Court Opinion

ID: 9883422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 01:42:32.033473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:23.201708
License: Public Domain

ZLAKET, Chief Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
¶ 34 I reluctantly concur in the result reached by the majority. This child is now over four years old and by all accounts has bonded with his caretakers. It would no longer be in his best interests to deliver him to a father he has never known. Still, I am troubled by several aspects of this case and write separately to address them.
¶ 35 In the past, we have emphasized the need for a “prompt determination of where and by whom [a] child is to be raised and *253nurtured.” In re Pima County Juvenile Severance Action No. S-114487, 179 Ariz. 86, 97, 876 P.2d 1121, 1132 (1994). Much of the delay here is inexplicable and, in a very real sense, has preordained the outcome. For example, ADES announced the intention to seek a severance in its March 1996 letter to Michael but then waited ten months to file a termination petition. The juvenile court hearing did not take place for nearly a year after that. Thus, during the infant’s first two, critically formative years, he was building relationships with those who had custody of him, and never saw or was otherwise exposed to his natural father. As best I can tell, nothing other than the passage of time occurred during this period. Certainly, there was no attempt by the state to determine Michael’s fitness to parent his child.
¶36 I understand that ADES may be working under less than ideal conditions. The agency has historically been underfunded and understaffed. Even so, both ADES and the courts must do more to ensure that these cases are resolved promptly, while preserving the rights of parents and safeguarding the interests of children.3 Otherwise, delay alone may practically control the outcome, which is totally unacceptable.
¶ 37 I am particularly concerned that ADES made no significant effort to find out whether a parental relationship could be created and maintained. The agency’s March 1996 letter demonstrates that it was determined to sever parental rights when the child was only three months old, if not before. Yet, beyond ascertaining that Michael was in prison, it does not appear from the record that ADES did anything to find out whether he was willing or able to be a father. Was it too much to ask that the agency verify whether Michael clearly understood its correspondence, and/or to investigate the type of person he was, the education he had, and the resources he possessed?
¶ 38 I do not agree with the majority that once ADES sent its rather curt letter to Michael, the agency’s obligation ended and the burden thereafter fell completely on him. In my view, ADES has a responsibility to assist parents, incarcerated or not, who face termination of their rights. In fact, the court of appeals has recently held that the state’s duty to make reasonable efforts to preserve a family, as contained in AR.S. § 8-533(B)(7), has a constitutional basis. See Mary Ellen C. v. Arizona Dep’t of Econ. Sec., 193 Ariz. 185, 191-92, 971 P.2d 1046, 1052-53 (App. 1999). The court called the performance of that obligation a “necessary element” of any governmental attempt to overcome a parent’s fundamental right to the care, custody and management of his or her children. Id. Because the duty is constitutional, it applies even where, as here, the statute does not specifically require it. See id.
¶39 I submit that before the state can sever a parent-child relationship it must, wherever possible, make some attempt to preserve it. The right to have custody and care of one’s own children is among our most precious liberties. The ability to permanently deprive a parent of that right is one of the most awesome powers of the state. This explains why our courts have repeatedly emphasized that severance is a last resort, to be used “only in the most extraordinary circumstances, when all other efforts to preserve the [parental] relationship have failed.” In re Maricopa County Juvenile Action No. JA 33794, 171 Ariz. 90, 92, 828 P.2d 1231, 1233 (App.1991); see also In re Maricopa County Juvenile Action No. JS-500274, 167 Ariz. 1, 4, 804 P.2d 730, 733 (1990) (“[T]ermination of parental rights is not favored and ... generally should be considered only as a last resort.”); In re Maricopa County Juvenile Action No. JS-5209 and No. JS-4963, 143 Ariz. 178, 189, 692 P.2d 1027, 1038 (App.1984) (“[Severance of the parent-child relationship should be resorted to ‘only when concerted effort to preserve the relationship fails.’”); Anonymous v. Anonymous, 25 Ariz.App. 10, 11, 540 P.2d 741, 742 (1975) (stating that severance is a serious matter and courts should “bend over backwards,” if possible, to maintain the parental relationship); Arizona Dep’t of Econ. Sec. v. Mahoney, 24 Ariz.App. 534, 537, 540 P.2d 153, 156 (1975) (“[T]ermi-*254nation of the parent-child relationship should not be considered a panacea[.]”). The legislature has echoed this principle, declaring that “whenever possible, family life should be strengthened and preserved[.]” Action No. JS-500274, 167 Ariz. at 5, 804 P.2d at 734 (discussing the legislature’s intent in passing the Child Welfare and Placement Law of 1970). If these precepts are to have any practical effect, some requirement must be imposed on the state to nurture the parent-child relationship whenever reasonably possible. I see no evidence of such an effort here.
¶ 40 I submit that ADES and the courts should provide parents with adequate information about what they must do after they are served with a severance or dependency petition. Parents must be fully informed about the proceedings, and fairly advised of their consequences. Many of these people are poor, undereducated, and/or functionally illiterate. Merely writing a letter urging them to get an attorney, as ADES did in this case, is not enough. At the very least, one whose child has been placed in foster care should be told where the child is and how he or she may be contacted. In this ease, Michael did not know where his son was or how to reach him. Perhaps he could have communicated with his child through ADES, but no one bothered to tell him that. It is disturbing that the agency was unwilling to take even this small step to assist the father, presumably because he was in prison.
¶ 41 Finally, I find the majority’s abandonment analysis unconvincing. I agree that the “settled purpose” rule and other past legal constructs relied on by courts ought to be discarded. The definition found in A.R.S. § 8-533(1) should apply in all situations. Nevertheless, in my view the state failed to prove abandonment under the statute by clear and convincing evidence.
¶ 42 The majority criticizes Michael for not responding to the dependency petition. It asserts that “[h]ad he done so and requested a hearing, he would have been advised at the dependency hearing of his right to counsel, including appointed counsel if he were indigent.” The criticism is unfounded. Although it may not have been a formal pleading, Michael wrote to ADES explaining that he wished to parent his child upon release and requesting visitation in the meantime. Under the circumstances, he responded in a very predictable way. It is unreasonable to expect an incarcerated parent, with no access to counsel, to be versed in the niceties of procedural law. Moreover, in the absence of adequate explanation by the state, there is no realistic way for most prisoners to learn what they must do to protect their rights.
¶43 The majority faults Michael for not writing to his child or sending him gifts. I am unimpressed by this criticism and find it an extremely weak basis for an abandonment finding. Michael was in prison. It is beyond dispute that incarceration severely hinders a parent’s ability to provide meaningful supervision or support to his or her child. See Phillip M. Gentry, Procedural Due Process Rights of Incarcerated Parents in Termination of Parental Rights Proceedings: A Fifty State Analysis, 30 J. Fam. L. 757, 827 (1991). While confinement does not absolve the parent of all responsibilities, it must be given great weight in the abandonment analysis. See In the Interest of M.D.S., 16 Kan. App.2d 505, 825 P.2d 1155, 1159 (1992) (observing that to hold otherwise “would effectively render termination an automatic result of any lengthy incarceration, and perhaps any incarceration at all”). The practical obstacles created by imprisonment were particularly evident in this ease. Michael was the father of a newborn. Letters or phone calls directly to the child would have provided little, if any, meaningful contact. Moreover, ADES had effectively limited his access by not telling him where the boy was.
¶ 44 Because of the child’s young age, Michael needed personal contact with his son to develop any meaningful relationship, and in fact, he requested visitation. As a matter of agency policy, however, ADES refuses to allow incarcerated parents face to face visits with their infant children. An ADES caseworker testified to this fact at the severance hearing.4 Thus, Michael was denied his only *255real avenue of parental contact, solely because he was incarcerated. Obviously, then, imprisonment impaired his ability to maintain a “normal parental relationship with [his] child” within the meaning of A.R.S. § 8-533(1).
¶45 The majority also seems to confuse the trappings of a relationship with the genuine article. It says that Michael should have gone through the motions of sending cards, letters and gifts to his child, in order to demonstrate the depth of his interest. Even assuming the man’s ability to do these things, this young child would not have known who the items were from or what they meant, nor would they have served to enhance a relationship that had never been permitted to develop in the first instance. Father and son had never been allowed to meet.
¶ 46 In short, I believe it was not Michael who dropped the ball here. Instead, it was the courts and those governmental agencies that had an affirmative duty to preserve the parent-child relationship to the extent It was reasonably possible. Admittedly, Michael did not do all that he might have done to protect his rights. But ADES was determined from the outset to sever parental rights, apparently ignoring the legal principle that incarceration does not automatically render a parent unfit. Even the majority concedes that the crime for which this father had been imprisoned was not of such a nature to preclude him from parenting. That concession is made meaningless by the unrealistic burden imposed on him by today’s decision.

. Our Model Court program, pioneered in Pima County and recently adopted statewide for the benefit of Arizona’s dependent children, is designed to address this pressing need.

. As the caseworker put it: “We try not to expose children, you know, to prison, you know [], *255young children to prison facilities anymore [sic] than we have to. And we didn’t feel it would be in [the child’s] best interest to be exposed to that atmosphere.” Tr. at 15.