Title: In re Children of Shannevia Y.

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
 2023 ME 76 
Docket: 
Ken-23-179 
Submitted 
On Briefs:  October 18, 2023 
Decided: 
 December 19, 2023 
 
Panel: 
 STANFILL, C.J., and MEAD, JABAR, HORTON, CONNORS, LAWRENCE, and DOUGLAS, JJ. 
 
 
IN RE CHILDREN OF SHANNEVIA Y. 
 
 
STANFILL, C.J. 
[¶1]  The mother of two children appeals from a judgment of the 
District Court (Waterville, Dow, J.) terminating her parental rights to the 
children, arguing that she was deprived of effective assistance of counsel during 
the termination proceedings.  We affirm the judgment. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  In May and June 2021, the Department of Health and 
Human Services petitioned for child protection and preliminary protection 
orders on behalf of the children.1  The court (Benson, J.) issued preliminary 
protection orders temporarily placing the children in the Department’s 
custody.   
 
1  The children have different fathers, resulting in separate cases which were consolidated for the 
termination hearing and this appeal.  Both fathers’ parental rights have been terminated, and neither 
has appealed. 
 
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[¶3]  In September 2021, the court (Dow, J.) entered a jeopardy order by 
agreement, and the children remained in the Department’s custody.  The court 
found that the children would be in jeopardy in the mother’s care based on the 
mother’s “ongoing alcohol abuse and unsafe behavior,” including her three 
recent arrests for alcohol-related issues; positive alcohol tests during the 
pendency of the case; and decision to permit her boyfriend, a convicted sex 
offender, to care for the children without supervision.  Between January 2022 
and September 2022, the court issued three judicial review orders in which it 
ordered continued custody with the Department.  The court found, inter alia, 
that although the mother had engaged in treatment for substance use disorder, 
she had “continue[d] to struggle with decision-making and having unsafe 
people around” the children and had been charged with multiple additional 
crimes.   
[¶4]  After the Department filed petitions for termination of the mother’s 
parental rights, the court held a termination hearing in March 2023.  At the 
outset of the hearing, the mother’s attorney successfully advocated for the 
mother’s mother (the grandmother) and the mother’s aunt (the great-aunt) to 
each be granted interested-person status.  The mother’s attorney presented the 
testimony of the mother, the grandmother, and the great-aunt, and argued that 
 
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the court should consider appointing the grandmother or the great-aunt as a 
permanency guardian or keep the record open for a short period of time so that 
background checks could be completed.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4038-C(1)(E) (2023).   
[¶5]  After the hearing, the court issued a judgment terminating the 
mother’s parental rights.  The court found the following facts, which are 
supported by competent evidence in the record.  See In re Children of Jason C., 
2020 ME 86, ¶ 7, 236 A.3d 438.  The mother “struggles with a chronic drinking 
problem.”  Although she has made some progress through treatment and has 
had appropriate visits with the children, she has been unable to make sufficient 
progress to justify requiring the children to wait any longer for a permanent 
resolution.  While the case was pending, she repeatedly tested positive for 
alcohol, maintained contact with dangerous people, formed new relationships 
with dangerous people, and committed various crimes, including OUI, violation 
of condition of release, operating after suspension for OUI, and operating after 
revocation.  At the time of the termination hearing, she was in prison, serving a 
sentence of nine months and one day.  She expected to be released from prison 
about three months after the hearing.  When the court issued its judgment, one 
child was five years old and the other was almost four years old, and both had 
been in the Department’s custody for a significant portion of their lives.  The 
 
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children have been in the same pre-adoptive resource placement since 
August 2021, and they are thriving.   
[¶6]  The court found that the mother is unable to take responsibility for 
the children or protect the children from jeopardy within a time reasonably 
calculated to meet their needs, and that termination of her parental rights is in 
the children’s best interests.  See 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(B)(2)(a), (b)(i)-(ii) 
(2023).   
 
[¶7]  Addressing the permanency plan, the court discussed the mother’s 
proposals that the grandmother or the great-aunt be appointed as a 
permanency guardian under 22 M.R.S. § 4038-C.  Relying on evidence in the 
record, the court found that although the grandmother was local, stable, and 
involved, she was “more loyal to [the mother] than to the children” and lacked 
the ability “to be objective about [the mother’s] alcohol abuse and her reckless 
choices.”  As to the great-aunt, the court found that she “lacks the close 
connection with the children that [the grandmother] has,” lives far away, and 
has exhibited “fealty” to the mother by deferring to the mother about whether 
to offer to care for the children.  The court also expressed concern that the 
great-aunt’s husband had “an open [child protection] case in Massachusetts 
involving the two children he has” with another person.  The court determined 
 
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that the record could not support the findings required to order a permanency 
guardianship, see 22 M.R.S. § 4038-C(1)(A)-(E), that neither proposed 
permanency guardianship would serve the children’s best interests, and that a 
plan of adoption is in the children’s best interests.   
[¶8]  The mother timely appeals.   
II.  DISCUSSION 
[¶9]  The mother argues only that she was denied effective assistance of 
counsel during the termination proceedings.2  We are not persuaded, and we 
reiterate that we review only the existing trial record when a parent raises such 
an argument for the first time in an appeal directly from a judgment terminating 
parental rights.  See, e.g., In re Aliyah M., 2016 ME 106, ¶¶ 7, 12, 144 A.3d 50. 
[¶10]  In In re M.P., we determined that a parent may raise a claim of 
ineffective assistance of counsel in a termination of parental rights proceeding 
either by motion pursuant to Maine Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) or on direct 
appeal from the judgment terminating parental rights.3  2015 ME 138, 
 
2  The mother does not challenge the court’s determinations that she is unfit to parent the children, 
that termination of her parental rights is in the children’s best interests, or that the record before the 
court did not support ordering a permanency guardianship rather than adoption.  Those 
determinations are supported by the evidence, and there was no abuse of discretion.  See 22 M.R.S. 
§§ 4038-C, 4055(1)(B)(2)(a), (b)(i)-(ii) (2023); In re Children of Jason C., 2020 ME 86, ¶ 7, 236 A.3d 
438; In re Child of Domenick B., 2018 ME 158, ¶¶ 8-10, 197 A.3d 1076. 
 
3  A motion under Rule 60(b) is necessary where the existing record is insufficient to permit 
resolution of the claim of ineffective assistance—where “the record does not illuminate the basis for 
 
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¶¶ 19-21, 126 A.3d 718.  A parent may raise a claim of ineffective assistance in 
a direct appeal without first having sought relief from the judgment in the trial 
court “if there are no new facts that the parent seeks to offer in support of the 
claim.”  Id. ¶ 19.  In other words, the direct-appeal route may be pursued when 
the existing trial record “is sufficiently well developed to permit a fair evaluation 
of [the] parent’s claim.”  Id.  We take this opportunity to reiterate that although 
we have required a parent asserting such a claim on direct appeal to “submit a 
signed and sworn affidavit,” id. ¶ 21, “the affidavit must not contain information 
that is extrinsic to the existing record,” In re Aliyah M., 2016 ME 106, ¶ 7, 
144 A.3d 50 (emphasis added); accord In re Children of Kacee S., 2021 ME 36, 
¶ 13, 253 A.3d 1063 (same); In re Tyrel L., 2017 ME 212, ¶ 8, 172 A.3d 916 
(same); In re M.P., 2015 ME 138, ¶ 21 n.5, 126 A.3d 718 (same).  
 
the challenged acts or omissions of the parent’s counsel.”  In re M.P., 2015 ME 138, ¶ 20, 126 A.3d 
718.  In those circumstances, 
 
the parent must promptly move for relief from a judgment terminating his or her 
parental rights pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6) to raise a claim of ineffective 
assistance of counsel.  The motion for relief from judgment should be filed no later 
than twenty-one days after the expiration of the period for appealing the underlying 
judgment. 
 
Id.  The mother did not file a Rule 60(b) motion.  Although she argues persuasively that compliance 
with the twenty-one-day time limit would have been nearly impossible given the time it takes to 
appoint new counsel, obtain the file and record, and review the case, we note that trial courts may 
accept later-filed Rule 60(b) motions raising ineffective assistance.  Id. ¶ 20 n.4; see In re Children of 
Kacee S., 2021 ME 36, ¶¶ 15, 17 & n.5, 253 A.3d 1063 (concluding that “extraordinary circumstances” 
existed to permit review of the denial of a late-filed Rule 60(b) motion alleging ineffective assistance, 
where the parent had “moved expeditiously” to “pursue her ineffectiveness claim with diligence and 
alacrity”). 
 
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[¶11]  As we have explained, we “review the existing record to determine 
whether the evidence in that record creates a prima facie showing of 
ineffectiveness.”  In re Aliyah M., 2016 ME 106, ¶ 12, 144 A.3d 50 (emphasis 
added).  “This consists of a prima facie case that (1) counsel’s performance was 
deficient, i.e., that there has been serious incompetency, inefficiency, or 
inattention of counsel amounting to performance below what might be 
expected from an ordinary fallible attorney; and (2) the deficient performance 
prejudiced the parent’s interests at stake in the termination proceeding to the 
extent that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result.”4  Id. 
(quotation marks omitted). 
[¶12]  Here, in connection with her direct appeal, the mother filed her 
own affidavit together with affidavits of the grandmother and the great-aunt.  
Cf. id. ¶ 8 (requiring a parent to submit affidavits of other persons with 
information that the parent wants the court to consider when pursuing an 
ineffectiveness claim by means of a Rule 60(b) motion).  All of the affidavits 
contain information extrinsic to the existing trial court record, which we will 
not consider.  See In re Tyrel L., 2017 ME 212, ¶¶ 6-11, 172 A.3d 916 (reiterating 
“the strict procedural requirements applicable to a direct appeal” raising 
 
4  We decline the mother’s invitation to abandon entirely the prejudice prong of the 
ineffective-assistance analysis.  See In re M.P., 2015 ME 138, ¶¶ 22-27, 126 A.3d 718. 
 
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ineffective assistance and explaining that including in an affidavit information 
extrinsic to the existing record was an independent “ground for denying the 
[parent] a remedy” (quotation marks omitted)).   
[¶13]  The existing trial court record does not generate a prima facie 
showing of ineffectiveness.  The mother concedes that “[t]he evidence of [her] 
unfitness was strong.”  She points out that her attorney did not cross-examine 
the Department’s witnesses’ testimony about undisputed historical events, but 
that did not render the attorney’s performance deficient.  Instead of dwelling 
on the mother’s acknowledged relapses and the consequences of those 
relapses, the attorney focused the mother’s testimony on her substantial efforts 
to seek and engage in treatment, the insight she had gained, and her bond with 
and love for her children.  This was not an unreasonable trial strategy. 
 
[¶14]  With respect to the mother’s goal of a permanency guardianship 
with a family member if she could not reunite with the children, the record 
demonstrates that the mother’s attorney secured the grandmother’s and 
great-aunt’s attendance at the trial, advocated successfully for their status as 
interested persons, elicited testimony relevant to their suitability as guardians, 
and argued strenuously that appointing them would be in the children’s best 
 
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interests and would promote the legislative policy of maintaining family 
integrity.   
 
[¶15]  The relevant testimony—both from the grandmother and 
great-aunt and from the caseworkers who had interacted with them during the 
pendency of the case—supports the court’s findings that the grandmother and 
the great-aunt would not be suitable permanency guardians.  Nothing in the 
record suggests that the mother’s attorney failed to present other, 
contradictory evidence.  The record therefore does not generate a prima facie 
showing that the mother’s attorney’s performance was deficient or undermines 
confidence in the result.  See id. 
The entry is: 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Seth Berner, Esq., Portland, for appellant Mother 
 
Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General and Hunter C. Umphrey, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office 
of the Attorney General, Bangor, for appellee Department of Health and Human 
Services 
 
 
Waterville District Court docket numbers PC-2021-23 and PC-2021-24 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY