Title: In re Child of Shem A.

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2020 ME 65 
Docket: 
Som-19-477 
Submitted 
On Briefs: May 4, 2020 
Decided: 
May 12, 2020 
 
Panel: 
MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HUMPHREY, HORTON, and CONNORS, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE CHILDREN OF SHEM A. 
 
 
PER CURIAM 
[¶1]  Shem A. and the mother of six children each appeal from a judgment 
of the District Court (Skowhegan, Benson, J.) terminating their parental rights 
to their children.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(a), (b)(i)-(ii), (iv) (2020).  Both 
parents argue that there is insufficient evidence to support the court’s findings, 
by clear and convincing evidence, of parental unfitness.  The father additionally 
challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the court’s determination 
that termination of his parental rights is in the best interests of the children.  
We affirm the judgment. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  In July 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services filed a 
petition for a child protection order and preliminary protection order against 
both parents as to their six children, who then ranged from two to twelve years 
old.  See 22 M.R.S. §§ 4032, 4034(1) (2020).  The Department alleged that it had 
 
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received reports of—and that individual Department employees had 
witnessed—severe neglect; a chronic lack of supervision; and unsanitary living 
conditions, such as rotting food and garbage scattered around the home, that 
placed the children at risk of serious harm.  The Department further alleged 
that the children had previously been removed from the parents’ custody in 
Illinois and Missouri for similar reasons.  The court (Dow, J.) entered a 
preliminary protection order the same day, placing the children in the 
Department’s custody.  22 M.R.S. § 4034(2) (2020).  Both parents waived their 
opportunity for a summary preliminary hearing.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4034(4) 
(2020). 
[¶3]  In October 2018, the court (Benson, J.) entered an agreed-to 
jeopardy order, see 22 M.R.S. § 4035 (2020), based on the parents’ “inability 
and unwillingness to provide adequate supervision to protect [the children] 
from threats of serious harm.”  The court’s jeopardy order noted, among other 
things, that “[a]ll the children have been found to be chronically unsupervised 
and [the three younger children] have been found alone in dangerous places 
on multiple occasions”—including “playing in the middle of the busy main 
road”—and that “[a]t the time of removal, the family home was extremely dirty 
 
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and unsafe.”  In April 2019, the Department petitioned to terminate both 
parents’ rights.  22 M.R.S. § 4052 (2020). 
[¶4]  The court held a three-day contested hearing on the termination 
petition in July and August 2019.  By order dated October 28, 2019, the court 
made the following findings of fact, which are supported by competent 
evidence in the record, by clear and convincing evidence.  See 22 M.R.S. 
§ 4055(1)(B)(2) (2020); In re Children of Benjamin W., 2019 ME 147, ¶ 5, 216 
A.3d 901. 
[T]he mother either does not understand the impact [of] the 
horrific living conditions of [the family’s] home in multiple states 
resulting in [the children’s] entry into foster care in three different 
states or refuses to acknowledge and address the problem.  The 
mother’s testimony highlights her complete lack of awareness of 
her children’s many needs. . . . 
 
. . . [T]he father lacks any accountability, understanding or 
willingness to address the identified issues, . . . continues to fail to 
make necessary behavioral changes to work towards reunification, 
and . . . is completely oblivious to the many needs of his own 
children because of his failures. 
 
. . . . 
 
. . . The parents failed to address the many safety concerns 
inside the home and spent a great deal of this case justifying the 
condition at the time of removal and . . . building a wholly 
ineffective 3-foot fence meant to prevent the children from 
escaping unsupervised. . . . 
 
. . . . 
 
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The Department’s repeated efforts to engage either parent in 
reunification and rehabilitation services have been met with 
resistance and delay on the [part] of the parents. . . .  [D]uring the 
13 month period that led up to the final day of [the termination] 
hearing, neither parent made any meaningful attempt to engage in 
the services offered by the Department.  The Court finds the 
parents’ asserted commitment disingenuous . . . . 
 
. . . . 
 
. . . After more than a year in foster care in the State of Maine, 
[and the parents’] minimal engagement in services with no 
measurable amount of progress towards alleviating the chronic 
issues of jeopardy found by this Court, the clock has run out and it 
is time for the children to have the permanency they deserve. 
 
[¶5]  Based on these findings, the court concluded that (1) both parents 
are unable to protect the children from jeopardy and those circumstances are 
unlikely to change within a time reasonably calculated to meet the children’s 
needs, (2) both parents have been unable to take responsibility for the children 
within a time reasonably calculated to meet their needs, (3) both parents have 
failed to make good faith efforts to rehabilitate and reunify with the children, 
and (4) termination of parental rights is in the best interests of the children.  
See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(a), (b)(i)-(ii), (iv). 
[¶6]  The parents each timely appeal.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4006 (2020); 
M.R. App. P. 2B(c)(1), 2C(c). 
 
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II.  DISCUSSION 
A. 
Unfitness Findings 
[¶7]  Notwithstanding both parents’ attempts to characterize their 
arguments as issues of due process and equal protection, they actually 
challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support the court’s findings of 
parental unfitness pursuant to 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(b).1  “We review the 
court’s factual findings of parental unfitness . . . for clear error . . . .”  In re Child 
of Christine M., 2018 ME 133, ¶ 6, 194 A.3d 390.  “When the burden of proof at 
trial is clear and convincing evidence, our review is to determine whether the 
fact-finder could reasonably have been persuaded that the required findings 
were proved to be highly probable.”  In re M.B., 2013 ME 46, ¶ 37, 65 A.3d 1260 
(quotation marks omitted). 
[¶8]  Contrary to the parents’ contentions, the court’s thorough factual 
findings are amply supported by the evidence.  On this record, it was entirely 
reasonable for the court to credit the mental health evaluator’s statements that 
the mother’s “responses to the current child protective case [were] laden with 
                                         
1  We reject the parents’ suggestions that the court improperly adopted the mental health 
evaluator’s conclusions and thereby violated their due process rights.  The court’s written decision 
evinces a thorough and rigorous application of its independent judgment to the entire body of 
evidence before it; indeed, the court went so far as to distinguish pointedly between the evaluator’s 
statements and the court’s own factual conclusions after hearing the parents’ testimony.  See In re 
Marpheen C., 2002 ME 170, ¶¶ 5-7, 812 A.2d 972. 
 
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deflection and distortion of facts as to the circumstances of . . . neglect and lack 
of supervision” and that the father “does not acknowledge [that he or the 
mother have] failed to protect or supervise their children safely” and “abdicates 
his parental responsibilities to [the mother or the] older children.”  It was 
similarly reasonable for the court to reject the parents’ counselor’s competing 
suggestion that, in the court’s words, “the biggest problem the parents grappled 
with was not having [the] children in their care.”  The court also had before it 
the guardian ad litem’s (GAL) testimony and several reports, which included 
statements that the parents “still do not seem to recognize that their actions 
have resulted in extreme hardship for their children,” and it heard testimony 
from the GAL in a previous child protective proceeding in Illinois regarding the 
parents’ chronic inability or unwillingness to make changes to provide the 
children with a safe environment. 
[¶9]  In sum, the court did not err in finding the mother and father unfit.  
See In re Child of Christine M., 2018 ME 133, ¶ 6, 194 A.3d 390; In re M.B., 2013 
ME 46, ¶ 37, 65 A.3d 1260. 
B. 
Best Interests of the Children 
 
[¶10]  The father additionally argues that the court erred in determining 
that termination of his parental rights is in the children’s best interests.  “We 
 
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review the court’s factual findings related to [a] child’s best interest for clear 
error, and its ultimate conclusion regarding the child’s best interest for an 
abuse of discretion . . . .”  In re Children of Christopher S., 2019 ME 31, ¶ 7, 203 
A.3d 808 (quotation marks omitted). 
 
[¶11]  Contrary to the father’s contentions, the court was presented with 
evidence regarding the best interest of each individual child, including 
testimony from the four older children’s counselors and the GAL’s reports that 
the children are “comfortable and well supported” in their current placement 
with a relative.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(2) (2020).  The court’s best interests 
findings were also supported by the evidence bearing on the father’s parental 
unfitness, as discussed above.  See In re Children of Benjamin W., 2019 ME 147, 
¶ 15, 216 A.3d 901.  The court therefore did not abuse its discretion in 
determining that termination of the father’s parental rights is in the children’s 
best interests.  See id. ¶ 14. 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Amy McNally, Esq., Woodman Edmands Danylik Austin Smith & Jacques, P.A., 
Biddeford, for appellant Father 
 
Ezra A.R. Willey, Esq., Willey Law Offices, Bangor, for appellant Mother 
 
Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General, and Hunter C. Umphrey, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office 
of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee Department of Health and Human 
Services 
 
 
Skowhegan District Court docket number PC-2018-51 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY