Opinion ID: 2552096
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Statutory Scheme Governing Termination of Parental Rights

Text: In TPR cases, a parent's right to custody of his or her children must be balanced against the fundamental right and responsibility of the State to protect children, who cannot protect themselves, from abuse and neglect. In re Adoption/Guardianship of Rashawn H., 402 Md. 477, 497, 937 A.2d 177, 189 (2007). Thus, this parental right is terminated upon a showing either that the parent is `unfit' or that `exceptional circumstances' exist which would make continued custody with the parent detrimental to the best interest of the child. Id. at 495, 937 A.2d at 188. With this understanding, the General Assembly has set forth criteria to guide and limit the court in determining the child's best interest. See Md.Code (1984, 2006 Repl.Vol.), § 5-323 of the Family Law Article (FL); Rashawn, 402 Md. at 499, 937 A.2d at 190 (the statutory factors circumscribe[ ] the near-boundless discretion that courts have in ordinary custody cases to determine what is in the child's best interest.). Section 5-323 enumerates a series of specific factors that a juvenile court must consider in any TPR proceeding. [7] At the time of the hearing in this case, Section 5-323(b) granted juvenile courts termination authority as follows: Authority. If, after consideration of factors as required in this section, a juvenile court finds by clear and convincing evidence that terminating the rights of a parent is in a child's best interests, the juvenile court may grant guardianship of the child without consent otherwise required under this subtitle and over the child's objection. FL § 5-323(b) (emphasis added). [8] The statute thus establishes that, in TPR proceedings, the court's main concern is the child's best interests. Accordingly, the best interests of the child must trump[ ] all other considerations. See In re Adoption/Guardianship of Ta'Niya C., 417 Md. 90, 111, 8 A.3d 745, 758 (2010). Here, Ms. F. argues that, in addition to the extensive list of factors crafted by our General Assembly, this Court should adopt a four-factor test that would define `fitness to parent' within the parameters of a TPR case. She submits that this test should be applied before a juvenile court engages in a best interests analysis pursuant to Section 5-323(d). According to Ms. F., termination should only be possible if: 1) . . . after being provided with appropriately tailored reunification services, the parent is unable to provide a safe and stable home for the child and that the delay in securing permanency continues or adds to the child's harm; or 2) [if] the parent has consistently failed to comply with an appropriately structured service agreement offered by the Department for a period of longer than one year; and 3) . . . all alternatives to termination have been exhausted, and; 4). . . termination will not do more harm than good. Ms. F. goes on to apply this proposed test to her own situation, in claiming that her parental rights should not be terminated. In considering the particulars of Ms. F's proposal, we find substantial overlap between the test Ms. F. suggests and the existing statutory factors, although her test recasts the analysis so that it seems to impermissibly favor the parent's best interests over those of the child. Ms. F.'s first proposed factor, which seems to stand on its own, would allow termination if a court found that after being provided with appropriately tailored reunification services, the parent is unable to provide a safe and stable home for the child and that the delay in securing permanency continues or adds to the child's harm[.] This consideration, however, is addressed in subsections 5-323(d)(1) and (d)(2), which require a juvenile court to consider the reunification services offered to a parent as well as the parent's effort in altering his or her circumstances so that returning the child to the parent is in the child's best interests. See F.L. § 5-323(d)(1)-(d)(2). The second proposed factor, that the parent has consistently failed to comply with [service agreements] for . . . longer than one year[,] is largely reflected in Section 5-323(d)(1)(iii), which requires a court to consider the extent to which a parent has complied with such agreements. See F.L. § 5-323(d)(1)(iii). Yet Ms. F.'s second factor diverges from the statute by imposing upon juvenile courts an arbitrary one year minimum of noncompliance before termination is permitted. She does not cite to any authority to support her one year restriction, nor can we find any in FL § 5-323 or our relevant caselaw. Although many TPR cases involve lengthy periods of non-compliance, for a year or more, [9] it is axiomatic that the issues in CINA cases are very often fact-intensive. In re Emileigh F., 353 Md. 30, 42, 724 A.2d 639, 645 (1999). Thus, trial courts are endowed with great discretion in making decisions concerning the best interest of the child. Petrini v. Petrini, 336 Md. 453, 469, 648 A.2d 1016, 1023 (1994). We see no reason to limit that discretion simply to formulate a test with a specific time period. Ms. F.'s final two factors are quite general in scope. Factor number three would require a court to find that all alternatives to termination have been exhausted[,] while the fourth factor demands that termination will not do more harm than good. [10] Ms. F. expresses concern that courts often fast track termination proceedings in the belief that achieving permanency as soon as possible is always in the child's best interests. As evidence, she cites to a Harvard Law Review article in which the author opines that this trend followed the federal enactment of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA), which readily embrac[es] the idea that family preservation may not be in the best interest of a child[, and] emphasizes `freeing' children for adoption by terminating the rights of abusive or neglectful parents. ASFA favors adoption because. . . it perceives adoptioncorrectly or notas a quicker route to stability for children in many cases, and therefore as an option that satisfies a key assumption of the Act: that making earlier permanency decisions for long-term placement is always in the best interest of the child. Developments in the Law: VI. Unified Family Courts and the Child Protection Dilemma, 116 Harv. L.Rev.2099, 2101 (2003). The commentator advocates for the Uniform Family Court model, which approaches family law adjudication from a therapeutic perspective that envisions courts contributing to the goal of preserving families. Id. at 2099-2100. Contrary to Ms. F.'s assertion, however, preservation of parental rights is a primary concern for juvenile courts. Indeed, in Maryland, there is a strong presumption that the child's best interests are served by maintaining parental rights. In re Adoption/Guardianship No. J9610436, 368 Md. 666, 692-93, 796 A.2d 778, 793 (2002). Cf. FL § 5-323(d)(4)(iv) (requiring a juvenile court to consider the likely impact of terminating parental rights on a child's well-being). This presumption was immortalized in Rashawn, where this Court directed juvenile courts to carefully consider the interests of both parents and children: The court's role in TPR cases is to give the most careful consideration to the relevant statutory factors, to make specific findings based on the evidence with respect to each of them, and, mindful of the presumption favoring a continuation of the parental relationship, determine expressly whether those findings suffice either to show an unfitness on the part of the parent to remain in a parental relationship with the child or to constitute an exceptional circumstance that would make a continuation of the parental relationship detrimental to the best interest of the child, and, if so, how. If the court does thatarticulates its conclusion as to the best interest of the child in that mannerthe parental rights we have recognized and the statutory basis for terminating those rights are in proper and harmonious balance. Rashawn, 402 Md. at 501, 937 A.2d at 192 (emphasis added). Accordingly, a juvenile court must faithfully examine each statutory factor, and cannot simply proceed under the assumption that freeing a child for adoption is inherently better than keeping the child in foster care and maintaining parental rights. See In re Adoption/Guardianship No. T97036005, 358 Md. 1, 23, 746 A.2d 379, 391 (2000) (reversing juvenile court's judgment to terminate parental rights where the Court could only speculate whether the required factors were considered.); In re Adoption/Guardianship No. 95195062/CAD, 116 Md.App. 443, 457, 696 A.2d 1102, 1108 (1997) (So important are these statutory considerations that, on review, [the Court] cannot be left to speculate as to whether the trial court has fulfilled its obligations.). Ultimately, it is clear that the General Assembly's extensive list of factors, when considered in the light of the standing presumption favoring parental rights, reflect the spirit that termination is an alternative of last resort, and is not to be taken lightly. Thus, we conclude that to the extent that Ms. F.'s test is designed to protect parental rights, those rights are adequately guarded by Section 5-323 of the Family Law Article. Accordingly, we reject her recommendation, and instead shall analyze the juvenile court's ruling for compliance with Section 5-323 as it is written. [11]