Title: In re Alijah K.

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2016 ME 137 
Docket: 
Cum-15-319 
Argued: 
April 6, 2016 
Decided: 
August 30, 2016 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE ALIJAH K. 
 
 
GORMAN, J. 
[¶1]  The father of Alijah K. appeals from a judgment of the District 
Court (Portland, Powers, J.) terminating his parental rights to the child 
pursuant to 22 M.R.S. § 4055 (2015).1  The father argues that the court 
impermissibly relied on the fact of his incarceration to find that he is unfit to 
parent Alijah.  We disagree, and affirm the judgment. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
 
[¶2]  The Department of Health and Human Services instituted this child 
protection matter on December 18, 2013, roughly one month after the child’s 
birth, and while the child was in only his mother’s care.  In its child protection 
petition and accompanying request for a preliminary protection order, the 
Department alleged that the mother had reported to the Department that 
                                         
1  The mother consented to the termination of her parental rights, and is not a party to this 
appeal. 
 
2 
“[the father] has left the state of Maine after being involved in legal trouble 
and she believes [he is] in Philadelphia.  He has had no contact or involvement 
with Alijah.”  The court (Kelly, J.) entered a preliminary protection order 
placing Alijah in Department custody that day. 
 
[¶3]  The father was finally located and served at a prison in 
Pennsylvania in July of 2014.2  In December of 2014, the court (Powers, J.) 
entered a jeopardy order with the father’s agreement based on the following 
facts: “The father has never met Alijah and is currently incarcerated in 
Pennsylvania for the possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.  His release 
date ranges from September 12, 2016 to March 12, 2019.”  See 22 M.R.S. 
§ 4035 (2015).  The father also agreed in the jeopardy order that, based on his 
lengthy incarceration, the Department could be relieved of its obligation to 
provide him with rehabilitation and reunification services.  See 22 M.R.S. 
§ 4041 (2015).   
 
[¶4]  On March 6, 2015, the Department filed a petition to terminate 
both parents’ rights.  The court conducted a hearing on the petition on June 9, 
2015; the father participated via telephone from Pennsylvania, and his 
                                         
2  Meanwhile, the case underwent summary preliminary and jeopardy proceedings as to the 
mother alone, while the guardian ad litem reported that the child thrived in foster care.  Once the 
father was located and served, genetic testing confirmed that the father is, in fact, the child’s 
biological father.  The court (Powers, J.) entered a paternity order to that effect in December of 
2014. 
 
3 
attorney was present in the courtroom for the hearing.  The father testified 
and his attorney cross-examined the Department’s witnesses.   
[¶5]  By judgment dated June 16, 2015, the trial court made the 
following findings, which are supported by competent evidence in the record.  
The father is currently incarcerated in state prison in Pennsylvania serving a 
sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm.  His earliest possible 
release date is September of 2016, although he could be in prison until 2019.  
The father also pleaded guilty to charges of criminal trespass and disorderly 
conduct for entering someone’s home in 2011 and for punching someone in 
2012.  He is the subject of a protection from abuse order obtained by a former 
girlfriend.   
[¶6]  The father has never met the child, who is now almost three years 
old.  Although, as the court found, the father “claims not to have known he was 
the father until late 2014 through genetic testing,” the father knew that the 
woman with whom he had had an intimate relationship was pregnant, and 
knew that she had given birth to a child.  He also knew that the child had been 
taken into custody months before the genetic testing was complete, as is 
established by the court’s finding that the father contacted the Department to 
inquire about the child as early as March of 2014.  The father has spoken with 
 
4 
the Department on only two occasions.  He has written to the child on only a 
handful of occasions, and only in response to letters from the foster parents.  
Further, although the father requested placement of the child with his own 
parents, none of his family members has agreed to take responsibility for the 
child.   
 
[¶7]  Based on these findings, the court terminated the father’s parental 
rights on grounds that the father is unwilling or unable to protect the child 
from jeopardy within a time reasonably calculated to meet the child’s needs, is 
unwilling or unable to take responsibility for the child within a time 
reasonably calculated to meet the child’s needs, and failed to make a good 
faith effort to rehabilitate and reunify with the child; the court also found that 
termination is in the best interest of the child.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2).  
The father appeals.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4006 (2015). 
II.  DISCUSSION 
[¶8]  The father asserts that the court impermissibly terminated his 
parental rights based only on the fact of his incarceration.  In support of his 
argument, the father relies on In re Cody T., 2009 ME 95, ¶ 28, 979 A.2d 81, for 
the proposition that a parent’s incarceration, by itself, does not provide a 
 
5 
sufficient ground for the termination of parental rights.  To guard against any 
over-reading of our existing case law, we discuss In re Cody T. in some detail. 
[¶9]  In re Cody T. involved a child who was born in Texas in 2004 and 
lived with both parents until the mother and father separated in 2005.  Id. ¶ 3.  
The mother moved the child to Maine in 2006 without the father’s knowledge.  
Id. ¶ 4.  Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services removed the child 
from the mother’s custody in 2007.  Id. ¶ 7.  The father, who was never served 
in hand3 with the petition for a child protection order, was incarcerated in 
Oklahoma at the time the child was removed from the mother’s custody.  Id. 
¶¶ 5, 9.   
[¶10]  The termination hearing ended less than one month before the 
father’s release date.  Id. ¶ 13.  The father’s sister and her husband, who lived 
in Texas, appeared at the hearing and offered themselves as a placement for 
the child.  Id. ¶¶ 13-14.  The trial court found, based on competent testimony, 
that  
had Cody remained in Texas in a location known to the father's 
relatives, the relatives would have facilitated his visiting with the 
father while the father was incarcerated.  However, because the 
mother had taken Cody from Texas and not advised the father or 
                                         
3  Although the mother represented that the father was incarcerated in Texas at the time, he was 
“served” by publication of a notice in a small Maine newspaper.  In re Cody T., 2009 ME 95, ¶¶ 7, 9, 
979 A.2d 81. 
 
6 
his family of the location, the father and his family had no 
opportunity for contact with Cody for more than two years after 
the time that he was taken from Texas. 
 
Id. ¶ 15.  The trial court acknowledged that the father was, “through no fault of 
his own, a stranger to his son” based on the mother’s actions in failing to 
inform the father of the child’s location, but nevertheless terminated the 
father’s parental rights based on his incarceration and also apparently placed 
the child with the paternal aunt in Texas.  Id. ¶¶ 18, 30 (quotation marks 
omitted).   
[¶11]  We vacated the court’s termination of the father’s parental rights, 
concluding that 
neither the court’s findings, nor the record upon which those 
findings are based, can support a determination, by clear and 
convincing evidence, that the father is an unfit parent or that, with 
support through the court-ordered kinship placement, the father, 
now released from incarceration, cannot provide a nurturing 
parental relationship with his child once the relationship with the 
child can be re-established.  Further, considering the recent 
significant change in the child's home life, there is no evidence 
that fostering a re-established relationship with his father would 
promote greater harm to Cody.  Accordingly, we must conclude 
that the court’s finding of parental unfitness with respect to the 
father, in this case, is not sufficiently supported by clear and 
convincing evidence in the record. 
 
Id. ¶ 31.   
 
7 
[¶12]  Our decision in In re Cody T. was based on many factors, including 
that the mother’s actions prevented the father from having contact or a 
relationship with his child, and indeed, denied the father any knowledge of his 
child’s whereabouts for almost two years; the lack of notice given to the father 
during the first year of child protection proceedings; the availability of family 
members who were ready, willing, and able to care for the child while the 
father was incarcerated, and who would have facilitated the father’s contact 
with and connection to the child; that the father was due to be released from 
prison only twenty-two days after the termination hearing was concluded; 
that as soon as the father became aware of the pending child protection case 
in Maine, he took steps to vacate the jeopardy order that had been issued 
without notice to him; and the court’s placement of the child with the father’s 
family.  Id. ¶¶ 3-31. 
 
[¶13]  We review In re Cody T. with an eye toward its unique facts and 
many nuances, and decline to adopt the blunt view that it stands for the 
proposition that a parent’s incarceration is irrelevant to a determination of 
parental unfitness.  By stating that incarceration alone cannot provide a basis 
for termination, see In re A.M., 2012 ME 118, ¶ 30, 55 A.3d 463; Adoption of 
Lily T., 2010 ME 58, ¶ 21, 997 A.2d 722; Adoption of Hali D., 2009 ME 70, ¶ 2, 
 
8 
974 A.2d 916; In re Daniel C., 480 A.2d 766, 768-69 (Me. 1984), we have 
apparently led the father—and perhaps others—to believe that parents who 
are incarcerated are held to a lesser standard than parents who are not 
incarcerated.   
[¶14]  Contrary to the father’s suggestion, neither In re Cody T. nor any 
other authority gives a parent a “pass” on parental responsibilities as a result 
of being incarcerated.  A parent who is unable to fulfill his parental 
responsibilities by virtue of being incarcerated is entitled to no more 
protection from the termination of his parental rights than a parent who is 
unable to fulfill his parental responsibilities as a result of other reasons.  
Whether because of mental illness, substance abuse, violence, incarceration, 
or some other reason, a parent who is unable to meet his child’s needs—now 
and for the foreseeable future—is an unfit parent whose parental rights are 
subject to termination.   
 
[¶15]  We review a trial court’s findings for clear error, and will vacate a 
court’s finding according to the clear error standard of review only if that 
finding is not supported by competent record evidence; “is based on a clear 
misapprehension by the trial court of the meaning of the evidence”; or “is so 
against the great preponderance of the believable evidence” that, based on 
 
9 
“the force and effect of the evidence, taken as a total entity,” the finding “does 
not represent the truth and right of the case.”  In re A.M., 2012 ME 118, ¶ 29, 
55 A.3d 463 (quotation marks omitted).  Here, unlike in In re Cody T., the court 
found, by clear and convincing evidence, that the father knew of but never 
made any effort to meet his child before he was incarcerated.  That finding is 
supported by the father’s testimony that he was in touch with the child’s 
mother throughout her pregnancy, and spoke with the mother on the day she 
gave birth to the child.  When asked what he and the mother had discussed, 
the father testified:  
My discussions with [the mother] was, you know, how she was 
doing, where she was at, if she needed any financial support, how 
my son was doing. . . .  I wanted to know how she was doing as far 
as her wellbeing because we were not together and I was so far 
away in Pennsylvania and she conveyed to me that, you know, she 
felt alone.  She felt like I had abandoned her and things along 
those lines.  
 
At the termination hearing, the Department established—and the father 
acknowledged—that Alijah had been in the State’s custody for all but one 
month of his life, the father could not care for—or even act as a resource for—
the child, and the father would be unable to do so for at least one more year 
after the termination hearing.  The father also could offer no friend or family 
 
10 
member who could care for or protect the child while the father remained 
incarcerated.   
[¶16]  We agree that a parent’s incarceration is but one factor to be 
considered by a court faced with a termination petition, but it is a factor—a 
factor that may, in some cases, lead a court to terminate that parent’s rights.  
Each case involving an incarcerated parent is different.  In each case, the court 
is required to consider the underlying parent-child relationship and the effect 
incarceration has had, is having, and will continue to have on that 
relationship.  As one commentator suggested nearly twenty years ago, 
In light of the psychological data and due process concerns, 
the most beneficial approach is one that analyzes the parent-child 
relationship as a whole.  Specifically, all states should provide a 
full adversarial hearing at which the parent is present and 
represented by counsel.  At the hearing, the court should consider 
several factors in assessing whether to terminate parental rights.  
Specifically, 
the 
court 
should 
examine 
the 
parent-child 
relationship before and after incarceration as well as the 
psychological impact of the parent's incarceration on the child.  
The court should also consider the parent’s ability to fulfill his or 
her responsibilities as a parent during incarceration.  While it is 
true that the fact of incarceration is an important factor to 
consider in termination proceedings, it should not be dispositive.  
States that terminate parental rights based on incarceration status 
may permanently sever the important, positive relationship that a 
parent and child share.  This decision would seem shortsighted in 
cases in which the parent will be incarcerated for a relatively 
short period of time or wherein the crime committed is not 
indicative of the prisoner's parenting skills.  Conversely, failure to 
undertake a full analysis of the parent-child relationship may 
 
11 
leave a child in a damaging, harmful relationship with a parent 
merely because the parent maintained minimal contacts or 
because the parent did not commit the "right" kind of crime to 
allow for termination. 
Steven Fleischer, Note, Termination of Parental Rights: An Additional Sentence 
for Incarcerated Parents, 29 Seton Hall L. Rev. 312, 314-15 (1998).   
[¶17]  We agree that courts should, whenever possible, preserve and 
strengthen families, even when—or perhaps especially when—those families 
are most in need of assistance.  Here, however, there simply was no “family” to 
preserve.   At the court’s direction, and with the father’s full support, all of the 
Department’s reunification efforts were directed toward the mother.  When 
those efforts failed, the child was left with no family. 
[¶18]  When, as here, the child was in the State’s custody for all but one 
month of his life; when the anticipated length of the parent’s incarceration 
would extend an additional year beyond the termination proceeding; when 
the location of the prison where the parent is housed precludes or severely 
restricts any opportunity for visits; when the parent has agreed to forego any 
State-directed attempts at creating a bond with his child; when all family 
members or friends identified as possible caretakers or guardians for the child 
have refused to take on the responsibility; and when there is not only no 
longstanding parent-child relationship but, in fact, the child has never even 
 
12 
met his incarcerated parent, the evidence supports the court’s findings that 
the father cannot protect his child from jeopardy or take responsibility for the 
child in a time reasonably calculated to meet the child’s needs, and therefore 
is unfit4 to parent the child.5 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On the briefs: 
 
Lauren Wille, Esq., DeGrinney Law Offices, 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 
 
E. James Burke, Esq., and Isabel Mullin, Stud. Atty., 
Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic’s Prisoner Assistance Clinic, 
                                         
4  The father also challenges the court’s finding of unfitness on the ground that he failed to make 
a good faith effort to rehabilitate and reunify with the child, as well as its finding that termination is 
in the child’s best interest.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(a), (b)(iv) (2015).  We discern no clear 
error in the court’s finding of this ground of parental unfitness, nor any clear error or abuse of 
discretion in the court’s determination that termination is in the child’s best interest, and we do not 
discuss them further.  See In re J.V., 2015 ME 163, ¶ 13, 129 A.3d 958. 
5  We note, also, that the constitutional preference for biological parents may be tested in coming 
years, as Maine and other states adopt some version of the Uniform Parentage Act.  This law 
recognizes—and emphasizes—that the relationships created between children and the nonrelated 
adults who care and provide for them may, in some cases, be stronger and more positive for the 
children than the relationships created by genetic bonds.  See 19-A M.R.S. §§ 1831-1938 (2015).  
The emphasis on biological family articulated in Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 758-59 (1982), 
may be abating given that families are no longer limited to one mother, one father, and the children 
they beget. 
 
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Portland, for amicus curiae Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic’s 
Prisoner Assistance Clinic 
 
Zachary Heiden, Esq., American Civil Liberties Union of 
Maine Foundation, Portland, Jamesa J. Drake, Esq., Drake 
Law LLC, Auburn, and Danylle Carson, Esq., Boothby Perry, 
LLC, Turner, for amicus curiae American Civil Liberties 
Union of Maine Foundation 
 
 
At oral argument: 
 
Lauren Wille, Esq., for appellant father 
 
Meghan Szylvian, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee Department 
of Health and Human Services 
 
 
 
Portland District Court docket number PC-2013-118 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY