At Christmas, the present for some South Carolina families is adoption
This courtroom had seen so many tears in 2025.
The place where head-hung child defendants as young as 13 wearing chains on their wrists and ankles were led in by burly stone-faced bailiffs. Where stricken families cry and sit in rock-hard wooden gallery pews built not for comfort but to remind everybody courtrooms are where hammers can fall.
This York County Family Court on Main Street is where children accused of crime go, and their families sit in the same room as the weeping family whose child is dead from bullets. Family court is also where divorces are hashed out, and custody of children is determined, and social services cases are heard.
Tears are common, but not for joy.
But not late on Tuesday afternoon, as the sun got ready to go down two days before Christmas. This was York County’s “Adoption Day,” open to South Carolina’s hopeful parents — if the mountain of court paperwork is right. Much of the day is docketed for families from York County and around the state to legally make a child part of a family.
Judge David Guyton’s courtroom underwent a metamorphosis Tuesday, as it does one day late each year, into the place where dreams of family are so filled with hope and love that the judge and the cops smile and try not to cry as the wave of joy crashes through the courtroom without even tipping over a chair.
“Do you love him?“: “With all my heart”
Tuesday afternoon’s court started with a babble.
A child in a courtroom on his first birthday.
Corey’s babbling noise at being loved was loud as Guyton spoke about legal requirements for adoption; the babbling echoed off the walls. The 64-year-old Guyton, who is an adoptive parent himself and started this Adoption Day court almost two decades ago, quipped for all to hear: “I don’t know I have seen a child so happy in court in a very long time.”
Taking turns holding Corey were Joseph Harper — “Call me Joe” — and his wife, Elizabeth, from Mount Pleasant . They and their three other teenage kids had made the trip from the coast to Rock Hill to get this adoption done on Corey’s birthday.
He had been with the family as a foster child since he was three days old.
James Fletcher Thompson — “call me Jim” — is the family lawyer for the adoption, as he is for so many people along with his law partner, Rock Hill’s Dale Dove. Their Thompson Dove Law Group practice helps make loving families legal. The hurdles are many, from home visits and reviews by agencies and courts with words such as “this means you have the rights and responsibilities and obligations of any parent.”
Legal adoption takes months or longer.
For every case, judges such as Guyton and lawyers like Thompson and Dove must make sure every legal requirement is met. It is court, so documents pile up inches thick and witnesses have to testify and judges demand answers.
But on Adoption Day, the witnesses can’t wait to testify. The Harpers wanted to tell the whole world how much they want Corey to be a part of their family forever.
Thompson asked Elizabeth Harper about Corey.
“He brings everyone so much joy,” she testified.
There is a mention from Judge Guyton and others about when Corey was hospitalized as an infant, and Elizabeth spent two straight weeks with him in the hospital. She never left his side the whole time.
Joe Harper was called to the witness stand. First he handed off Corey to the family’s other kids in the gallery. The teens beamed with love and held on tight. Corey babbled on like he owned the joint.
Thompson then asked Joe Harper the question that made the courtroom seem to stand still: “Do you love him?”
Joe looked at the judge, and at his family and the babbling Corey and said: “With all my heart.”
A court-appointed child advocate named Hollie Bennett — her official title is a fancy legal name called guardian ad litem — told the judge how her investigation showed Corey is “thriving” with the Harpers.
Guyton then makes the ruling that Corey’s name is Corey Harper now and forever and everyone in the room breaks into applause.
“And happy birthday,” Guyton says over Corey’s babbling.
Everybody in the family then got in front of the judge’s bench to take pictures.
Everybody smiled.
The last adoption for 2025
But on this last court day before Christmas, another family from Mount Pleasant waited in the courthouse hallway for their turn: Jeffrey Anderson and his wife, Tammy, big brother Liam, age 10, and a four-month-old boy named Jude.
Guyton had to go through all the legal requirements for Jude’s adoption. The documents, the legal review, the history of the Andersons’ custody after Jude was born to someone else.
Tammy Anderson testified first. Thompson asked how long the baby has been with them and how long they have loved him. She rushed out her testimony.
“From the moment he’s been born,” Tammy Anderson said.
Guyton, a big brother himself, looked down from the judge’s bench and asked big brother Liam: “You want this to happen?”
Liam looked the judge square in the eye and said, “Yes, sir.”
Guyton is a military veteran who still wears a Marine Corps haircut. In 2011, he ruled an adoption legal for a Vietnam War veteran and his wife just minutes before that war veteran died.
Guyton accepted Liam’s respectful answer and said Jude sure had a protector in his big brother.
Jeffrey Anderson was called to take the stand and swear with his hand on a Bible that he would be truthful. First he had to hand off Jude, who did what four-month-olds do. Jude drooled all over him. Some of that drool got on the Bible.
Guyton laughed and said in his courtroom that is not a problem on this day.
A physician, Jeffrey Anderson testified he is 62 years old. Guyton and Thompson, the lawyer, asked him if he was ready to start this new journey as a parent at his age and he said absolutely he was. He said of the past four months with Jude: “It has been amazing.”
Bennett, the child’s advocate, told the court how the family has a wonderful commitment to Jude.
Guyton then made the Andersons’ adoption legally official and binding. Jude Salem Anderson would be the name on a new birth certificate, with Elizabeth and Jeffrey listed as parents.
He brought out a new teddy bear, as Guyton does for every child adopted in his courtroom. Court broke for more pictures, more smiles. Guyton asked big brother Liam to hold the bear.
Liam proudly held on for his little brother.
This story was originally published December 25, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "At Christmas, the present for some South Carolina families is adoption."
