Cetin,
Sorry, still not getting what I need.

Let me rephrase the problem again:

Parent table contains a surrogate key field (cid) which is primary key.
Parent table is 1 rec per inmate.

Child table contains multiple recs per parent. This table also has a surrogate key (cid) which is probably immaterial to this problem.
Child recs have a pointer to the parent table's surrogate key (child.cinmates_id points to parent.cid).

I want:
Select all from parent where child's LATEST (via child's txndatetm) has a value of "OPEN" in child's status field.

Thanks,
John