Opinion ID: 2056781
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Child Protection Proceeding

Text: [¶ 7] The Department filed a petition for a child protection order on October 3, 2005, alleging that the child was in jeopardy due to the father's abusive behavior and the mother's failure to protect the child from abuse. Initially the Department allowed the child to remain in his mother's custody, with a requirement that the father be out of the home and have no contact with the child. [¶ 8] The court ( Nivison, C.J. ) held a jeopardy hearing on January 24, 2006. With agreement of the mother and the father, the court entered a jeopardy order finding jeopardy as to the mother and father. The order states, At the outset, the parties represented to this [c]ourt that they were in agreement as to findings and disposition in this matter. The court found that the child had witnessed domestic violence between the mother and father, constituting emotional abuse to the child; that the mother had been unable to protect the child from jeopardy; and that she was unlikely to be able to protect him from jeopardy posed by the father without continued mental health treatment and other supports. The child remained in the mother's custody, with the father to have no unsupervised contact with the child. [¶ 9] The mother, while acknowledging the need for mental health treatment, made no suggestion that she was incompetent to participate in the proceeding or incompetent to care for her child. Further, the record at this point, viewed objectively, does not suggest any issue regarding the mother's competence to participate in the proceedings. For the trial court, the case would have appeared similar to other child protective matters involving a mother who was a victim of domestic violence who was experiencing difficulty in separating herself from the domestic violence perpetrator and in protecting her child from observing and being victimized by domestic violence. [¶ 10] The record suggests that in early 2006, there were outstanding orders prohibiting the father from having contact with the child or contact with the mother in: (1) the pending child protective proceeding; (2) a protection from abuse proceeding; and (3) a bail order in a criminal proceeding. Despite these orders, the mother continued to contact and allow the child to have unsupervised contact with the father. In one instance, the mother took the child to Great Neck, New York, met the father, and enrolled the child in school in New York for the apparent purpose of removing him from Maine jurisdiction. [¶ 11] Following these incidents, the Department requested and was granted an order for preliminary child protection, removing the child from his mother's custody. The mother, in the presence of her attorney, consented to this order and waived a summary preliminary hearing. A review hearing was held in April 2006. The father was incarcerated in New York State at that time, but he was represented by counsel at the review hearing. The court ( Anderson, J. ) reaffirmed the Department's custody of the child in a detailed order. However, even with this history, the Department continued its efforts to maintain the mother-child relationship. To this end, the Department began a trial placement of the child with the mother in August 2006. [¶ 12] Another review hearing was held on October 12, 2006. After that hearing, the court ( Nivison, C.J. ) entered a judicial review order directing the parties to establish therapeutic supervised contact between the father and the child. However, the mother continued her past practice of allowing unsupervised contact with the father in violation of court orders. This pattern continued despite several more court hearings and permanency plans entered by the court. [¶ 13] Finally, because the mother continued to allow the father to have ongoing unsupervised contact with the child, the Department requested another order allowing it to take custody of the child. The court ( Anderson, J. ) entered an order for preliminary child protection allowing the Department to take custody of the child. After a preliminary hearing in January 2007, the court found that the child was in immediate risk of serious harm and ordered that the child was to remain in Department custody. Neither parent contested jeopardy or the Department's continued custody of the child.