Tamara Schmidt Mother of Brittney Bergeron serving time for child neglect

For the second time in a year, Clark County Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle is deliberating the fate of a girl left paralyzed in a 2003 stabbing attack and the mother who wasn't there to protect her.

Testimony ended Friday in a trial that will decide if Tamara Schmidt should be stripped of her parental rights, clearing the way for her 14-year-old daughter, Brittney Bergeron, to be adopted by her foster parents in Las Vegas.

Hardcastle is expected to issue a written ruling in the case in the coming weeks.

Attorneys on both sides are predicting victory for Schmidt based on comments by the judge and key testimony from a county social worker called to testify for the prosecution on Friday.

Georgina Stuart of the Clark County Department of Family Services told the court that the best thing for Brittney would be open adoption by her foster parents, but that would require Schmidt to voluntarily give up her parental rights.

When asked if it would be in the child's best interests for the court to forcibly terminate Schmidt's rights, Stuart said no.

Brittney was 10 when she and her 3-year-old sister, Kristyanna Cowan, were attacked in their home at a Mesquite trailer park. Kristyanna died and Brittney was left paralyzed from the waist down.

Two Utah siblings, Beau and Monique Maestas, were charged with stabbing the children in revenge for a bogus drug deal that authorities said involved Brittney's mother.

Schmidt has denied being a part of any drug deal but admits to leaving the children alone at home at the time of the stabbing. She pleaded guilty to child neglect and was sentenced in October to four to 12 years in prison, making it unlikely that she will be released before Brittney reaches adulthood.

Prosecutors sought to sever Schmidt's parental rights a year ago, but Hardcastle refused, ruling instead that authorities had to do everything they could under the law to reunite the mother and daughter.

Clark County Deputy District Attorney Brigid Duffy predicts a similar result this time around. "It's what we expected when we filed in the first place," she said after Friday's testimony.

Prosecutors have challenged Hardcastle's initial ruling. That appeal was placed on hold by the Nevada Supreme Court pending the judge's second ruling in the case.

Schmidt sat at the defendant's table Friday but was not called to the stand as expected by her attorney, Stephen Caruso.

She was taken to court from the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center in North Las Vegas dressed in a dark- blue T-shirt and jeans, her long hair looking freshly washed. Her legs were shackled together just above her white tennis shoes.

Shortly after entering the courtroom, Schmidt smiled at a woman seated at the back, mouthed the words "I love you" and burst into tears.

The woman was Muriel Schmidt, Tamara Schmidt's mother-in-law. She declined to comment during a break in the trial.

Tamara Schmidt cried several more times during the three-hour proceeding.

The testimony also was hard on Stuart, who was assigned to Brittney's case in February 2005 and has forged a relationship with both the girl and her mother.

When Duffy first asked her opinion about what was best for Brittney, Stuart started to cry and had to ask the court for a short recess.

Hardcastle later called Stuart's testimony "heroic" and questioned what prosecutors hoped to gain by severing all legal ties between Brittney and her mother.

"I have not achieved what Brittney has been asking for since the day I met her, and that is adoption," Duffy responded. "Kids understand permanency. Adoption means something to a child."

But what Duffy called permanency Hardcastle called little more than "a piece of paper."

Whether or not Brittney is adopted, her situation will not change, the judge said. She will continue to live with and be cared for by her foster parents until she is an adult.

"It's not a safety issue. This child understands or should understand ... that she won't be going back to her mother," Hardcastle told Duffy, adding later, "I don't see the advantage of what you're pursing here so vehemently."

Schmidt's attorney said he fears an adoption would result in the mother-daughter bond being snuffed out completely, especially considering what he called "the bias" against Schmidt shown so far by Brittney's foster parents and her caseworkers.

Caruso said some members of Brittney's "team" haven't merely failed to implement the reunification plan ordered by the court, they have actively campaigned against it.

In one particularly glaring example, Caruso pointed to a report urging jail time for Schmidt that was submitted to the judge in her criminal case by Kimberly Coats, a special counsel appointed by Hardcastle to oversee the reunification plan in Family Court.

Coats acknowledged Friday that she thought Schmidt deserved to go to jail for neglecting her daughters, but she denied allegations that she actively worked to keep Brittney and her mother apart.

"I've been working with ways to keep Brittney talking to her mother," Coats said. "It's really difficult, because Brittney does love her mother, but she also wants to be adopted."