Opinion ID: 1937586
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: is a petition for adoption a jurisdictional prerequisite to the consideration of an agency petition to terminate parental rights?

Text: The provisions of G.L. 1956 (1969 Reenactment) § 15-7-7 in effect at the time of determination of this controversy, disclose inter alia that when parents' rights to consent are terminated, the court shall decree that the agency shall have the exclusive right to place such child for adoption and to be the sole party to give or withhold consent. This statutory language clearly indicates that the Legislature contemplated that the agency might place the child for adoption after the determination of a petition to terminate parental rights. A reading of the statute as a whole does not lend itself by strict construction or otherwise to the interpretation that a petition for adoption must be filed prior to consideration of the petition to terminate parental rights. Indeed, the entire statutory scheme would most reasonably be served by giving the agency the opportunity to terminate parental rights in advance of encouraging potential adoptive parents to anticipate the probability of a future adoption. In the diverse settings in which an adoption may take place, the selection of prospective adoptive parents may often depend upon the ability of the agency to give assurance that the child may be placed for adoption without the necessity of future court proceedings to terminate the right of the natural parents to consent to such an adoption. The father's arguments to the contrary would require a strained and tortured interpretation of language and are unpersuasive in the furtherance of the statutory purpose. The father argues in support of the necessity of a petition for adoption that the absence of such a petition, prior to termination of parental rights, constituted a denial of due process. We believe that this contention is utterly without merit and that due process would not be affected by the presence or absence of a pending petition for adoption.