Case Title: In re Myra B.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2017 ME 174

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2017-08-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
 
 
 
 
 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2017 ME 174 
Docket: 
Wal-17-57 
Submitted 
On Briefs: July 20, 2017 
Decided: 
August 1, 2017 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, and HJELM, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE MYRA B. et al. 
 
 
PER CURIAM 
 
[¶1]  The parents of Myra B. and Nicole B. appeal from a judgment of the 
District Court (Belfast, Worth, J.) terminating their parental rights to the 
children pursuant to 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(A)(1)(a) and (B)(2)(a), (b)(i), (b)(ii) 
(2016).  They challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support the judgment 
and the court’s discretionary determinations of the children’s best interests.  
Because the evidence supports the court’s findings and discretionary 
determinations, we affirm the judgment. 
[¶2]  Based on competent evidence in the record, the court found by clear 
and convincing evidence that the parents were unwilling or unable to protect 
the children from jeopardy within a time reasonably calculated to meet their 
needs, unable to take responsibility for the children within a time reasonably 
calculated to meet their needs, and that termination of their parental rights was 
 
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in each child’s best interest.  See In re Caleb M., 2017 ME 66, ¶ 27, 159 A.3d 345.  
The court based this determination on the following supported factual findings: 
At the jeopardy hearing . . . , the parties agreed and the Court found 
that Myra and Nicole were in circumstances of jeopardy in the care 
of [either parent] due to: 
 
serious abuse or neglect as evidenced by the threat of 
serious harm, including serious injury, and/or serious 
mental and emotional impairment, and the deprivation 
of adequate food, clothing, shelter, supervision, and/or 
care.  This abuse or neglect is due, in part, to unsanitary 
and unsafe conditions of the home, the ongoing 
exposure of the children to significant conflict and 
domestic violence, and [each parent’s] insufficiently 
and inconsistently treated mental health[.]   
 
 
 
. . . . 
 
Nicole and Myra have been living with their maternal 
aunt . . . since being placed there by agreement in April, 2015, an 
arrangement continued when the children came into the State’s 
custody in May, 2015.  When the children first moved into the 
[foster] home, they presented with many problems.  Myra was 
self-abusive, biting and hitting herself, and striking her head 
against walls and floors.  Nicole had the habit of hiding behind 
furniture and inside closets.  They have hurt themselves, each other 
and third persons, damaged property and disrupted classrooms.  
The children have described seeing their parents fight and hurt 
each other, hurt their half-brother . . . and hurt them.  Whenever the 
girls hear a raised voice or an angry voice, they start to act badly, 
or try to get away and hide.  One of the children has told [the foster 
mother] that she is scared of her mother, and does not want to be 
hurt anymore.  She has also said that she does not like it when 
daddy takes a belt to her.  Both children have required psychiatric 
hospitalization.   
 
 
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. . . In their aunt’s home, their aggressiveness against each 
other has diminished.  They have gained some ability to be calm 
and non-violent.  However, . . . the girls still have grave behavioral 
and mental health struggles.  They require consistent, supportive, 
informed, capable parenting.   
 
. . . . 
 
 
Unfortunately, neither parent has made sufficient progress 
towards the alleviation of jeopardy to be able to provide these 
individual girls, with their serious, particular and individual needs, 
with a safe, supportive home.   
 
. . . . 
 
. . . The [parents] have been unable to empathize with their 
fragile daughters and unable to place the girls’ needs ahead of their 
own. . . .  On one occasion when one of the children said that she did 
not want to see her parents, [the father] angrily told the child that 
the visit was not about her, that instead it was about his and [the 
mother’s] rights.  Both parents personalized the children’s distress, 
telling the children when the children became anxious and upset 
during a visit that they were hurting their parents’ feelings. . . .  [The 
parents] do not have the capacity to make the changes necessary to 
protect the girls from harm. . . .  [The parents] participated in 
numerous services, but the gains they made were minimal.   
 
. . . . 
 
 
The [parents] have struggled to consistently maintain safe 
and even minimally sanitary housing.  They have made efforts to 
improve the cleanliness of their home, but its condition has varied 
during visits from others. . . .  The state of the home remains unsafe 
for Myra and Nicole. 
 
. . . . 
 
 
 
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[The parents] have tried to change, but their efforts have not 
resulted in changes sufficient to meet the children’s needs, and to 
protect them from further harm.  It is in the children’s best interests 
that the reunification process end; it is time now that they know 
they are in a forever home and will be kept safe. 
 
 
[¶3]  Contrary to the father’s challenges to the court’s factual findings, the 
determinations of the weight and credibility of the witnesses’ testimony were 
for the trial court to make.  See In re Cameron B., 2017 ME 18, ¶ 10, 154 A.3d 
1199.  We are also unpersuaded by the mother’s argument that the 
Department’s reunification efforts were inadequate or that the alleged 
inadequacy rendered the evidence supporting the court’s findings of unfitness 
insufficient.  See In re Doris G., 2006 ME 142, ¶ 16, 912 A.2d 572.   
 
[¶4]  The court’s supported findings were sufficient for the court to have 
found at least one ground of parental unfitness, see In re I.S., 2015 ME 100, ¶ 11, 
121 A.3d 105; the court adequately explained how the deficits of the parents 
render each parent unable to meet the individual needs of each child, see In re 
Jazmine L., 2004 ME 125, ¶ 16, 861 A.2d 1277; cf. In re Thomas D., 2004 ME 104, 
¶ 39, 854 A.2d 195; and the court did not err or abuse its discretion in 
determining that termination of the parents’ parental rights, with a 
permanency plan of adoption, is in each child’s best interest, see In re Thomas 
H., 2005 ME 123, ¶¶ 16-17, 889 A.2d 297. 
 
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The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thomas F. Shehan, Jr., Esq., Searsport, for appellant father 
 
Jeremy Pratt, Esq., and Ellen Simmons, Esq., Camden, for appellant mother 
 
Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, and Hunter C. Umphrey, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office 
of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee Department of Health and Human 
Services 
 
 
Belfast District Court docket number PC-2015-4 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY