Case Title: In Re: Adoption of Rashawn Kevon H.

Citation: 402 Md. 477

Docket Number: 7/07

State: maryland

Court: Maryland Supreme Court

Date: 2007-12-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
In Re: Adoption/Guardianship of Rashawn Kevon H. and Tyrese H., No. 7, September
Term 2007.  Opinion by Wilner, J.
IN CASES INVOLVING THE TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS, THE
COURT MUST FOLLOW THE STATUTORY CONSTRUCT IN FL § 5-323 (IN THIS CASE
FORMER § 5-313).  TO TERMINATE PARENTAL RIGHTS, THE COURT MUST FIND
ONE OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES SET FORTH IN THOSE SECTIONS AND THAT
TERMINATION IS IN THE CHILD’S BEST INTEREST.  
IN DECIDING WHAT IS IN THE CHILD’S BEST INTEREST, THERE IS AN
IMPLICIT PRESUMPTION THAT THE CHILD’S BEST INTEREST LIES WITH A
CONTINUATION OF THE PARENTAL RELATIONSHIP, A PRESUMPTION THAT MAY
BE REBUTTED BY CLEAR AND CONVINCING EVIDENCE THAT THE PARENTS ARE
UNFIT OR THAT EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES EXIST THAT WOULD MAKE A
CONTINUATION OF THAT RELATIONSHIP DETRIMENTAL TO THE BEST INTEREST
OF THE CHILD.  THE STATUTORY FACTORS SET FORTH IN FL § 5-323 (AND FORMER
§ 5-313) MUST BE CONSIDERED AND APPROPRIATE FINDINGS MADE WITH
RESPECT TO THEM IN DETERMINING WHETHER UNFITNESS OR EXCEPTIONAL
CIRCUMSTANCES EXIST.  
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 
OF MARYLAND
No. 7
September Term, 2007
_______________________________________
In Re: Adoption/Guardianship of: 
Rashawn H. and Tyrese H.
_______________________________________
Bell, C.J.
Raker
Harrell
Battaglia
Greene
Wilner, Alan M. (Retired, Specially           
        Assigned),
Cathell, Dale R. (Retired, Specially            
        Assigned),
JJ.
_______________________________________
Opinion by Wilner, J.
Bell, C.J., and Cathell, J., Concur.
          
_______________________________________
                         Filed:   December 11, 2007
Before us is a judgment of the Circuit Court for Frederick County that terminated
the legal relationship between petitioner, Melissa F., and two of her four children,
Rashawn and Tyrese, who were then six and five years of age, respectively.  Upon
evidence that the children had previously been found by the juvenile court to be children
in need of assistance (CINA) and after considering the various factors then set forth in
Maryland Code, § 5-313 of the Family Law Article, the court concluded that termination
was in the best interest of the children, essentially because Ms. F. had been, was then, and
likely would continue to be unable to care properly for them.  The Court of Special
Appeals, in an unreported opinion, affirmed that judgment.  We shall reverse and remand
for a new proceeding.
BACKGROUND
Ms. F. suffers from the effects of several partially interrelated problems – an
overall IQ of 66, an oppressive childhood, eviction from and apparent disqualification for
Government assisted housing because of her drug-dealing mother, life-long poverty,
inability to maintain steady employment, and lack of a reliable support system.  The
combination of those impediments have made her life and the early lives of Rashawn and
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Tyrese terribly unstable.  Ms. F. was raised in a household rife with domestic violence,
with a father who physically and psychologically abused both her and her mother and a
mother who became a drug addict and a drug dealer.  She said that she was essentially
raised, at least in her early years, by her maternal grandmother, who unfortunately died
when Ms. F. was ten.  
After her mother’s second arrest, Ms. F. dropped out of school, in the eleventh
grade, and moved first to Harrisburg to live with a step-brother and then, after a year,
back to Frederick to live with a cousin.  She had her first child, Mark, in February, 1997,
when she was seventeen.  The child’s father was an alcoholic and abusive, so she ended
that relationship and began one with another man, Richard, with whom she had three
more children in fairly quick succession – Richard, Jr., born in June, 1998, Rashawn, born
in November, 1999, and Tyrese, born in November, 2000.  Richard, Jr. has lived with his
paternal grandparents in Delaware since infancy.  In 1999, the remainder of the family
moved to an apartment apparently shared with Ms. F.’s mother.  In December, 2001, they
were evicted because the mother was selling drugs from the apartment.
In the three years following that eviction, which occurred when Rashawn and
Tyrese were two and one, respectively, Ms. F., Mark, Rashawn, and Tyrese moved
approximately eleven times.  She and Richard were sometimes together and sometimes
apart.  The family spent a week in a hotel paid for by the Frederick County Department of
Social Services (DSS), then in a shelter until May, 2002, and then briefly at a Community
1 There is some discrepancy in the record as to the exact date.  
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Action Center.  They then moved to an apartment in Harrisburg, which they shared with
ten other people and where they survived on peanut butter sandwiches and water, then to
different shelters in Harrisburg.  They finally returned to Frederick to live with Ms. F.’s
mother, but the day after they arrived, the mother was incarcerated, so they moved to New
York, where they stayed in various shelters and finally ended up in a roach and rat-
infested apartment, where she and Richard had to take turns staying awake at night to
guard the children from the noxious animals.  
In August, 2003, Ms. F. returned to Frederick to try to find work, leaving the
children with her sister in New York.  At some point in 2004, her sister brought the
children back to Frederick, where the family found a temporary place to stay with a friend
of Richard.  In May, however, Richard was incarcerated, and Ms. F. and the children
were forced to move.  They had no place to go.  On either May 19 or 20, 2004, Ms. F.
took the children to the local DSS office.1  Dorne Hill, a social worker, was called to the
lobby of the building upon a report that a woman was there with three children, cursing at
them and grabbing their arms.  When she went to investigate, Ms. Hill found Ms. F.,
along with Mark, Rashawn, and Tyrese, sitting on a bench.  The children were unruly but
unharmed, and Ms. F. was upset.  She explained that she was waiting for a family
member, Mark’s aunt, to come get her and her children.  The aunt was contacted, but she
was willing to take only Mark.  Mark’s father was located, and he eventually came and
2 The “DORS” program is mentioned frequently in the record.  It refers to the
Division of Rehabilitation Services, a unit within the State Department of Education.  The
Division has a vocational rehabilitation program that provides career assessment,
vocational training, assistive technologies, and job placement services.  See the Division’s
web site at www.dors.state.md.us. 
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picked up his son but not Ms. F. or the other children.
When it appeared that there was no place for Rashawn and Tyrese to go, Ms. F.
and Ms. Hill agreed that the only alternative was for DSS to place the two children in
emergency shelter care.  Richard, who by then had married another woman, later agreed
to that disposition as well.  After a hearing two days later, the shelter care was continued.  
The court found that it was not possible to return the children to their home because of the
father’s incarceration and Ms. F.’s lack of a residence.  There was no home to which they
could return.  On June 16, 2004, based, in part, on “the lack of a permanent residence for
the children, and on the agreement of the parties,” the children were found by the juvenile
court to be CINA.  Among other things, the court ordered psychiatric, psychological,
substance abuse, and parenting potential evaluations, that Ms. F. enter into and comply
with a service agreement, that she maintain steady and reliable employment and adequate
and appropriate housing, and that she participate in the “DORS” program.2  No appeal
was taken from that disposition, so the validity of it is not before us.
DSS, for its purposes, found insufficient evidence to show an “indicated” child
neglect on Ms. F.’s part, in that, although she had been unable to secure resources for her
children, she had attempted to do so and was willing to “g[i]ve up her children because
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she could not provide instead of allowing her children to be homeless and hungry.”  On
the other hand, DSS declared that it could not “rule out” neglect, in that Ms. F. “had been
homeless and transient for several years.”  It therefore declared child neglect to be
“unsubstantiated,” the only other category possible under the circumstances.
Upon assuming custody of the children and in preparation for the CINA hearing,
DSS sought an evaluation from Dr. Dennis Hilker, a psychologist, who reported, in
relevant part, that, although Ms. F. had an emotional attachment to her children and
wanted to be a productive mother, she showed “little parenting ability,” had “no job
skills,” and would “require a great deal of assistance and supervision to meet the needs of
her children.”  He found that both parents were “cognitively challenged,” that they had
not developed any “consistent, reliable employment base,” and would need “a long time
to build their educational and vocational capacity for self-support, before proposing any
possible home for the children to return to their custody.”   
At the time of the evaluation – some three weeks after she took the children to
DSS – Ms. F. was still homeless, was on a waiting list for an apartment, had no income,
and “wanders the streets when she cannot stay with anyone.”  Dr. Hilker said that she had
“some good parenting potential” but that she needed “to develop some self-controls,
personal life goals, and long term lifestyle accommodations.”  He recommended that she
receive supervised visitation privileges with the children, that she be referred to the
Division of Rehabilitative Services for vocational training and work assistance, and that
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the parents meet with DSS “to consider a long term custody and visitation arrangement to
guarantee the safety and welfare of the children . . . .”
In his report on Richard, Dr. Hilker concluded that Richard “shows questionable
parenting ability” and “limited intelligence, perhaps because of intensive drug abuse
earlier in his life.”  He added that Richard was “unlikely to succeed in parenting without
special services to meet his difficulties.”
The social worker initially assigned to the case, Brenda Boone, stated that Tyrese
remained in the foster home during the four months that she supervised the case but that
Rashawn had to be moved five times during that period because of his behavior, which
she described as “out of control.”  Ultimately, he was placed in a “therapeutic” foster
home, where the caretakers were specially trained to care for children with behavioral or
emotional problems.  Ms. F. told Ms. Boone that she was living with her mother and her
mother’s boyfriend, although she gave the social worker an aunt’s telephone number.  
Ms. F. eventually found employment at Wal-Mart and she did participate in most
of the programs as directed in the CINA disposition order and in one or more service
agreements with DSS.  Reports prepared for the first court review hearing in December,
2004, by Heather Chorney, the new social worker assigned to the case, were positive. 
Ms. Chorney confirmed that Ms. F. had, on the whole, complied with the court’s
directives and that supervised visitation had occurred.  Her overall impression was that
“[p]rogress has been made; however, the risk and safety factors that lead to the children
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being brought into care have yet to be eliminated.”  She recommended that the children
remain CINA and in foster care but that the permanency plan for the children be
reunification with Ms. F., and that is what occurred.
The next review hearing was in April, 2005.  Again, Ms. Chorney’s report was
positive.  Ms. F. continued to comply with most of the court’s directives and maintained
her employment with Wal-Mart.  Rashawn’s behavior and emotional well-being had
improved.  Ms. Chorney still believed, however, that the factors that led to the children
being placed in foster care had yet to be eliminated.  She continued her recommendation
that the children remain in foster care and that the permanency plan be for reunification
with Ms. F.  
The reports prepared for the hearing in August, 2005, were less favorable.  Ms.
Chorney noted that “[t]here has been little progress toward reunification since the last
Court hearing.”  Rashawn’s situation had “been regressing,” in that he “has attached to
his foster parents and has a great deal of anxiety about the status of reunification.” 
Tyrese, on the other hand, was “doing very well and there are no concerns at this time.” 
Unfortunately, Ms. F. lost her job at Wal-Mart in April.  She found part-time employment
at Goodwill Industries but worked there only for a month or so.  The principal problem
seemed to be that, despite the assistance of a parent aide from DSS, Ms. F. remained
unsuccessful in finding adequate housing for herself and the children.  She had been
denied public housing because of the past eviction, and the prospect of living with her
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sister was rejected because the sister (1) had a substance abuse history, and (2) did not
have housing for the children.  Although Ms. Chorney recommended that the permanency
plan still be for reunification, she expressed concern about the length of time the children
had been in foster care and the “permanency issues,” and she noted that DSS “may
recommend a change of permanency plan at the next hearing if progress is not adequate.”
That is what, in fact, occurred at the next review hearing in November, 2005.  Both
children had adjusted well to their foster care placements.  Tyrese was “in a potential pre-
adoptive placement.”  Rashawn had “become very attached to his foster care parents” and
“displays a great amount of anxiety about reunification.”  The children had been in out of
home placement for eighteen consecutive months.  Although Ms. F. continued to comply
with the court orders and “greatly struggled” to maintain overall stability in her own life,
Ms. Chorney stated that Ms. F.’s progress toward reunification and the children’s
permanency “remains a concern.”  
Ms. F. had lost her part-time job with Goodwill Industries in July, but in October
found one with a Holiday Inn.  Her employment situation remained sporadic, and housing
continued to be a major issue.  In October, Ms. F. was evicted for non-payment of rent. 
DSS assigned a parent aide to assist her in finding a suitable home, but they had no
success.  The problem was that, because of her eviction due to her mother’s drug-dealing,
she was unable to obtain public housing and had insufficient income to afford adequate
non-assisted living.  She eventually found a one-room apartment but had to share a
3 Although Ms. F. highlights that view as wholly inappropriate, it was not the basis
of the TPR judgments and was not even mentioned by the court.  Indeed, Ms. F. was no
longer living in that room at the time of trial.  At the time, a parent aide was assisting Ms.
F. in attempting to find more suitable housing for the children.
4 By this time, the father was more or less out of the picture.  That is not an issue in
this appeal.
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communal bathroom with everyone else on the floor, and DSS did not view that
arrangement as adequate for a woman with two children.3  Continuing to believe that the
risk factors that caused the children to be placed in foster care had not been alleviated,
even after eighteen months, DSS recommended that the permanency plan be changed to
adoption with a concurrent plan of reunification with Ms. F.4  Ms. Chorney expressed
concern that it was a struggle for the parents to maintain their own everyday living
without the burden of dealing with Rashawn’s complex problems.  She said, however,
that DSS would continue to work with Ms. F. toward reunification.
In her report, Ms. Chorney recounted the efforts DSS had made to assist in
achieving reunification and listed what she regarded as the “compelling reasons” for the
change:
(1) The children had been in care for 18 consecutive months;
(2) Because of the children’s ages, there was a need “to establish stability
and permanency as soon as possible;
(3) Risk and safety factors had not been alleviated by the parents;
(4) Reunification services “have been exhausted”;
(5) The parents’ progress is such that reunification was not likely in the next
5 In In re Karl H., 394 Md. 402, 422, 906 A.2d 898, 909 (2006), we pointed out
permanency plans which call, concurrently, for both reunification and adoption are
intrinsically inconsistent, that they give DSS no real guidance, and that they can lead to
arbitrary decision-making on the part of DSS.  We concluded:
“If the court approves a permanency plan that calls for
reunification or family placement, that should be the
paramount goal.  It should not share the spotlight with a
completely inconsistent court-approved goal of terminating
parental rights, especially when the inconsistent plan calls for
a TPR petition to be filed before the next scheduled court
review of the permanency plan.  The objective of contingency
planning can be achieved without a Janus-type order.”
Karl H. was not filed until September, 2006, so the juvenile court here did not
have the advantage of our views on what was then a common practice by DSS.  The
anomaly of having the order both continue reunification as a goal and direct the filing of a
TPR petition within 30 days is evident on its face, however.
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six months;
(6) The children were unable to reside with Ms. F. due to “the lack of
appropriate housing, financial instability, mental health needs of the
child[ren], substance abuse [by the father], and a history of the
parent’s overall instability;” and
(7) There were no identifiable, appropriate, or willing relatives to provide
long term care.
On November 17, 2005, the juvenile court concurred in that recommendation.  It
ordered that the permanency plan for the children be “adoption with a concurrent plan of
reunification with the mother,” and, notwithstanding that purported concurrence, directed
DSS to file a petition to terminate parental rights (TPR) within 30 days.5  DSS filed the
TPR petition in December, 2005; trial occurred in May, 2006, and, on May 23, the court
granted the petition and entered judgments terminating the parental rights of Ms. F. and
6 In its 2005 Session, the General Assembly enacted 2005 Md. Laws, ch. 464, the
Permanency for Families and Children Act of 2005, which substantively revised the laws
relating to guardianships and the termination of parental rights.  The standards previously
set forth in FL § 5-313, as revised, are now found in FL § 5-323.  Although the Act took
effect January 1, 2006, prior to the trial and judgment in this case, Section 4 of the Act
provides that the Act did not apply to any case pending on January 1, 2006, and that such
cases “shall be governed by the law applicable as if this Act had not become effective.” 
As DSS’s petition was filed in December, 2005, and therefore was pending on January 1,
2006, the case is governed by the provisions in the former § 5-313.
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the father in Rashawn and Tyrese and appointing the Director of DSS as the guardian of
the children with the right to consent to their adoption.  In February, 2006, prior to trial,
Ms. F. left her one-room apartment in Frederick, which she was apparently sharing with
her mother, and her job with Holiday Inn and went to Virginia to look for work and
housing.  Unsuccessful, she returned and began living again with her mother a month
later.
The statutory standards governing the termination of Ms. F.’s parental rights in this
case are those that previously were set forth in Maryland Code, § 5-313 of the Family
Law Article (FL).6  Section 5-313 was an exception to the general rule that an individual
may not be adopted without the consent of his or her natural parents.  It permitted a
circuit court to grant a decree of adoption or guardianship with the right to consent to
adoption, without the consent of the natural parents, if the court found by clear and
convicting evidence that (A) it was in the best interest of the child to terminate the natural
parents’ rights as to the child, and (B) one of the following three circumstances or set of
circumstances existed:
7 Those factors, as we paraphrase them, were:
(i) the timeliness, nature, and extent of the services offered by DSS to
facilitate reunion of the child with the parent;
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(1) The child was abandoned; i.e., the identity of the child’s natural
parents was unknown and no one had claimed to be the
child’s natural parent within two months after the alleged
abandonment;
(2) In a prior juvenile court proceeding, the child was adjudicated to be
CINA; or 
(3) The following four circumstances exist:
(i) The child has been continuously out of the custody of the natural 
parent and in the custody of a child placement agency for at
least a year;
(ii) The conditions that led to the separation from the natural parent
or similar conditions of a potentially harmful nature still exist;
(iii) There is little likelihood that those conditions will be remedied
at an early date so that the child can be returned to the parent
in the immediate future; and
(iv) A continuation of the parental relationship would greatly
diminish the child’s prospects for early integration into a
stable and permanent family.                                         
Unless the court finds an abandonment, i.e., if it is proceeding under (2) or (3)
above, it must, in determining whether termination is in the best interest of the child, give
primary consideration to the safety and health of the child and give consideration as well
to the other factors that were enumerated in FL § 5-313(c).7  If the child had been
(ii) any social service agreement between the parent and DSS and the extent
to which the parties fulfilled their obligations under the agreement;
(iii) the child’s feelings toward and emotional ties with the parents, siblings,
and others who may significantly affect the child’s best interest;
(iv) the child’s adjustment to home, school, and community;
(v) the result of the effort the parent has made to adjust his or her
circumstances, conduct, or conditions to make it in the child’s best interest to be returned
to the parent; and
(vi) all services offered to the parent before placement of the child. 
8 The considerations set forth in FL § 5-313(d) are, as we paraphrase them:
(i) whether the parent has a disability that renders him or her consistently
unable to care for the immediate and ongoing physical or psychological needs of the child
for long periods of time;
(ii) whether the parent has committed acts of abuse or neglect toward any
child in the family;
(iii) the parent has repeatedly failed to give the child adequate food,
clothing, shelter, education, or other care or control necessary for the child’s physical,
mental, or emotional health, even though the parent is physically and financially able;
(iv) the child was born exposed to certain drugs or the mother tested
positive for those drugs upon admission to a hospital for delivery of the child;
(v) the parent subjected the child to torture, chronic abuse, sexual abuse, or
chronic and life-threatening neglect, or was convicted of certain crimes of violence
committed against a child or household member.
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declared CINA, the court, in determining whether termination is in the best interest of the
child, was required to consider as well the additional factors that were set forth in § 5-
313(d).8
The evidence presented at the TPR hearing was largely that noted above, although
it was supplemented with some additional details.  The social workers who prepared the
various reports testified, as did Ms. F. and Dr. Carlton Munson, a social worker who
prepared an “attachment assessment report” based on an evaluation of Rashawn and
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Tyrese conducted shortly before the hearing.  Dr. Munson was aware that Rashawn was
facing a change of placement because of “aggressive and sexualized behaviors.”  With
that knowledge and upon his own observation of the children’s interaction with each
other, he concluded that “a joint placement would not be in the best interest, well-being,
safety, or health of either child.”  He explained in his report that Rashawn’s history of
sexualized behaviors “make it highly likely [that] sexual behaviors would be acted out on
Tyrese if these siblings were in the same placement” and that “Tyrese would be at
physical and psychological risk.”  Ms. Chorney commented that, except for a brief period,
visitation with the children was supervised because of the unstable relationship between
Ms. F. and Richard and Ms. F.’s unwillingness to agree to separate visitation
Ms. F. confirmed the several attempts she had made to find assisted housing.  She
was told that she was ineligible for county-assisted housing but eligible for Federal
Section 8 assistance.  The problem was that there were no apartments available.  She said
that if she could live with her mother, they could pool their resources and afford a larger
apartment that could accommodate the children and that her mother could watch the
children when she was at work.  Because of her mother’s drug history, however, DSS did
not regard the mother as an acceptable resource.
The court noted the undisputed fact that Rashawn and Tyrese had been found to be
CINA, and it therefore proceeded to consider the factors set forth in FL § 5-313(c) and (d)
in determining whether it was in their best interest to terminate Ms. F.’s parental rights. 
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Relying in part on Dr. Munson’s report and testimony, it found, first, that the children had
health and safety needs that would be better addressed through services that DSS could
provide if granted guardianship.  Turning to the remaining factors in § 5-313(c), the court
found that DSS had made “abundant efforts” to provide Ms. F. with services, and that,
although DSS fulfilled its obligations under the service agreements, “it just wasn’t
working.” Despite her effort, but due to her disabilities and limitations,  Ms. F. “just
wasn’t able to comply with all of those . . . services to facilitate reunification that the
Department provided her.”  The court stated that, because of the children’s age and
because they had been out of the home for so long – nearly two years – it was “not sure”
that they had much attachment left to Ms. F. or to each other.
The court found the children’s adjustment to their foster homes “troubling,” but
improving.  The court complimented Ms. F. on her effort to adjust her circumstances and
maintain contact with the children but made no clear finding as to the adequacy of her
adjustment or contact.  The implication is that the court found the adjustment inadequate
to provide a safe and healthy environment for the children, but its actual statement is less
than clear on that point.  It did find that Ms. F. lacked the financial resources to provide
for the children’s financial and material needs.  It said that Ms. F. had done “a pretty good
job” of maintaining contact with DSS, but that it was not sufficient to guarantee the safety
and health of the children.  The court did not explain the connection between any lack of
contact with DSS and the safety and health of the children.  Finally, as to the § 5-313(c)
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factors, the court found that no further services could be provided that would help return
the children to Ms. F.
Turning then to the § 5-313(d) factors, the court concluded that Ms. F. did have a
disability that limited her ability to care for the children, and that, due to that disability
and her circumstances, she did neglect the children.  The neglect was not intentional, but
it was a fact.  The court found none of the other § 5-313(d) factors applicable.  Upon its
consideration of all of the statutory factors, the court found by clear and convicting
evidence that it was in the best interest of the children to grant the DSS petition, and, in
accordance with that finding, it entered the two judgments, one for Rashawn and one for
Tyrese.
In the Court of Special Appeals, Ms. F. attacked some of the Circuit Court’s
findings with respect to the various factors, contending that they were either unsupported
by more specific factual determinations or otherwise clearly erroneous.  After reviewing
the record, the appellate court held that there was ample support for the trial court’s
findings.  The thrust of Ms. F.’s argument was that DSS had not provided adequate
services tailored to Ms. F.’s needs and that Ms. F. lost custody of the children in the
CINA proceeding and lost her parental rights in the TPR case “because she was homeless,
. . . her disability prevented her from curing that condition, and the Department failed to
tailor its services to remove those barriers to reunification.”  She made no attack on the
statute itself.  The Court of Special Appeals disagreed, concluding that “throughout the
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two years that Rashawn and Tyrese were in foster care before the TPR hearing, Ms. F.
was provided with ample services aimed at reunification” and that she had “not identified
in the record any other available programs that were specifically tailored to her needs as a
person with cognitive disabilities.”  
Although still complaining that DSS failed to provide adequate services to her and
that some of the Circuit Court’s conclusions were wrong, Ms. F. has substantially
broadened her argument in this Court.  She now attacks the structure and validity of the
statute itself, tacitly at least contending that, by focusing on the best interest of the child,
the statute is unconstitutional.  In that regard, she argues first that a court may not
terminate the parental rights of a parent absent a showing that the parent “is presently
unfit or proof of other exceptional circumstances.”  She adds that parental rights may not
be terminated where “the basis for the CINA finding, and the primary obstacle to
reunification, is lack of permanent suitable housing,” thereby implying that the lack of
suitable housing, even over a four or five year period, cannot be regarded as either
evidence of unfitness or an exceptional circumstance.
DISCUSSION
The Appropriate Standards for Terminating Parental Rights
In seeking to dismantle the statutory construct enacted by the General Assembly,
Ms. F. borrows in part from cases involving custody disputes between a parent and a third
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party and in part from out-of-State TPR cases that are mostly inapposite.  We shall turn
first to the custody cases and consider their relevance to the issue at hand.
The great majority of custody (and visitation) disputes, of course, are between the
child’s parents, neither of whom, at least since the adoption of our State Equal Rights
Amendment (Md. Decl. of Rts., Art. 46), has any preference over the other in that regard. 
In that setting, the governing standard, here and throughout the country, is and long has
been the child’s best interest.  See McDermott v. Dougherty, 385 Md. 320, 353-55, 869
A.2d 751, 770-71 (2005).  Custody and visitation decisions in disputes between the
parents are made based on what the court finds to be in the child’s best interest.  That
decision generally lies within the sound discretion of the trial judge and is rarely disturbed
on appeal.  See Domingues v. Johnson, 323 Md. 486, 492, n.2, 593 A.2d 1133, 1136, n.2
(1991).
A different element, though not a different standard, comes into play when the
dispute is between a parent and a third party, for in that setting, there is a legal preference. 
In those cases, we have recognized that parents have a fundamental, Constitutionally-
based right to raise their children free from undue and unwarranted interference on the
part of the State, including its courts.  See, most recently, Koshko v. Haining, 398 Md.
404, 921 A.2d 171 (2007); also McDermott v. Dougherty, supra, 385 Md. 320, 869 A.2d
751; Shurupoff v. Vockroth, 372 Md. 639, 814 A.2d 543 (2003); Ross v. Hoffman, 280
Md. 172, 372 A.2d 582 (1977).  Even in those cases, however, we have not discarded the
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best interest of the child standard, but rather have harmonized it with that fundamental
right.
We have created that harmony by recognizing a substantive presumption – a
presumption of law and fact – that it is in the best interest of children to remain in the care
and custody of their parents.  The parental right is not absolute, however.  The
presumption that protects it may be rebutted upon a showing either that the parent is
“unfit” or that “exceptional circumstances” exist which would make continued custody
with the parent detrimental to the best interest of the child.  In McDermott, the Court
made clear that, in a parent-third party custody dispute, the initial focus must be on
whether the parent is unfit or such exceptional circumstances exist, for, if one or the other
is not shown, the presumption applies and there is no need to inquire further as to where
the best interest of the child lies.  In Koshko, we extended that approach to parent-third
party visitation disputes as well.
Custody and visitation disputes, even between a parent and a third party, are on a
different plane than TPR proceedings.  As we pointed out in Shurupoff, “[w]e regard TPR
proceedings as unique – different in kind and not just in degree.”  Shurupoff, 372 Md. at
657, 814 A.2d at 554.  That, we said, is true for two reasons.  First, a TPR judgment does
not just allocate access to a child but constitutes a total rescission of the legal relationship
between parent and child, and that rescission is generally final.  Unlike custody or
visitation orders, it is not subject to reconsideration merely upon a showing of changed
9 See Wash. Co. Dep’t Soc. Serv. v. Clark, 296 Md. 190, 198, 461 A.2d 1077, 1081 
(1983), (citing cases dating back to 1958 for the principle that “when the State seeks to
terminate parental rights without the consent of the parents, the matter should be
determined on the basis of what is in the best interests of the child”); In re Adoption No.
10941, 335 Md. 99, 113, 642 A.2d 201, 208 (1994) (“We have made clear, however, that
the controlling factor in adoption and custody cases is not the natural parent’s interest in
raising the child, but rather what best serves the interest of the child”); In re
Adoption/Guardianship No. 3598, 347 Md. 295, 301, 701 A.2d 110, 113 (1997) (“[T]he
best interest of the child standard continues to be the uncompromising standard in all
adoption proceedings . . . .”).  Although those cases were decided before Troxel v.
Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S. Ct. 2054, 147 L. Ed.2d 49 (2000), we have continued to
view the best interest of the child as a paramount consideration.  See In re Mark M., 365
Md. 687, 705-06, 782 A.2d 332, 342-43 (2001); In re Yve S, 373 Md. 551, 570-71, 819
A.2d 1030, 1041-42 (2003); In re Billy W., 386 Md. 675, 684, 874 A.2d 423, 429 (2005)
(“the best interests of the child may take precedence over the parent’s liberty interest in
the course of a custody, visitation, or adoption dispute”).
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circumstances on the parent’s part.  Second, in custody and visitation cases the State is
essentially neutral, providing only a judicial forum for resolution of the dispute between
two private parties.  In TPR cases, the State is a moving party, acting in its capacity as
parens patriae.  It is seeking to terminate the existing parental relationship and transfer to
itself, hopefully for re-transfer to an adoptive family, the parental rights that emanate
from that relationship.
Nonetheless, our case law has been clear and consistent, that, even in contested
adoption and TPR cases (and in permanency plan proceedings that may inevitably lead to
a TPR case), where the fundamental right of parents to raise their children stands in the
starkest contrast to the State’s effort to protect those children from unacceptable neglect
or abuse, the best interest of the child remains the ultimate governing standard.9   Most
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recently, in In re Karl H., 394 Md. 402, 416, 906 A.2d 898, 906 (2006), involving an
attack on a change in a permanency plan from reunification to reunification and adoption,
we noted:
“A State’s role in a child’s care and protection should take on
utmost importance, while a parent’s right may not be absolute. 
A parent’s rights may be diminished, [‘w]hen there is a
conflict between the rights of the parents or legal guardian
and those of the child, the child’s best interest shall take
precedence.’ COMAR 07.02.11.07(A).”
All of those cases recognize and give full appropriate weight to the fundamental
right of the parents, as indeed they must, but they all recognize as well that the right of the
parents is not absolute and that it must be balanced against the fundamental right and
responsibility of the State to protect children, who cannot protect themselves, from abuse
and neglect.  The point was well made in In re Mark M., supra, 365 Md. at 705-06, 782
A.2d at 343, and confirmed in In re Yve S., supra, 373 Md. at 570, 819 A.2d at 1041:
“That fundamental interest, however, is not absolute and does
not exclude other important considerations.  Pursuant to the
doctrine of parens patriae, the State of Maryland has an
interest in caring for those, such as minors, who cannot care
for themselves.  We have held that ‘the best interests of the
child may take precedence over the parent’s liberty interest in
the course of a custody, visitation, or adoption dispute.’ . . . .
As we stated in In re Adoption/Guardianship No. A91-71A,
334 Md. 538, 640 A.2d 1085 (1994), the child’s welfare is ‘a
consideration that is of “transcendent importance”’ when the
child might otherwise be in jeopardy.”
In light of that well-established case law, it is not surprising that the General
Assembly, in enacting former FL § 5-313 and current FL § 5-323, has maintained the best
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interest of the child standard as the overriding statutory criterion in TPR cases.  There are,
however, three critical elements in the balance that serve to give heightened protection to
parental rights in the TPR context.  First and foremost, is the implicit substantive
presumption that the interest of the child is best served by maintaining the parental
relationship, a presumption that may be rebutted only by a showing that the parent is
either unfit or that exceptional circumstances exist that would make the continued
relationship detrimental to the child’s best interest.  That presumption, which emanates
from parent-third party custody disputes, is not expressly articulated in the statute and, for
that reason, is usually not mentioned when discussing the various statutory factors, but it
may be necessary as a Constitutional matter and, even if not, it is implicit from the
statutory scheme.  The notions of “unfitness” and “exceptional circumstances” have a
different connotation in TPR cases than they do in custody and visitation disputes,
however.  In a custody case, unfitness means an unfitness to have custody of the child, not
an unfitness to remain the child’s parent; exceptional circumstances are those that would
make parental custody detrimental to the best interest of the child. 
The deficiencies that may properly lead to a finding of unfitness or exceptional
circumstances in a custody case will not necessarily suffice to justify a TPR judgment. 
For one thing, those deficiencies may be temporary and correctable – sufficiently severe
to warrant denying custody or visitation at a particular point in time, but with the
understanding that the custody or visitation decision is subject to reconsideration upon a
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showing of changed circumstances.  As noted, however, a judgment terminating parental
rights, once enrolled, is not subject to discretionary reconsideration based merely on the
parent’s changed circumstances.  See, however, FL §§ 5-326 and 5-327, permitting
modification or rescission of a guardianship order under certain limited circumstances.
To justify a TPR judgment, therefore, the focus must be on the continued parental
relationship, not custody.  The facts must demonstrate an unfitness to have a continued
parental relationship with the child, or exceptional circumstances that would make a
continued parental relationship detrimental to the best interest of the child.  The terms are
the same, but their meaning and what must be shown are quite different.
The second element that serves to protect the parental relationship is that, in a TPR
case, the kind of unfitness or exceptional circumstances necessary to rebut the substantive
presumption must be established by clear and convincing evidence, not by the mere
preponderance standard that applies in custody cases.  The State must overcome a much
higher substantive burden by a higher standard of proof.
Third, and of critical significance, the Legislature has carefully circumscribed the
near-boundless discretion that courts have in ordinary custody cases to determine what is
in the child’s best interest.  It has set forth criteria to guide and limit the court in
determining the child’s best interest – the factors formerly enumerated in FL § 5-313(c)
and (d) and now stated in FL § 5-323.  Those factors, though couched as considerations in
determining whether termination is in the child’s best interest, serve also as criteria for
10 FL § 5-525(c)(2), which is part of the statute dealing with out-of-home
placement and foster care, expressly provides that a child may not be committed to the
custody or guardianship of DSS and placed in an out-of-home placement “solely because
the child’s parent or guardian lacks shelter or solely because the child’s parents are
financially unable to provide treatment or care for a child with a developmental disability
or mental illness.”
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determining the kinds of exceptional circumstances that would suffice to rebut the
presumption favoring a continued parental relationship and justify termination of that
relationship.  
We agree with Ms. F. that poverty, of itself, can never justify the termination of
parental rights.  The fundamental right of parents to raise their children is in no way
dependent on their affluence and therefore is not diminished by their lack thereof.  Nor
will homelessness, alone, or physical, mental, or emotional disability, alone, justify such
termination.  That is not what the statute permits, however.10  What the statute
appropriately looks to is whether the parent is, or within a reasonable time will be, able to
care for the child in a way that does not endanger the child’s welfare.  As former FL § 5-
313(c)(1) and current § 5-323(d) make clear, primary consideration must be given to “the
safety and health of the child.”  
The statute does not permit the State to leave parents in need adrift and then take
away their children.  The court is required to consider the timeliness, nature, and extent of
the services offered by DSS or other support agencies, the social service agreements
between DSS and the parents, the extent to which both parties have fulfilled their
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obligations under those agreements, and whether additional services would be likely to
bring about a sufficient and lasting parental adjustment that would allow the child to be
returned to the parent.  Implicit in that requirement is that a reasonable level of those
services, designed to address both the root causes and the effect of the problem, must be
offered – educational services, vocational training, assistance in finding suitable housing
and employment, teaching basic parental and daily living skills, therapy to deal with
illnesses, disorders, addictions, and other disabilities suffered by the parent or the child,
counseling designed to restore or strengthen bonding between parent and child, as
relevant.  Indeed, the requirement is more than implicit.  FL § 5-525(d), dealing with
foster care and out-of-home placement, explicitly requires DSS to make “reasonable
efforts” to “preserve and reunify families” and “to make it possible for a child to safely
return to the child’s home.”
There are some limits, however, to what the State is required to do.  The State is
not obliged to find employment for the parent, to find and pay for permanent and suitable
housing for the family, to bring the parent out of poverty, or to cure or ameliorate any
disability that prevents the parent from being able to care for the child.  It must provide
reasonable assistance in helping the parent to achieve those goals, but its duty to protect
the health and safety of the children is not lessened and cannot be cast aside if the parent,
despite that assistance, remains unable or unwilling to provide appropriate care. 
The State is not required to allow children to live permanently on the streets or in
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temporary shelters, to fend for themselves, to go regularly without proper nourishment, or
to grow up in permanent chaos and instability, bouncing from one foster home to another
until they reach eighteen and are pushed onto the streets as adults, because their parents,
even with reasonable assistance from DSS, continue to exhibit an inability or
unwillingness to provide minimally acceptable shelter, sustenance, and support for them. 
Based upon evidence of the effect that such circumstances have on the child, a court
could reasonably find that the child’s safety and health of the child is jeopardized.
Recognizing that children have a right to reasonable stability in their lives and that
permanent foster care is generally not a preferred option, the law requires, with
exceptions not applicable here, that DSS file a TPR petition if “the child has been in an
out-of-home placement for 15 of the most recent 22 months.”  See FL § 5-525.1(b).
The court’s role in TPR cases is to give the most careful consideration to the
relevant statutory factors, to make specific findings based on the evidence with respect to
each of them, and, mindful of the presumption favoring a continuation of the parental
relationship, determine expressly whether those findings suffice either to show an
unfitness on the part of the parent to remain in a parental relationship with the child or to
constitute an exceptional circumstance that would make a continuation of the parental
relationship detrimental to the best interest of the child, and, if so, how.  If the court does
that – articulates its conclusion as to the best interest of the child in that manner –  the
parental rights we have recognized and the statutory basis for terminating those rights are
11 As noted, Ms. F. cites a number of out-of-State TPR cases in support of her
theories.  None of them require a different view than that we have taken.  Three of the
cases are from New Jersey.  In Guardianship of K.L.F., 608 A.2d 1327 (N.J. 1992) and
Guardianship of J.C., 608 A.2d 1312 (N.J. 1992), the court construed the New Jersey
statute as requiring the State “to make an affirmative demonstration that the child’s best
interests will be ‘substantially prejudiced’ if parental rights are not terminated.”  K.L.F.,
608 A.2d at 1329.  The State’s argument in both cases was that the children would suffer
psychological harm if separated from their foster parents.  Although the court recognized
that serious and lasting emotional or psychological harm to children as the result of action
or inaction by the parents can constitute injury sufficient to justify termination of parental
rights, it found insufficient evidence in the respective records to support such a finding.  
In Guardianship of J.C., the court remanded the case for further proceedings on that
issue.  Matter of Baby M., 537 A.2d 1227 (N.J. 1988) involved an action by the natural
parents of Baby M. to terminate any parental rights possessed by a woman who acted as a
surrogate mother.  Massachusetts has adopted the view, as a matter of its own State law,
that the State may not attempt to force the breakup of a natural family “without an
affirmative showing of parental unfitness,” but it has defined unfitness in terms of
whether “returning the child to the natural parents would be seriously detrimental to the
welfare of the child.”  Petition of Department of Public Welfare to Dispense with Consent
to Adoption, 421 N.E.2d 28, 37 (Mass. 1981), quoting in part from Custody of a Minor
(1), 389 N.E.2d 68 (Mass. 1979) and Bezio v. Patenaude, 410 N.E.2d 1208 (Mass. 1980).  
That is not substantially different from the conclusions we reach here.  An Alabama case
cited by Ms. F., Ex parte T.V., has yet to be released for publication.
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in proper and harmonious balance.11
This Case
Apart from her attack on the structure of the statute, Ms. F.’s principal complaint is
that DSS did not provide adequate services to her.  She complains that she was “unable to
secure housing without assistance” and that DSS “did not provide her with housing
assistance.”  It is true that she was unable to secure housing – at least housing adequate
for her and the children.  It is not true that DSS failed to provide her with assistance.  The
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record shows, and the court properly found, that she received substantial help from DSS
in attempting to locate suitable housing.  
The basic problem seemed to be that, because of her sporadic employment, much
of it part-time, at entry-level wages, Ms. F. was unable to afford an apartment large
enough to accommodate her and the children unless (1) she lived with her mother, or (2)
she was able to qualify for Government housing assistance and find an apartment either in
a public housing project or that accepted housing assistance tenants.  DSS quite properly
declined to regard the mother, in light of her drug-dealing history, which on one or more
occasions caused Ms. F. and the children to be evicted, as an acceptable resource for the
children.  The drug-dealing evictions apparently made Ms. F. ineligible for at least some
government housing assistance, and, to the extent she was eligible for Section 8 voucher
assistance, as she claimed, there were no apartments available.  The record shows that
DSS provided referrals and transportation to local housing agencies and helped her
prepare applications, but it obviously had no authority to change the rules applicable to
such units or to make a local public housing agency accept Ms. F. as a tenant or provide
Section 8 assistance when there were other families ahead of her on the waiting list.   Ms.
F. has not indicated with any particularity what more DSS was required to do or, indeed,
could reasonably have done.
Ms. F. also complains that DSS refused to return the children to her,
notwithstanding her lack of suitable housing and stable employment, and then made a
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point of the diminished contact and bonding between her and the children.  With the
children having been found CINA and placed in the custody of DSS due to neglect arising
from lack of housing, DSS was not obliged to return the children to Ms. F. when she still
had no adequate housing and, in the view of DSS, the conditions that caused the children
to be CINA had not been alleviated.  Ms. F. did have and, for the most part, did exercise
weekly visitation with the children.  Access to them was never denied.
Notwithstanding our rejection of Ms. F.’s principal complaints, we shall direct that
the judgments of the Circuit Court be vacated and that the cases be remanded for further
proceedings, for two reasons.  The first is a concern over some of the court’s findings, at
least as articulated.  As noted, FL § 5-313(c) required that the court give primary
consideration to the safety and health of the children.  The court seemed to resolve that
factor by noting that the children had “special needs” – health and safety needs – which
“are better served by granting the Department the guardianship.”  The court did not
identify those needs but simply adopted counsel’s argument that the children’s safety
“required that they be given a chance for an opportunity to have all those services that
they need that the Department can . . . provide if I grant the guardianship.”  The court did
not indicate what services DSS could provide if guardianship was granted that it could
not provide otherwise.  Whatever the court had in mind, that is not a clear or sufficient
explanation of why the safety and health of the children required termination of Ms. F.’s
parental rights.  Even Dr. Munson’s opinion that a joint placement of Rashawn and
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Tyrese was not appropriate would not suffice to establish that a continuation of the
parental relationship would be detrimental to the health or safety of the children.
One of the considerations in former § 5-313(c) is the children’s “feelings toward
and emotional ties with the [children’s] natural parents.”  As to that, all the court could
find is that it was “not sure” Rashawn and Tyrese had much attachment left to Ms. F. 
Given the State’s burden to establish by clear and convincing evidence Ms. F.’s unfitness
or exceptional circumstances that would make continuation of the parental relationship
detrimental or the children’s best interest, that is not a sufficient finding, to be “not sure.”
The court, as noted, complimented Ms. F. on her effort to maintain contact with
the children but made no finding as to the adequacy of that effort.  Although concluding
that Ms. F. had done “a pretty good job” of maintaining communication with DSS, it
found that the effort was not sufficient to “guarantee the safety and health of the
children.”  The court did not explain the connection between any lack of communication,
to the extent there was any such lack, and the safety and health of the children.
Principally, the problem is that the court, understandably in light of the statutory
language and not having the benefit of the views we express in this Opinion, did not
relate the findings it made with respect to the statutory factors to the presumption
favoring continuation of the parental relationship or to any exceptional circumstance that
would suffice to rebut that presumption.  That needs to be done.  On remand, the court
will have to make clear and specific findings with respect to each of the relevant statutory
12 We do not regard this Opinion as changing any substantive law.  By requiring
trial courts to relate their findings as to the statutory factors to the presumption favoring a
continuation of the parental relationship and to the two circumstances that would rebut
that presumption – parental unfitness or exceptional circumstances that would make
continuation of the parental relationship detrimental to the best interest of the child – the
Opinion clearly requires a somewhat different articulation of findings by the trial court
than had previously been regarded as permissible.  Accordingly, we intend that that aspect
of this Opinion be applied to the case at hand but otherwise prospectively only, and that it
not apply to cases in which, as of the date the mandate is issued, a final TPR judgment
has been entered by a Circuit Court and no timely appeal is pending from that judgment.
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factors and, to the extent that any amalgam of those findings leads to a conclusion that
exceptional circumstances exist sufficient to rebut the presumption favoring the parental
relationship, explain clearly how and why that is so.  We suggest that, since eighteen
months have elapsed since the May, 2006 hearing, the parties be given the opportunity to
offer evidence of what has occurred in the meantime and the current status of Ms. F. and
the children.12
JUDGMENT OF COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS
REVERSED; CASE REMANDED TO THAT COURT
WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO VACATE JUDGMENTS OF
CIRCUIT COURT FOR FREDERICK COUNTY AND
REMAND TO THAT COURT FOR FURTHER
PROCEEDINGS IN CONFORMANCE WITH THIS
OPINION; COSTS IN THIS COURT AND IN COURT OF
SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY RESPONDENT.
Circuit Court for Frede rick County
Case Nos.  10-Z-05-03248 & 10-Z-05-030249
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF
MARYLAND
No. 7
September Term, 2007
In Re: Adoption/Guardianship of:
Rashawn H. and Tyrese H.
Bell, C. J.
Raker
Harrell
Battaglia
Greene
Wilner, Alan M.
(Retired, specially assigned)
Cathell, Dale R.
(Retired, specially assigned),
JJ.
Concurring opinion by Cathell, J.,
which Bell, C.J. joins.
Filed: December 11, 2007
-1-
I concur in the judgment.  I write to make clear my position.  As I read the majority’s
opinion, it incorporates that either a finding of unfitness or exceptional circumstances must
be found after the statutory provisions are addressed in order for parental rights to be
terminated under the statute.  I have a strong belief that the Constitutions of the United
States and Maryland are paramount to any statute that may be enacted.  In my view, the
fundamental constitutional right of parents to raise their children is to be addressed normally
by an initial finding of either parental unfitness or extraordinary circumstances.  Before a
trial court addresses the statutory factors it should address the unfitness/extraordinary factors
prior to considering elements in the statute.  In simplified form, I believe that the majority
has the cart before the horse, but, nonetheless, has arrived at the right destination, albeit in
reverse.  Chief Judge Bell joins in the concurrence.