Title: In re Richard M.

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2017 ME 211 
Docket: 
And-17-244 
Submitted 
On Briefs: October 24, 2017 
Decided: 
October 31, 2017 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE RICHARD M. 
 
 
PER CURIAM 
[¶1]  The mother and father of Richard M. appeal from the District 
Court’s (Lewiston, Dow, J.) judgment terminating their parental rights to their 
son, pursuant to 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(A)(1)(a), (B)(2)(b)(i)-(ii), (iv) (2016).  
The parents challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the court’s 
findings on parental unfitness and its discretionary finding that termination is 
in their son’s best interest.  Contrary to the parents’ contentions, competent 
record evidence supports the court’s findings and its discretionary 
determination; therefore, we affirm. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  The court found that, despite the parents having made marginal 
progress toward reunification, they have failed to take responsibility for their 
son; they are unwilling or unable to protect him from jeopardy within a time 
reasonably calculated to meet his needs; they have failed to make a good faith 
 
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effort toward reunification; and termination of their parental rights is in the 
child’s best interest.1  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(B)(2)(b)(i)-(ii), (iv); In re Alana S., 
2002 ME 126, ¶¶ 13, 21-23, 802 A.2d 976.  After over a year, the parents’ 
minimal progress toward reunification was totally inadequate to address the 
jeopardy facing the child were he to return to their care.  The court based this 
determination on the following findings of fact: 
[The father] has a history of violence and mental health 
concerns that present a risk to his son. . . .  There are concerns 
about sexually deviant behavior over a period of years by [the 
father].  [The father’s] continued substance abuse presents a risk 
of harm to his child.  
 
. . . .  
 
[The father] has been very inconsistent in visiting his child 
[and] has missed visits for reasons the court finds utterly 
inadequate justification for missing visits. . . .  [The majority of the 
father’s] intellectual abilities were in the borderline range [and] 
make it likely that [he] is likely to need significant support in 
order to meet a child’s daily living needs.   
 
. . . .   
 
[The father] has also failed to attend random drug 
screenings, failed to engage in mental health counseling, failed to 
consult with a psychiatrist. . . .  All the while he has maintained an 
attitude that there is nothing about him that needs fixing or 
changing.   
 
                                         
1  At the time of the termination hearing, the child had been in foster care for over a year. 
 
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[The mother] has ongoing mental health issues that pose a 
risk to her consistent parenting of the baby.  [She] has a history of 
low intellectual functioning that has impaired her parenting of 
older children and presents a risk for this baby. . . .  [She] 
consented to [a] petition to terminate her rights regarding [her 
older son] . . . .  
 
. . . [The mother] went along while [the father] stayed in the 
house night after night in violation of the [initial] safety plan.  She 
stuck with him as he called out of visits with the child and blew off 
his counseling. . . .  She has consistently chosen [the father] over 
the child.  [The mother] has also failed, independently of [the 
father], to make progress necessary to alleviate jeopardy and take 
responsibility for the child.  She failed to complete drug screens.  
She failed to be in individual counseling for much of the duration 
of the case.   
 
II.  DISCUSSION 
 
[¶3]  Competent record evidence supports each of the three bases for 
termination found by the court and its determination of the child’s best 
interest.  We review the court’s findings on parental unfitness for clear error 
and its conclusion that termination is in the child’s best interest for an abuse 
of discretion.  See In re Logan M., 2017 ME 23, ¶¶ 3, 5, 155 A.3d 430.  The 
court rationally found that the parents’ deficits make serious harm to their 
son highly probable and that termination of their parental rights is in his best 
interest. 
 
[¶4]  The mother and father, relying on In re Hope H., 541 A.2d 165, 
166-67 (Me. 1988), argue that the court failed to properly link their parenting 
 
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deficiencies to specific risks of harm to their son.  However, the parents’ 
reliance on In re Hope H. is misplaced because here the court drew numerous 
connections between their parenting deficiencies and the attendant risks to 
their son’s well-being.  Cf. Id.; see In re Sarah C., 2004 ME 152, ¶ 13, 
864 A.2d 162. 
 
[¶5]  In addition, the lack of a sexual abuse conviction on the father’s 
record and the legal status of recreational marijuana—which the parents 
suggest are inoculants for some of their deficiencies—are irrelevant to a 
court’s inquiry into the jeopardy that these behaviors pose to a child.  
See In re Serena C., 650 A.2d 1343, 1345 (Me. 1994); In re Jesse B., 2017 ME 90, 
¶¶ 6-8, 160 A.3d 1187.  The mother and father have refused to acknowledge 
the risks to their son that stem from allegations of the father’s sexually 
deviant behavior and their continued substance abuse.  Given the support of 
competent evidence in the record for all of the court’s findings, the court did 
not err in its determination of unfitness nor did it err or abuse its discretion in 
determining that termination of the mother’s and father’s parental rights, with 
a permanency plan of adoption, is in the child’s best interest.  
See In re Logan M., 2017 ME 23, ¶¶ 3, 5, 155 A.3d 430. 
 
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The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lorne Fairbanks, Esq., Lewiston, for appellant mother 
 
Richard Charest, Esq., Lewiston, 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 
 
 
Lewiston District Court docket number PC-2015-60 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY