Court Opinion

ID: 9791925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:20:34.816161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:39.439550
License: Public Domain

RIGGS, J.,
concurring in part; dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority that father’s parental rights as to all three children should be terminated. However, I do not agree with the majority that mother’s rights should not also be terminated.
The majority opinion points out the history of mother’s unwillingness to obtain the skills necessary to be an adequate parent, notwithstanding the many referrals and attempts by staté agencies to provide such services without success. The majority focuses on mother’s conduct, commencing in June, 1989, as a reason to conclude that she has reversed her long history of inattention toward the children and has finally made the decision to avail herself of services that might make her at least a minimally adequate parent. The majority is wrong in characterizing her most recent minimal effort as anything other than what it is — too little and too late. CSD decided in June, 1989, to file a petition for termination of mother’s parental rights and finally did so on August 24,1989. As I read this record, mother’s efforts to present herself as a minimally adequate parent commenced in the summer of *2031989, approximately coincident with the termination petition’s filing. Mother has been diágnosed as mildly mentally retarded and suffering a mixed personality disorder, combining both dependent and schizoid personalities. Personality disorders are very resistent to treatment, according to Dr. Sweet, a psychologist who evaluated mother in 1988. He opined that effective treatment requires “a lot of recognition out of the client,” along with insight, understanding, motivation and a lot of work, which characteristics are totally lacking in mother on this record. Even the most optimistic estimates of mother’s potential for successful re-integration of the children into her home is that it will take at least 12 to 18 months to integrate each child, one at a time.1 If this estimate is correct, one or more of these children will continue in out-of-home placement for the next two to three years.
The majority engages in wishful thinking when it overlooks mother’s long history of mistreatment, poor care and physical and emotional abandonment in favor of the “guarded” estimates of several witnesses2 that she has made some improvements during the period after the filing of the termination petition. Instead of being seduced by mother’s half-hearted improvements and the natural desire to give her “one more chance,” the majority should consider that mother’s intellectual, emotional and psychological deficits, coupled with a long history of poor performance as a parent, make it unlikely that the children can be integrated into her home within a reasonable time. These children should not have to wait any longer. Given this record, to the extent that they have the potential for healthy, happy lives with caring, nurturing parents, they deserve those opportunities.
I would terminate as to both parents.

 The therapist who provided that estimate further testified that the 12 to 18 month timetable assumed that it would take an “intensified effort” and that “no barriers” would arise during the re-integration process.

 I disagree with the majority’s reliance on Dr. Mesberg’s statement that mother’s mental retardation and personality disorder would only “minimally” interfere with her efforts to achieve better skills as a parent. Mesberg also testified that he did not do a comprehensive psychological evaluation and that his “involvement with [mother] has been very limited and circumscribed, just with regard to the employability issue * * His evaluation was “[o]nly very indirectly” concerned with mother’s parental ability; he never saw her with the children, never reviewed the CSD records and was unaware of her agency history with the agency.