AUGUSTA (AP) — Maine is joining South Carolina and several other states in defending a federal law that deals with Indian adoption rights and will be a central topic in a case that goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next month, Attorney General Janet Mills announced Thursday.

Mills said the state signed onto an amicus brief in the case defending the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. She described the facts of the case as “particularly outrageous,” and said the case has implications in Maine where a process is under way to investigate systematic removal of tribal children from their households prior to passage of the Indian Child Welfare law.

The case involves a child born in Oklahoma to a father who is a Cherokee Nation member and non-tribal mother. The mother put up the child for adoption and a non- Indian family in South Carolina adopted her. Mills said the father was a member of the military and was notified of the planned adoption only four days before his scheduled deployment to Iraq.