt appellant, his forty-one year old stepson. The petition was…