Court Opinion

ID: 9620001
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:36:42.74405+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:37.670554
License: Public Domain

Karen R. Baker, Judge, dissenting. As the majority acknowledges, the department did not offer Fields any services. (Emphasis added.) Appellant’s counsel correctly argued at the conclusion of the hearing that Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-341 (b) (3) (B)(i) (a) (Repl. 2008) requires DHS to prove that it put forth a meaningful effort to rehabilitate the parent and correct the conditions that caused the removal. The majority reasons that the issue is moot because only one ground is necessary to terminate parental rights, and, that despite the trial court’s failure to properly identify the statutory language, the trial court correctly found that appellant’s incarceration prevented the father from achieving reunification within a reasonable time. See Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-341 (b) (3) (B)(viii). In support of this conclusion, the majority relies upon Angela Carvey’s recommendation of termination of Fields’s parental rights because the foster home was the only home T.F. knew. She also asserted that T.F. was adoptable and that the foster family had expressed interest in doing so. According to Carvey, the only part of the case plan Fields had completed was to resolve his criminal charges. On cross-examination, Carvey denied that the department had a policy of automatically seeking termination of parental rights any time a parent is incarcerated. She also said that she was unaware of any case where the department did not seek termination but instead waited for the parent to be released.The only issue before this court is whether there is sufficient evidence to support the circuit court’s decision. The court found that DHS had proven two grounds for termination of Fields’s parental rights: that the children had been adjudicated to be dependent-neglected and had continued out of the custody of the parent for twelve (12) months and, despite a meaningful effort by the department to rehabilitate the parent and correct the conditions that caused removal, those conditions had not been remedied by the parent, see Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-341 (b)(3)(B)(i)(a), and that Fields was sentenced to a period of time that constitutes a substantial period of the juvenile’s life and is still subject to that sentence. See Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-341 (b) (3) (B) (viii). The first ground found by the circuit court, based on section 9-27-341 (b) (3) (B)(i) (a), required proof that T.F. had been adjudicated dependent-neglected, that he had remained out of his parents’ custody for more than twelve months, that DHS made reasonable efforts to provide services, and that the conditions that caused T.F.’s removal had not been remedied. While the majority reasons that the issue is moot, the circuit court’s finding that all four elements had been met is clearly erroneous because the DHS caseworker testified that no services were offered to Fields. Fields testified that while incarcerated he completed parenting classes, a substance-abuse program, and an anger-management program without assistance from DHS. Fields testified that he had a place to live and transportation lined up. However, DHS did not determine whether this would be an adequate home for T.F. Therefore, Fields’s parental rights cannot be terminated based on section 9-27-341 (b) (3) (B) (i) (a). The majority reasons that the length of the prison sentence can be determinative of the termination decision and holds that the prison sentence in this case constitutes a substantial period of the child’s life. It finds that the possibility of parole within a few months was inconsequential and relies upon the trial court’s reasoning that the delay “possibly spanning another year or perhaps more, was not in the best interest of a child who was nineteen months old and who had been in foster care since he was five weeks old.” I dissent to point out that our review of the trial court’s determination that the sentence in a criminal proceeding would constitute a substantial period of the juvenile’s life should be limited neither to the length of the child’s current years lived nor by the years left to emancipation. Rather, we should focus upon the full life expectancy of the juvenile and the length of the incarceration in relation to that life expectancy. According to the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), approximately 150,000 teens are in foster care.1 About 20,000 of these older youth “age out” of foster homes and institutions each year. Id. The age at which foster care youth must leave the system varies from state to state. Id. CWLA reports that at least 22 states have set that age at 21; Massachusetts has the option to age out youth at 23. Nineteen states, including Arkansas, age out foster care youth at 18. Id. Many teens also leave the system prior to the “official” emancipation age and try to make a go of living on their own. Id. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, in some areas of the country as many as 60 percent of homeless people have a foster care history. Id. Many never complete high school and go on welfare. Id. About one-quarter of the men end up incarcerated. Id. In 1991, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that only one in six of the teens they tracked who had recently left care was completely self-supporting. Id. Statistics such as these indicate that many of these children, from whom the state permanently separates their parents, leave our care and gravitate to homeless shelters, prison, and welfare. When we consider the entire life of the child in this case, another year spent in determining whether reunification with his father could be achieved would not have been significant. In fact, the time frame would have only been a few short months. No services were provided to this father. While we have repeatedly said that few consequences of judicial action are so grave as the severance of natural family ties, see Osborne v. Ark. Dep’t of Human Servs., 98 Ark. App. 129, 252 S.W.3d 138 (2007), we should also be cognizant that the grave consequences of that severance extends far beyond the juvenile years of the child life. In this case, the father sought and completed classes with no help or support from the department. The law favors preservation, not severance, of natural familial bonds. See Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982); Benedict v. Ark. Dep’t of Human Servs., 96 Ark. App. 395, 242 S.W.3d 305 (2006). Whether Fields would ultimately be successful in being reunited with his son, we cannot know. Nonetheless, the State of Arkansas owes this child the opportunity to have that chance.   Almost Home, by Kendra Hurley, Shelterforce Online, Issue 125, September/October 2002; National Housing Institute, http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/125/independence.html.