Case Title: In re Carlos C.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2016 ME 179

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2016-12-13T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2016 ME 179 
Docket: 
Yor-16-251 
Submitted 
 
On Briefs: November 29, 2016 
Decided: 
December 13, 2016 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE CARLOS C. 
 
 
PER CURIAM 
[¶1]  The father of Carlos C. appeals from a judgment of the District 
Court (Biddeford, Foster, J.) terminating his parental rights to the child.  
See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2) (2015).  The father argues that the evidence is 
insufficient to support the court’s determinations that he is parentally unfit 
within the meaning of the child protection statutes and that termination is in 
the child’s best interest.  We affirm.1 
[¶2]  First, there is competent evidence in the record to support the 
court’s findings, to the clear and convincing standard of proof, that the father 
is “unwilling or unable to protect the child from jeopardy and these 
circumstances are unlikely to change within a time which is reasonably 
                                         
1  At our request, the guardian ad litem provided us with copies of two reports that were missing 
from the record on appeal.  The parties agree that these are accurate copies of the reports that were 
filed with the trial court during the termination proceedings.  We now consider the record on 
appeal to be complete. 
 
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calculated to meet the child’s needs,” that he is “unwilling or unable to take 
responsibility for the child within a time which is reasonably calculated to 
meet the child’s needs,” and that he “failed to make a good faith effort to 
rehabilitate and reunify with the child.”  22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b); 
see In re Cameron Z., 2016 ME 162, ¶¶ 16-18, --- A.3d ---.   
[¶3]  These findings of parental unfitness are supported by evidence 
cited in the court’s judgment, including evidence of the father’s ongoing 
substance abuse, his participation in reunification services that was “less than 
consistent,” and his “very superficial” insight into the child’s significant special 
needs.  As the court found, for example, while this child protection case was 
pending, the father remained out of touch with the Department of Health and 
Human Services caseworker for significant periods of time despite multiple 
attempts the caseworker made to reach him using contact information he 
provided; he twice failed to attend intake sessions for a domestic violence 
program before finally beginning to participate in it; two months before the 
termination hearing, he refused to take a drug test; he quit two substance 
abuse programs before entering into a different program several months 
before the termination hearing; despite his counselor’s recommendation, he 
has refused to participate in group addiction programs; he has continually 
 
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relapsed, including using unprescribed Suboxone as recently as the week 
before the termination hearing and then invoking his Fifth Amendment 
privilege at trial when asked about the circumstances of that and other illegal 
drug-related activity; and although he is in the “early stages” of recovery, he 
still has not “really accepted that his substance abuse constitutes a significant 
barrier to reunification.”  This evidence, combined with the record as a whole, 
supports the court’s ultimate finding of parental unfitness. 
[¶4]  Second, given the evidence in the record, the court did not abuse 
its discretion by determining that termination is in the child’s best interest.  
See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(a); In re J.V., 2015 ME 163, ¶ 13, 129 A.3d 958; 
In re C.P., 2013 ME 57, ¶ 16, 67 A.3d 558.  
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On the briefs: 
 
Brian D. Burke, Esq., Fairfield & Associates, P.A., Lyman, for 
appellant father 
 
Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, and Meghan Szylvian, Asst. 
Atty. Gen., Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for 
appellee Department of Health and Human Services 
 
Biddeford District Court docket number PC-2014-65 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY