The boy is 3 now. His father, Ernest, saw him once in the hospital nursery the day the child was born and once more, by chance, last March in a supermarket parking lot, as the little boy walked with his adoptive father.

"He looks exactly like me," said Ernest, 26, an electrician from Crownsville. The same features. The same straight dark hair. "I went blank. I wanted to stop the car and get out and grab him."

The child, referred to in court records only as "Baby G.," is "happy,) active," according to court records. He doesn't know any family other than his adoptive parents. And he doesn't know that he's at the center of a three-year court battle, a fight that has made its way to the Maryland Court of Appeals and remains unsettled.

The controversy has been called Maryland's Baby Jessica case, after the bitter fight over a 3-year-old girl in the Midwest, which ended with her removal from her adoptive parents' home last summer.

In a recent decision applauded by child advocates, the Court of Appeals used Baby G.'s case to expand children's legal rights. The judges decided that, if it's in the child's best interests, a court may grant a private adoption over the objections of a biological parent -- even if the parent hasn't been judged unfit.

Traditionally, a biological parent's right to rear his own child could not be terminated unless the parent was deemed "unfit" -- or unless "exceptional circumstances" persuaded the court to end the parent's rights.

"It's an excellent ruling for Maryland's kids," said Susan Leviton, head of Advocates for Children and Youth, "because it's saying, 'Biology isn't enough. You have to act like a parent. It's not just what you say but what you've done.' It's one thing to assert your rights, but let's look at what you've done for this child."

Ernest, of course, sees the ruling in his case far differently. "To go and take another man's child is not right," he said.

The court opinions do not reveal the last names of the parties. Paul Mark Sandler, attorney for the adoptive parents, would not allow them to be interviewed for this article because the adoption has not been settled. Ernest spoke on the condition that his full name would not be used.

The biological mother, according to her attorney, Natalie Rees, has always believed she made the right decision in placing her child with the adoptive family.

The boy "is thriving," Ms. Rees said. "He's getting wonderful care and has an extended family."

But Ernest said the fact that his son is well cared for isn't the most important issue.

"I can give this child as much or more love than they can," he said. "I can give this child his heritage."

* The legal saga of Baby G. began before his birth, in July 1990, when Ernest's girlfriend, Mellisa, told him she was pregnant.

RTC The two, he acknowledges, didn't fit the profile of model parents. He was 21, with an unreliable work history, unstable living arrangements, and an arrest and probation before judgment on a charge of cocaine possession, according to the court record. She was 20, a dancer on Baltimore's Block, already the mother of a 6-month-old boy from an earlier relationship.

According to court files, she told Ernest she didn't believe in abortion and planned to put the baby up for adoption. The next day, Ernest moved out. He would have been leaving, he said, even had Mellisa not been pregnant. "She was fed up with me, and I was fed up with her."

In the months that followed, Ernest said, he didn't contact Mellisa. Meanwhile, with the help of a friend, she had found James and Darlene D., a financially secure Anne Arundel County couple in their 30s, and decided she wanted them to adopt her child.

Ms. Rees, who was handling the adoption for the mother, called Ernest in January and February, 1991, to discuss the adoption plans. He voiced no objection. In letters to the lawyer, he confirmed his willingness to consent to the adoption.

But complications began, Ms. Rees said, when Mellisa, looking for Ernest, called his mother and told her that a baby was due soon. Ernest and his mother for the first time discussed the pregnancy, and she offered to help with child care.

Soon after, Ernest told Ms. Rees he had changed his mind. He wanted the baby, he said, as long as it was proved to be his. He hired a lawyer to fight for the child.

The baby was born in March 1991, with Mrs. D., the prospective adoptive mother, in attendance. Ernest heard of the birth through a friend. He brought his new girlfriend to the hospital nursery to see his son, his first child.

Two days later, with Mellisa's consent, the D.'s filed for adoption in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court and took the baby boy home. Ernest was given until April 10 to file an objection. He did, on April 9.

Ms. Rees said Ernest could have stopped the adoption at the hospital. But he didn't.

"Even after the baby was born, he did nothing," Ms. Rees said. "He waited until the last possible day. And then he said, 'Prove it.' His mother is the prime mover in this. I don't think to this day he's sincerely interested in the child."

* Over the next six months, Ernest lost court battles for custody of the boy, visitation rights and dismissal of the adoption petition.

Finally, in April 1992, when Baby G. was 13 months old, the Anne Arundel Circuit Court held its adoption hearing.

The court found that the child "had developed significant feelings toward and emotional ties with the D.'s." But it also said that "it had not been proven by clear and convincing evidence that Ernest was unfit and therefore it could not find that it was in Baby G.'s best interest to terminate Ernest's rights as to the child."

The court allowed the D.'s to maintain custody of Baby G. although it didn't terminate Ernest's parental rights, which would have cleared the way for the adoption.

"I won there," Ernest said. But the D.'s quickly appealed to a Circuit Court review panel, which in November 1992 reversed the decision.

Ernest took the case to the Court of Special Appeals, which said the trial court could grant the adoption without going so far as to declare Ernest an unfit parent, so long as the court decided the adoption was in the baby's best interest.

In May, two months after Baby G.'s third birthday, the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, issued its opinion.

The court said there is a "general presumption that child's best interests are best served by granting custody to the natural parent." Because adoption is so final, making the biological parent "a legal stranger," the court must consider the rights of the "natural parent" before making any adoption final. However, the "controlling factor," the court went on, is not the parent's interests but the child's.

To help decide which outcome is in the child's best interests, the court said judges must consider a range of issues: possible emotional effects on the child; the genuineness of the parent's desire to rear the child; the stability of the child's future in the custody of the parent; the father's abandonment of the expectant mother and the biological parent's living arrangements and personal relationships.

The court also ruled in Baby G.'s case that the child should have his own attorney to argue for the child's best interests. The appeals court sent the case back to Anne Arundel Circuit Court for a final decision on the adoption, using the guidelines the Court of Appeals listed. A date for that hearing has not been set.

Ernest says he's a different person than he was three years ago. Though he had used drugs, he said he hasn't used them since November 1991. He has had the same girlfriend for two years. He's living with his grandmother, and he's working two jobs steadily. During the day, he's an electrician. At night, he works in a convenience store to help pay his legal bills.

He says he believes he can do right by his son. "I have no doubt I have a rough road in front of me -- no matter how this thing goes. I want my son. I want to raise my son," he says.

But Ms. Leviton of Advocates for Children and Youth said parents sometimes take too long to mature and to establish steady lives.

"You can't ask a child to wait years so that the parent can get it together," she said.

Whatever the outcome, the process to resolve such disputes is flawed, says Mitchell Mirviss, a former Legal Aid lawyer concerned with children's rights. The legal system in such cases is far too slow.

"Speed is critical," Mr. Mirviss said. "It's monstrously unfair to the child."