Court Opinion

ID: 9572352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:41:06.055265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:34.372989
License: Public Domain

DOOLIN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The procedural protections of Title 10, granted to those parents whose children are in jeopardy of being declared dependent or neglected, have been continually denied to parents who are in a much more perilous position of having all rights to raise their children terminated. See the dissent in Ruth P. v. State of Oklahoma, 578 P.2d 352 (Okl.1978), where we pointed to the sophistry of holding a termination proceeding is merely another phase of a dispositional hearing not entitled to procedural safeguards. The fallacy of the view of the majority is even more apparent where the time lapse between the original declaration of dependency and neglect and the termination of parental rights is several years. Here the court terminated the mother’s rights based on new facts some six years after two of the children were declared dependent and neglected. When termination is sought on new facts, a new petition should be filed. It was not.
In Matter of Paul, 555 P.2d 603 (Okl.1976) approved a trial court’s admission of written reports of doctors and police. The decision in Paul permits home evaluation and reports of social workers to be admitted in the dispositional phase to aid the court in deciding the issue of custody. Such reports are not only useful but necessary for a decision as to placement. But this should not be precedent to allow any and all hearsay evidence, such as introduced in this case, as a basis for termination.
The majority reasons that a termination hearing is not adjudicatory, therefore it must be dispositional. It is in fact a third proceeding and because of its dire consequences must be clad with procedural safeguards. Rules of evidence are followed in an adjudicatory hearing to protect the parents as well as the children, 10 O.S.1971 *912§ 1111. A trial court should not ignore these rules and thus deny the parents constitutional protections at a termination hearing. Surely they are entitled to confrontation of witnesses.
I am authorized to state that Justice WILLIAMS and Justice SIMMS concur in the views herein expressed.