Opinion ID: 2075762
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Statutory Developments: Adoption

Text: Could there be, however, any reason to believe that, in contrast with the termination statute, D.C.Code § 16-2353 (1989), the adoption statute, with its traditional best interests language, see D.C.Code §§ 16-304(e), -309(b)(3) (1989), nonetheless incorporated a parental preference with a corresponding fitness test under some circumstances? Of the seven custody cases applying a fitness test discussed earlier Beall, Shelton, Davis, Bell, Johnson, Jackson, and Stuart only one, Bell, concerned a petition for adoption. That aspect of the case was not material to the analysis, which was the same in all these cases without regard to the type of custody sought. As elaborated below, I perceive no basis for saying that termination of parental rights of a non-consenting parent under the adoption statute can be divorced from analysis under the termination statute. More specifically, absent a parent's consent to adoption (or earlier relinquishment of parental rights), a court cannot enter an interlocutory decree of adoption under D.C. Code § 16-309(b) (1989) [16] and override a parent's refusal to consent as contrary to the best interests of the child, id. § 16-304(e) (1989), [17] unless the parent's custodial rights are terminable under criteria such as those identified in the termination statute, id. § 16-2353 (1989) (grounds for termination of parent and child relationship). [18] Cf. In re D.R.M., 570 A.2d 796, 804-05 (D.C.1990). [19] Thus, even if the birth mother were to consent to an adoption, the court could not terminate the parental rights of the nonconsenting father through an adoption proceedingassuming his consent were requiredunless, as to him, § 16-2353-type criteria were met. As indicated earlier, however, consent to adoption of a child born out-of-wedlock traditionally has been limited to the mother; the unwed father, at least as a matter of statutory law, has had no standing to object. See D.C.Code § 16-304(b)(2)(A), (C) (1973). But in 1976, perhaps in anticipation of constitutional requirements, [20] the adoption statute was amended to require the consent of a father of a child born out-of-wedlock. See D.C.Code § 16-304(b)(2)(A) (Supp. IV 1977) (incorporating D.C. Law 1-87 (Oct. 1, 1976) which struck paragraphs C and D, and modified paragraph A). [21] Accordingly, given the fact that an unwed father was now entitled to notice and to consentor to objectto an adoption proceeding when the mother elected, for example, to surrender the child for adoption at birth, we must ask whether the Beall-Davis-Bell-Jackson-Johnson-Shelton line of cases grants the fatherwho has never been formally charged with neglect or other elements of unfitnessa custodial preference in such circumstances. In Shelton, a 1987 case, we applied the guardianship statute, D.C.Code § 21-101 (1989), see supra note 13, in granting custody to the child's unwed fatherwith whom the child had lived on some occasions, 526 A.2d at 580over the maternal grandmother upon the death of the child's mother. There was no issue of unfitness or neglect. We recognized that the custodial presumption in the father's favor is rebuttable only by clear and convincing evidence of abandonment, unfitness, or other circumstances which render the parent's custody detrimental to the best interests of the child. Id. (citations omitted). At first blush, therefore, it would appear this statute should apply on behalf of the father when a mother puts a child up for adoption, for the statute is not limited to cases of a surviving parent. See Davis; Bell. On the other hand, it is not clear that the guardianship statute, with its parental preference, is intended in all cases to prevail over the adoption statute, with its best interests test. It is difficult to conclude, purely as a matter of statutory construction, that an unwed, noncustodial father who has not helped attend to the child before or after birth belongs exclusively in the guardianship arena, not in the adoption-termination arena. This is especially true because the guardianship statute is almost ninety years old, see supra, note 13, whereas the fathers of children born out-of-wedlock were not even party to the adoption process until 1976. It is one thing to say that, as between a natural parent and another relative or family friendboth of whom have had a relationship with the minor childthe parent presumptively should have custody, which is what the Beall to Shelton line of cases under the guardianship statute stands for. It is not as easy to find statutory support for the proposition that, when an unwed mother surrenders her child for adoption and the father is nowhere to be found at the time the adoption agency takes physical custody, the guardianship statute nonetheless accords that fatherif ever foundpresumptive custody. It is just as persuasive to say that, in such circumstances, any such presumptive custody has been rebutted by the father's ostensible abandonment of the child, putting the statutory burden on him and on the would-be adoptive parents to assert their respective claims on an equal footing under the best interests test, as in Holtsclaw, Cooley, LEM, and N.M.S. To make matters even more complicated, one can imagine an unwed father whose claim to custody, as in Shelton, appears so deserving relative to any other solution that he should be accorded presumptive custody. One can also imagine unwed fathers whose indifference to the child has been so obvious that his refusal to consent to adoption after the mother has surrendered the child should not be enough to trigger a presumption favoring his right to custody over an adoptive family, even if he is not demonstrably unfit. The District of Columbia adoption and termination statutes, however, as well as our local caselaw, provide no basis for concluding that some unwed fathers are entitled to a custodial preference while others are not. Accordingly, it would appear that selecting one statutory approach or the other in a particular case, in the absence of any relevant legislative history whatsoever, would be a decision for the court to make in a relatively new context based either on an arbitrary selection among canons of statutory construction or on policy-oriented criteria selected by the court. We could take either approach and purport to make a sound statutory construction, but either has obvious limitations in the absence of an easily assessible statutory answer. There is a better approach. Given recent caselaw development in the Supreme Court, in this court, and in other courts around the country, it is clear that the judiciary has employed the Constitution to provide substantive content to unwed fathers' custodial claims. Fifty years ago in Stuart, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit construed the Juvenile Court Act of 1938 to conform to the court's understanding of constitutional requirements: a custodial preference for the custodial parent, absent a showing of unfitness in a neglect case. [22] If the Constitution were so to require in the context of an unwed, noncustodial father, then the question of statutory construction would be resolved, as in Stuart, by constitutional imperative. Having read ahead, so to speak, I am satisfied that constitutional analysis provides a more useful approach to the questionfitness test or best interest test?than a rendezvous with canons of statutory construction or with our own reasoned (or instinctive) policy views. I therefore turn to recent constitutional developments, in order to learn where a noncustodial, unwed father stands in a proceeding for adoption of his child by strangers. How prophetic for this context, if at all, was Stuart's ruling that the Constitution protects a natural parent's inherent right to custody absent unfitness? See id., 72 App.D.C. at 394, 396, 114 F.2d at 830, 832.