Court Opinion

ID: 9695642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:26:08.247748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:15.355993
License: Public Domain

ROGERS, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I write separately because this case presents a fact situation which is somewhat different from prior cases which have come before this court. C.W., despite his special needs, was not only doing well in his foster home, but his natural father has maintained regular and consistent interest in him. Heretofore the record has shown merely intermittent interest by a natural parent following a child’s placement in a foster home. See, e.g., In re K.A., 484 A.2d 992, 995 (D.C.1984). Here, moreover, there was evidence that C.W. identified his natural father as his “father” and that his father loved C.W. Because an order terminating parental rights is so very final, the question of what C.W. has to gain from losing his “father” is not easily resolved.
A prospective adoptive home for C.W. was the occasion for the filing of the motion to terminate parental rights. That opportunity was no longer available at the time of the hearing on the motion, however. There was testimony which indicated that on two earlier occasions families had expressed some interest in adopting C.W., but their interest later subsided for reasons that are not entirely clear. There was also evidence in support of adoption over perpetuation of foster care status for C.W. Nonetheless, in my view, it would have been preferable, particularly in view of the occasion for filing the termination motion, for there to have been evidence that the legal barrier was, in fact, a reason prospective adoptive parents had ceased to remain interested in C.W. If this was not a reason for the loss of interest in C.W. by prospective parents, then the testimony from an expert in adoption placement that it would be extremely difficult to find an adoptive family willing to adopt a “special needs child with a high legal risk," such as C.W., is less persuasive. See District of Columbia v. Barriteau, 399 A.2d 563, 569 (D.C.1979) (expert testimony is only as good as the grounds on which it is based); see also Fed.R.Evid. 703. Since the father’s counsel did not challenge the expert testimony or suggest that his rights remain until such time as a prospective adoptive family was identified, the record supports the trial judge’s conclusion that the expert’s testimony was well founded and worthy of being credited.
I agree with the majority that clear and convincing evidence exists to support the trial judge’s finding that termination of parental rights is in C.W.’s best interests. Although there was evidence of the father’s affection for C.W., the father’s efforts at self-improvement and his regular monthly visits with C.W., there was also evidence that the father has long had difficulty overcoming his own problems and has failed, apparently because he lacked the ability to do so, to appreciate the nature of C.W.’s limitations and needs. No claim is made that the father had been denied his *628“opportunity interest” in his child. See Buchanan, The Constitutional Rights of Unwed Fathers Before and After Lehr v. Robertson, 45 Ohio St.L.J. 313 (1984); Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248, 103 S.Ct. 2985, 77 L.Ed.2d 614 (1983). Accordingly, consistent with this court’s standard of review, In re K.A., supra, 484 A.2d at 996 (“we must satisfy the concern that there is sufficient record evidence such that the possibility of an erroneous judgment does not lie in equipoise between the two sides [but] we need not require [that] the evidence be so compelling ... as to exclude as nearly as possible the likelihood of a decision that erroneously terminates parental rights”), I join the majority in affirming the judgment.