Case Title: In re Child of Eric K.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2018 ME 32

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2018-03-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2018 ME 32 
Docket: 
Cum-17-424 
Submitted 
On Briefs: February 26, 2018 
Decided: 
March 6, 2018 
 
Panel: 
ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE CHILD OF ERIC K. 
 
 
PER CURIAM  
 
[¶1]  Eric K. appeals from a judgment of the District Court (Portland, 
Duddy, J.) terminating his parental rights to his child pursuant to 22 M.R.S. 
§ 4055(1)(A)(1) and (B)(2)(a), (b)(i)-(ii) (2017).1  He challenges the sufficiency 
of the evidence to support the judgment and the court’s discretionary 
determination of the child’s best interest.  Because the evidence supports the 
court’s findings and discretionary determination, we affirm the judgment. 
 
[¶2]  Based on competent evidence in the record, the court found, by clear 
and convincing evidence, 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 calculated to meet the child’s needs and that the father 
is unwilling or unable to take responsibility for the child within a time 
                                         
1  The court (Duddy, J.) also terminated the mother’s parental rights on September 15, 2017.  The 
mother did not appeal.   
 
2 
reasonably 
calculated 
to 
meet 
her 
needs. 
 
See 
22 
M.R.S. 
§ 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(i)-(ii).  The court also found that termination of the father’s 
parental rights is in the child’s best interest.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055 (1)(B)(2)(a); 
In re Cameron B., 2017 ME 18, ¶ 10, 154 A.3d 1199.  The court based its findings 
of parental unfitness and its determination of the child’s best interest on the 
following findings of fact: 
[The father] has a lengthy history of substance abuse and 
criminal activity.  As a young man, [he] was convicted of a federal 
trafficking charge, and spent nearly 20 years in federal prison. . . .   
 
[The father] did not see or meet [the child] until late 
October 2015, or early November 2015.  At the time he was not 
sure [she] was his child . . . . [He] has never lived with [the child] in 
his household.   
 
In October 2015, shortly after his release from prison, [the 
father] violated his probation by using crack cocaine.  In June 2016, 
[he] again violated his probation by testing positive for illegal 
drugs. . . . [I]n July 2016, [he] agreed to the Court’s Jeopardy Order.   
 
. . . .  
 
For well over a year, [the father] has failed to secure 
adequate housing for himself and his daughter. . . .   
 
. . . .  
 
[The father] has a new girlfriend [who] is a homeless person 
whom [he] met at a local homeless shelter three months ago. . . . 
[He] readily admits that he does not know much about [her]. . . .   
 
. . . .  
 
3 
 
[The father] has never parented his daughter, and has 
demonstrated that he does not have parenting skills to do so.  As 
part of the Rehabilitation/Reunification Plan, [he] was given 
visitation with [the child] beginning in September 2016.  [He] 
attended visits for a period of time, but also had several no-shows 
and cancelations.  In response to [the child’s] challenging behaviors 
during visits, [he] refused to engage with her . . . .  [He] last visited 
[the child] on April 6, 2017, and stopped visiting [her].  The 
Department reached out to [him and he] refused to respond [for 
several months]. . . .  [He] showed little understanding that abruptly 
stopping visits with his daughter for a period of five months 
demonstrated poor parenting skills.   
 
. . . .  
 
When asked how he would parent [the child, the father] 
testified that his plan was to have his new girlfriend . . . become [the 
child’s] primary caregiver.  [The new girlfriend] has never met [the 
child], and is completely unaware of [the child’s] challenging 
behaviors. . . .   
 
. . . .  
 
[The father] has failed to take the steps required of him to 
eliminate jeopardy.  He has failed to demonstrate that he can 
remain sober and drug free, failed to comply with the conditions of 
his probation, failed to provide or make arrangements for safe 
housing for him and [the child], and failed to demonstrate 
age-appropriate parenting skills with [the child].  [His] plan to use 
his new girlfriend[,] a homeless person of whom he knows next to 
nothing, as [the child’s] primary caregiver, demonstrates a 
profound lack of understanding of what it takes to resolve jeopardy 
in this matter.   
 
[The child] entered the custody of the Department on 
May 2, 2016.  She has now been in foster care for over half her 
young life.  During that period of time she has experienced a 
 
4 
number of different placements.  She is beginning to make progress 
in her current therapeutic foster placement, but she still has 
substantial behavioral challenges.  More than anything, [the child] 
needs to quickly form a consistent and reliable attachment to a 
loving, stable, and capable caregiver. . . .   
 
. . . .  
 
[The child] is only two and a half years old, and is still young 
enough to form a solid attachment to [an adoptive family]. . . .   
 
 
[¶3]  The father contends that the court erred because the record 
indicates that he “was working hard to redress the circumstances of jeopardy” 
and could find adequate housing “within a relatively short period of time.”  
These arguments fail to recognize, however, that “the time frame which the 
court is gauging must be seen from the child’s perspective” and, although the 
inquiry concerning parental unfitness “is prospective, the evidence to be 
considered is retrospective.”  In re Charles G., 2001 ME 3, ¶ 7, 763 A.2d 1163 
(quotation marks omitted).  After considering the father’s inability to comply 
with his rehabilitation and reunification plan over the past year, the court found 
that the father—despite his efforts and initial progress—remains incapable of 
alleviating jeopardy or providing adequate care for the child in a time 
reasonably 
calculated 
to 
meet 
her 
needs. 
 
See 
22 
M.R.S. 
§ 4055(1)(B)(2)(b)(i)-(ii); In re Alexander D., 1998 ME 207, ¶ 18, 716 A.2d 222.  
As the court aptly explained, “it is unreasonable to ask or expect [the child] to 
 
5 
wait for some unspecified additional period of months or years for her [father] 
to resolve jeopardy.”   
 
[¶4]  Given these findings and the court’s other specific findings of fact, 
all of which are supported by competent evidence in the record, the court did 
not err in its unfitness determination nor did it err or abuse its discretion in 
concluding that termination of the father’s parental rights, with a permanency 
plan of adoption, is in the child’s best interest.  See In re Thomas H., 
2005 ME 123, ¶¶ 16-17, 889 A.2d 297.  
 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Andrew S. Edwards, Esq., Northland Legal Solutions, LLC, PA, Portland, 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 
 
 
Portland District Court docket number PC-2016-36 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY