Title: In re Child of Shayla S.

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2019 ME 68 
Docket: 
Han-18-451 
Submitted 
On Briefs: April 24, 2019 
Decided: 
May 9, 2019 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE CHILD OF SHAYLA S. 
 
 
PER CURIAM 
[¶1]  Shayla S. appeals from a judgment of the District Court 
(Ellsworth, Roberts, J.) terminating her parental rights to her child pursuant to 
22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(a), (b)(i)-(ii), (iv) (2018).  The mother contends that 
the standard of proof in termination of parental rights cases is constitutionally 
inadequate.  We affirm the judgment. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  The following facts are drawn from the court’s findings, which are 
supported by the evidence, and from the procedural record.  In re Children of 
Corey W., 2019 ME 4, ¶ 2, 199 A.3d 683.  On November 2, 2016, two days after 
the child was born, the Department of Health and Human Services filed a child 
protection petition and a request for a preliminary protection order.  See 
22 M.R.S. §§ 4032, 4034 (2018).  The petition alleged that the mother had a long 
history of serious mental health issues that had at times required 
 
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hospitalization, that she had not been receiving medications or mental health 
services to address her significant diagnoses, and that she had been involved 
with law enforcement on multiple occasions due to concerns about her being 
assaultive and about her mental health.  The court granted the request for a 
preliminary protection order.  On November 10, 2016, the court held a 
summary preliminary hearing.  At the hearing, the court entered an order 
continuing the placement of the child with the Department.  The court then held 
an uncontested jeopardy hearing as to the mother1 on February 27, 2017, and 
entered an order finding that the child was in jeopardy. 
[¶3]  On February 2, 2018, the Department filed a petition for termination 
of the mother’s parental rights.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4052 (2018).  The court held a 
hearing on the petition on August 29 and 31, 2018, and issued an order granting 
the Department’s petition on October 26, 2018.  See 22 M.R.S. §§ 4054, 4055 
(2018).  Based on the testimony presented at the hearing and other competent 
evidence in the record, the court found by clear and convincing evidence that 
the mother was unwilling or unable to protect the child from jeopardy and that 
those circumstances were unlikely to change within a time reasonably 
calculated to meet the child’s needs, that the mother was unwilling or unable to 
                                         
1  The father of the child has not yet been identified. 
 
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take responsibility for her child within a time reasonably calculated to meet the 
child’s needs, that the mother had failed to make a good faith effort to 
rehabilitate and reunify with the child, and that it was in the best interest of the 
child that the mother’s parental rights be terminated.  See id. 
§ 4055(1)(B)(2)(a), (b)(i)-(ii), (iv). 
[¶4]  The court based its decision on the following findings of fact, all of 
which are supported by competent evidence in the record. 
 
[The mother] has a history of impulsive and assaultive 
behaviors.  She made progress moderating her aggressive 
behaviors and learning to accept guidance and suggestions from 
providers.  Unfortunately, she failed to address her underlying 
history of trauma.  [The mother] has not demonstrated an ability to 
translate her work in therapy into behavioral change.  She refuses 
to consider guidance from those she perceives as a threat, including 
DHHS caseworkers and [the foster mother].  Her interactions with 
[the child]’s foster mother and DHHS caseworkers are continually 
conflictual.  Her decisions to drop out of medication management 
and post false allegations on social media demonstrate her 
continuing impulsive behavior. 
 
. . . . 
 
 
[The child] cannot wait any longer for her mother to begin to 
make the changes needed to meet her needs.  She has been in foster 
care for almost all of her 2 years of life.  She needs a permanent 
home. 
 
. . . .  
 
 
[The child] has settled into a comfortable routine at the 
[foster] home.  She has spent a significant portion of her life in their 
 
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care. . . . The Guardian ad litem supports termination of [the 
mother’s] parental rights and agrees that adoption is in [the child]’s 
best interest.   
 
[¶5]  Following the issuance of the judgment terminating her parental 
rights, the mother timely appealed.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4006 (2018); 
M.R. App. P. 2B(c)(1). 
II.  DISCUSSION 
 
[¶6]  The mother challenges the constitutional adequacy of the standard 
of proof in termination of parental rights cases.  She argues that due process 
requires that the Department prove parental unfitness beyond a reasonable 
doubt and that the statutory standard burden of proof of clear and convincing 
evidence, see 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2), is constitutionally insufficient.  “We 
review questions of law, including alleged constitutional violations and 
statutory interpretation, de novo.”  In re Robert S., 2009 ME 18, ¶ 12, 
966 A.2d 894.  We presume that Maine statutes are constitutional.  See 
Guardianship of Chamberlain, 2015 ME 76, ¶ 8, 118 A.3d 229. 
 
[¶7]  The Supreme Court of the United States has concluded that 
requiring proof by clear and convincing evidence in termination of parental 
rights proceedings satisfies the Constitution because it “adequately conveys to 
the factfinder the level of subjective certainty about [the] factual conclusions 
 
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necessary to satisfy due process.”  Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 769 (1982); 
see also Guardianship of Chamberlain, 2015 ME 76, ¶ 23, 118 A.3d 229.  In 
Santosky, the Court declined to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt in 
termination of parental rights cases because termination proceedings often 
require the factfinder “to decide issues difficult to prove to a level of absolute 
certainty.”  455 U.S. at 769.  The Court further held that “determination of the 
precise burden equal to or greater than [clear and convincing evidence] is a 
matter of state law properly left to state legislatures and state courts.”  Id. at 
769-70. 
[¶8]  We have since affirmed that the standard of proof of clear and 
convincing evidence is constitutionally sufficient in termination of parental 
rights cases, In re Crystal S., 483 A.2d 1210, 1210, 1213 (Me. 1984), and stated 
that “[t]he Maine Legislature appropriately adopted the clear and convincing 
evidence standard in the statute governing the termination of parental rights,”  
Guardianship of Chamberlain, 2015 ME 76, ¶ 23, 118 A.3d 229.  We reaffirm 
today that the standard of proof of clear and convincing evidence adequately 
protects a parent’s due process rights.  See Adoption of Isabelle T., 2017 ME 220, 
¶ 32, 175 A.3d 639 (stating that “due process requires that findings of unfitness 
be made by clear and convincing evidence”); Adoption of Tobias D., 2012 ME 45, 
 
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¶ 17, 40 A.3d 990 (“Through many years of interpretation, we have concluded 
that the procedures, burdens, and standards set out in section 4055 constitute 
the means by which the fundamental constitutional right to parent is 
safeguarded.”). 
 
[¶9]  “We will therefore affirm a judgment terminating parental rights if 
a review of the record demonstrates, inter alia, that the trial court rationally 
could have found clear and convincing evidence in that record to support the 
necessary factual findings as to the basis for termination provided in [section 
4055(1)(B)].”  In re H.C., 2013 ME 97, ¶ 11, 82 A.3d 80.  Even though the mother 
has not explicitly challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, we conclude that 
there is evidence in the record to support the court’s findings, by clear and 
convincing evidence, that at least one ground of unfitness exists, and that the 
court acted within its discretion in determining that termination is in the child’s 
best interest. 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Jeffrey C. Toothaker, Esq., Ellsworth, for appellant mother 
 
Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General, and Meghan Szylvian, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office 
of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee Department of Health and Human 
Services 
 
 
Ellsworth District Court docket number PC-2016-30 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY