Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/377/377mass876.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 14:34:12+00:00

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CUSTODY OF A MINOR (NO. 1).
CIVIL ACTION commenced in the Municipal Court of the Dorchester District on January 12, 1976.
On appeal the case was heard by Poitrast, J., a judge of the Boston Juvenile Court.
leo M. Lazo for the defendant.
E. Michael Sloman, Assistant Attorney General, for the plaintiff.
Jinanne S. J. Elder & John Reinstein for the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.
Children's Services of the Department of Public Welfare (department), petitioned the Municipal Court of the Dorchester District, pursuant to G. L. c. 119, Section 24, for a determination that the respondent-mother's newly-born son was a child in need of care and protection. After a continuance of two and one-half months, and following a hearing, the judge granted the department's petition and awarded it custody of the child. The mother exercised her right to trial de novo, G. L. c. 119, Section 27, see Robinson v. Commonwealth, 242 Mass. 401 (1922), and her appeal was heard by a judge of the Boston Juvenile Court. Focusing chiefly on the mother's parental fitness as evidenced by her treatment of her other children, the judge entered findings of fact and affirmed the award of custody to the department. The mother appealed to the Appeals Court and we transferred the case to this court on our own motion.
Two arguments are raised on appeal by the child's mother. It is first claimed that the court lacked sufficient basis to justify removal of a child from its natural parent because there were no findings that the welfare of the child was endangered at the time of trial. It is also averred, for the first time ever in this court, that the judge failed to apply the proper standard of proof -- "clear and convincing evidence" -- in determining the necessity of awarding custody to the department.
standard has been met. Accordingly, we affirm his custody award.
Since there is no dispute as to their accuracy, we accept the findings of the judge. The child involved in these proceedings was born in Boston on January 9, 1976, to a mother having a substantial history of child neglect. Until 1972, the mother was the caretaker of her own three children, who were born between 1960 and 1963, and of two other children, a niece and nephew of her husband, who joined the family between 1964 and 1968. As early as 1965 there were reports that some of the children in the mother's care had been truant from school. These reports continued intermittently, and in May and June, 1970, it was reported that the children were absent from school as much as 50% of the time.
In March, 1972, following reports of chronic truancy regarding the children and of strong odors of urine emanating from the mother's apartment, the department dispatched a social worker, Jeanne Yozell (Yozell), to visit the mother's apartment on Geneva Avenue in Dorchester. See G. L. c. 119, Section 51A. On her arrival Yozell found the mother, her children, and eight dogs in a cold, cluttered apartment. [Note 1] The apartment was without heat, electricity, hot water, or gas. It was littered with dog feces and smelling of urine. The children were ill-clothed and dirty, and had difficulty with bowel and bladder control. Two of the children were found locked in a room. The mother explained that the condition of the apartment was attributable, in part, to her being deeply in debt, with past due obligations for rent and utilities. The reason for the children's truancy, she stated, was her inability to provide them sufficient clothing, coupled with the fact that the children simply did not like school.
homes for all the children but one, Leroy, who was allowed to return to his mother because he refused to remain in the foster home provided by the department. Shortly after this event, the mother relocated in Jamaica Plain in an apartment subsequently found to be without heat and littered with glass from broken windows. During the next eight months, attempts to provide financial, housing, and medical care counseling to the mother were frustrated by the mother's failure to keep most of her pre-arranged appointments with Yozell.
In November, 1972, Mary Ann Dougherty (Dougherty), was assigned to replace Yozell as the department's contact with the family. By then, the children had all been placed at St. Vincent's Home in Fall river, where it was found that none of the children was toilet trained and all were behind in schooling. Since Leroy was still at home, but not attending school, Dougherty attempted to establish a relationship with the mother. As before, the home was found to be generally messy and without food or utility service. Attempts to work with the mother became futile because the mother was again inconsistent in keeping the necessary appointments. Meanwhile, Leroy was professionally examined and determined to be suffering from academic neglect and in need of psychiatric counseling.
the mother, but under the supervision of a homemaker and a public health nurse supplied by the department.
On the basis of these facts, the judge concluded that the mother "is a deprived, immature, impulsive, inconsistent, disorganized person whose inadequacies as a parent have deprived her children in the past of even basic physical needs of food, clothing and shelter .... [I]f the Court decided to return the infant to [the mother] even temporarily, she would be in need of massive help, including around-the-clock homemaker service, which homemaker would be invested with the primary responsibility for the children." Believing the mother therefore incompetent to provide proper care for the child, the judge ordered him permanently committed to the department.
1. We turn first to the mother's contention that the judge's findings were inadequate to justify granting custody of the child to the department. The mother maintains that under G. L. c. 119, Section 24, and the United States Constitution, the judge is required to make a finding of parental unfitness at the time of trial, a finding she asserts is absent from the record, as a prerequisite to an order depriving a parent of custody of his or her child. We agree that such a finding is required, but we think the judge's findings represent an unequivocal determination of current, as well as past, parental incapacity.
Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923). [Note 3] Yet, rights evolving from one's interest in family integrity are not absolute. Custody of a Minor, supra. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). Indeed, there can be scarce doubt that the State may properly act to protect children of tender years from parental neglect. Petition of the Dep't of Pub. Welfare to Dispense with Consent to Adoption, supra at 265. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 652 (1972). Alsager v. District Court of Polk County, 406 F. Supp. 10, 16 (S.D. Iowa 1975), aff'd 545 F.2d 1137 (8th Cir. 1976).
parents, among others, retain the right to petition the court every six months for review and redetermination of the current needs of the child. G. L. c. 119, Section 26.
We therefore think it plain that the judge was warranted in determining the mother's newborn child to be in need of care and protection at the time of trial. The uncontested facts, as reported by the judge, indicate that the mother is incapable of providing the basic necessities of food and shelter, ignorant of proper child care and supervision, see In re Fred S., supra at 697, indifferent to her children's education, and apparently unwilling to cooperate with departmental attempts to rearrange her life, see In re Rosenbloom, 266 N.W.2d 888 (Minn. 1978). To the extent that these findings refer to the mother's past conduct, it is with the understanding that the problems described therein continue unabated through the present. Not unlike the respondent in a prior case of ours, Petition of the Dep't of Pub. Welfare to Dispense with Consent to Adoption, 371 Mass. 651, 654 (1976), the mother here has failed to formulate any realistic plan by which she could care for her two children already in the department's custody. Thus, in these circumstances, court intervention is appropriate in order to protect a child who, although not yet maltreated, is a probable victim of parental neglect. See J. & E. v. M. & F., 157 N.J. Super. 478 (1978). See also Vilakazi v. Maxie, 371 Mass. 406, 409 (1976).
2. Although it is clear that the judge possessed sufficient grounds to find the child in need of care and protection, a further issue is raised, a question of first impression in this court, concerning the appropriate standard of proof for findings that determine that it is in the child's best interest to be removed from his parent. The mother urges, and the department concedes, that, because of the importance placed on the family, a parent-child relationship should be disturbed only on a showing of "clear and convincing" evidence that a need for such intervention exists. While we agree with the premise that custody of a child should be removed from a parent to the State only on most careful judicial consideration, we decline to adopt the "clear and convincing" standard urged here. We think that the objective to be sought can be better accomplished by a requirement of specific findings than by the injection of a standard of proof which is intermediate between the standards ordinarily applied in civil and criminal matters.
relationship, we think that the effect of such an order places a sufficient burden on family integrity to make the determination deserving of added judicial attention. See Sims v. State Dep't of Pub. Welfare of Tex., 438 F. Supp. 1179, 1194 (S.D. Tex. 1977) (three-judge court); Alsager v. District Court of Polk County, supra at 25; In re William L., 477 Pa. 322, 333 (1978); ABA Standards Relating to Abuse and Neglect, Section 5.3E(2) (Tent. Draft 1977); Annot., 79 A.L.R.3d 417 (1977).
We think it undesirable, however, to adopt the mother's suggestion that we require "clear and convincing" proof in cases of the kind presented here. "Clear and convincing" evidence standards, as we recently observed in Superintendent of Worcester State Hosp., supra at 275-276, often act as the functional equivalent for the more familiar "reasonable doubt" standard. As such, the introduction of this third test of proof may serve no useful purpose and add only confusion. See Stone, supra at 877 (Quirico, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). However, if we were, for the sake of simplicity, to adopt a "reasonable doubt" test in cases involving parental neglect, we fear that we might overly jeopardize the welfare of the child. If proof "to a moral certainty," a requirement of our interpretation of "beyond a reasonable doubt," [Note 8] were demanded before a judge could find it necessary to remove a child from his or her parents, preventive intervention by a court, as proposed by the department here, might well be precluded.
In this case the judge's findings, see supra, make it manifest that the utmost care was devoted to the determination of the custody award. Accordingly, we hold that the judge's decision and order are to be affirmed.
[Note 1] By this time, the mother was separated from her husband.
[Note 2] The father of the child, as well as the mother's legal husband, have waived any right to custody in this matter.
[Note 3] We have recognized the right of natural parents to raise their children as existing independently of the State. Richards v. Forrest, 278 Mass. 547, 553 (1932). See J. Locke, Second Treatise of Government (London 1690).
[Note 4] See generally S. Katz, When Parents Fail (1971); Wald, State Intervention on Behalf of "Neglected" Children: A Search for Realistic Standards, 27 Stan. L. Rev. 985 (1975); Mnookin, Child-Custody Adjudication: Judicial Functions in the Face of Indeterminancy, 39 L. & Contemp. Prob. 226 (1975).
[Note 5] Fittingly, it is the stated policy of c. 119 to "provide substitute care of children only when the family itself or the resources available to the family are unable to provide the necessary care and protection to insure the rights of any child to sound health and normal physical, mental, spiritual and moral development" (emphasis added). G. L. c. 119, Section 1, as amended through St. 1972, c. 785, Section 5.
[Note 6] We think this result must have been contemplated by the Legislature, if the purpose of the "care and protection" statute--"to insure that the children of the commonwealth are protected against the harmful effects" of parental abuse or neglect--was to be given full effect. G. L. c. 119, Section 1. Report of The Subcommittee on Child Welfare Legislation, 1952 House Doc. No. 2440, at 43.
[Note 7] Even after a parent has been deprived of child custody under c. 119, the parent retains such residual rights as the right to visit, G. L. c. 119, Section 35, to consent to adoption, G. L. c. 210, Sections 2-3, and to determine the child's religious affiliation, G. L. c. 119, Section 33. See Campbell, The Neglected Child: His and His Family's Treatment under Massachusetts Law and Practice and their Rights Under the Due Process Clause, 4 Suffolk U.L. Rev. 631, 656-657 (1970).
[Note 8] See Commonwealth v. Seay, 376 Mass. 735, 745-746 (1978); Commonwealth v. Webster, 5 Cush. 295, 320 (1850) (Shaw, C.J.).
[Note 9] We are aware that the procedure mandated here constitutes an exception to Rule 52 of the Rules of Procedure for the District Courts and Municipal Court of Boston (1975) under which the submission of written findings of fact is optional at the discretion of the judge. See J.W. Smith & H.B. Zobel, Rules Practice 241 (1977).
[Note 10] While much of what we say here applies to custody disputes involving husbands and wives or other relatives of the child, we wish to make clear that the requirement of detailed findings is directed only to custody controversies between the parent and the State.

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