Court Opinion

ID: 9784886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:56:53.948605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:00.700813
License: Public Domain

*449KISTLER, J.
Father appeals from a judgment terminating his parental rights to his two children. We reverse.
Before 1990, father had been convicted twice on drug charges. He enrolled in a drug treatment program and met mother, who was also enrolled in the program. The couple’s daughter was born in June 1991. Sometime after their daughter was born, mother started drinking and father began using methamphetamine again. When mother learned that she was pregnant with their second child, she entered a second treatment program. Father, however, continued his drug use. The couple’s son was born in February 1993.
The State Office of Services to Children and Families (SCF) first contacted mother and father in August 1993 as the result of a referral.1 When the SCF caseworker went to the family’s home to investigate, mother appeared to be under the influence of intoxicants and the children were unsupervised. Father was not home, but he met with the caseworker the next day at her office. At that time, father would not recognize that mother had a substance abuse problem that interfered with her ability to care for the children, nor would he accept the services offered by SCF. Father told the caseworker that he would monitor the problem and that if the children were at risk, he would not go to work. SCF took no further action at that time.
Despite father’s assurances that he would monitor the problem, on at least one occasion he left the children in mother’s care even though he believed mother had been drinking. Father also took no action after other family members told him that mother had been driving under the influence with the children in the car and that she had left the baby in a crib all day after passing out from drinking. At one point, father obtained a restraining order against mother, but they reunited approximately a month after the restraining order was issued.
Despite his drug use, father maintained regular employment with a construction company until 1995. After *450leaving his work, father began manufacturing and selling methamphetamine. In May 1996, police officers raided the family’s home. They found methamphetamine in a bedroom. The officers also found equipment and chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine in the garage. One of the officers testified that the methamphetamine in the bedroom was accessible to the children and that the methamphetamine lab presented a health hazard to the occupants of the home. There was evidence at trial that the daughter had seen one part of the methamphetamine manufacturing process.
In November 1996, SCF filed petitions to terminate both mother and father’s parental rights. The termination hearing was postponed, however, because “[m]other appealed] to have made significant progress and further assessment [was] necessary.” At the same time that SCF was deciding whether to proceed with the termination of mother and father’s parental rights, both parents were facing criminal charges as a result of the discovery of the methamphetamine laboratory in their home. According to father, he agreed to plead guilty in return both for a lesser sentence and a promise that the charges against mother would be dropped. Mother agreed that it was his goal to keep her out of jail so that she would be available to care for the children. Pursuant to the plea bargain, father was convicted in federal court in April 1997 for possessing a precursor chemical used to manufacture methamphetamine and for the intent to manufacture methamphetamine.
In September 1997, SCF developed a plan to return the children to mother. By January 1998, mother was making progress in treatment, and it appeared that she could be a resource for the children. At SCF’s request, the court dismissed the petitions to terminate both mother and father’s parental rights. By March 1998, however, SCF received reports that mother was again using drugs. Mother tested positive for, and admitted using, methamphetamine. As a result, in August 1998, SCF filed a second round of petitions to terminate mother and father’s parental rights. In response to those petitions, mother executed a stipulated judgment *451terminating her parental rights.2 Accordingly, the evidence at trial focused solely on father.
The evidence showed that, after the May 1996 raid of his home but before being incarcerated in federal prison in October 1997, father enrolled in a program with the Lane County Addiction Counseling and Education Services (ACES). Initially, father stated that he had enrolled in the ACES program to avoid spending more time in prison. One of father’s counselors in the ACES program testified that, although father’s initial motivation — to avoid a long prison sentence — was external, father later became more internally motivated. In early 1997 father tested positive for drugs while enrolled in the program. Notwithstanding that single relapse, father successfully completed the ACES program.
One of his counselors wrote that father had come to her and asked for more help, apparently after the relapse. She explained: “That was the needed boost that he required. He has done an excellent job in his treatment since that time in May of 1997. He has a thorough grasp of what is needed in order for him to continue a recovery lifestyle. My prognosis for him and his future is quite positive.” She also stated that father “was the most successful client [she had] ever worked with. He’s a counselor’s dream. It’s my estimate that he will be helping inmates with recovery when he’s in prison.”
On cross-examination, SCF’s attorney questioned whether father was simply focused on his own needs. The counselor answered, “It was always my impression that [father] cared deeply about his children and his family and that he was interested in changing and improving his own life situation with the hope that he could and would have a healthy family.” When SCF’s attorney pressed the point again, the counselor replied:
“Well, I can’t speak to what might have been going on in [father’s] head, only to my impressions. And my impression was that, he wanted his children, he grieved over being separated from his children, he frequently talked about his *452children and his sense of obligation as a parent and as a father and the kind of father that he wanted to be for his children, and being separated from them was difficult. And it’s — I guess it’s my impression that if he had any genuine ability to make the situation anything different, that he would want to be with his children, living with his children, raising his children.”
In addition to completing the ACES program, father voluntarily took and completed a parenting class through the Relief Nursery before reporting to prison. In that class, his “attendance and participation throughout the months this class was conducted w[ere] excellent. He demonstrated a sincere commitment to learning from the material being shared [and] was supportive of other group member’s experience[.]”
While in federal prison, father completed a required 40-hour drug class. Also, with the help of volunteers who visited the prison, father worked to initiate and develop a 12-step narcotics or alcoholics anonymous program in prison. At the time of the termination hearing, in addition to the 12-step program, father was participating in a 500-hour program for substance abuse. While incarcerated, father chose to quit smoking even though smoking is permitted in federal prison. Father explained that he quit smoking because his children asked him to and he wanted to do it for them. In addition to the drug programs, father took a parenting class, a human sexuality class, and a real estate class while in prison, all to become a better parent for his children.
The instructors in the federal prison uniformly praised father’s efforts to improve himself. On the final grade sheet in father’s parenting class, the instructor wrote that father “was an excellent student” and that “his positive outlook and enthusiasm served as a model for other students.” Father’s real estate instructor wrote a letter on father’s behalf stating that father “is one of the few that deserves recognition for his devotion to his family and his future in [s]ociety.” Additionally, because of his good behavior while in prison, father worked outside the prison on a forestry work crew.
At the June 1999 termination hearing, SCF did not present any psychiatric or psychological evidence about *453father’s present ability to be an adequate parent. Rather, it offered a report of a psychological evaluation that Dr. Robert Basham had prepared more than two years earlier in February 1997. Basham also answered hypothetical questions based on his 1997 evaluation of father. In his report, Basham stated that father has “generally good intellectual abilities, and he has the basic potential to use good judgment. The psychological tests did not reveal any significant problems, other than his drug dependency (which he readily acknowledges).” Basham added: “Chemical dependency is the primary psychological problem that would impair his ability to function as a parent, so his status in recovery is crucial in terms of case planning for the children.”3 In his recommendation, Basham stated: “[I]f [father and mother] are able to show ongoing recovery and if they are able to demonstrate good involvement in services and maintain their ongoing recoveries, there is a reasonable prospect that they could continue raising the children successfully.”
As noted above, Basham was asked a series of hypothetical questions at trial because he had not spoken with father since February 1997. When asked whether the fact that father had stayed drug free in prison was significant, Basham replied “[t]he fact of staying free of drugs while incarcerated really says nothing about long-term prospects [for staying drug free].” On cross-examination, father’s counsel provided Basham with additional information in the form of hypothetical questions about what father had done while in prison in addition to staying drug free. When asked if it made a difference that father had also completed two drug programs in the penitentiary (one of which involved 500 hours of work), had completed a parenting class at the Relief Nursery, had voluntarily quit smoking, had “voluntarily started up an AA or an NA class in the penitentiary” and had become a leader in the class, had learned to work with counselors and had fully cooperated with SCF through the course of the 1999 termination proceedings, Basham acknowledged *454that it “certainly could.” Although Basham raised the possibility that father’s actions in prison might have been “done to look good to others,” he candidly acknowledged that it was impossible for him to “make that diagnosis” in 1999 since he had not seen father for more than two years.
Between the time of the police raid in 1996 and the termination hearing in June 1999, father’s two children were placed initially in a shelter home and then in foster care with their former step-grandmother (father’s former mother-in-law). During that time, they were also involved with other members of their extended family. The clinical social worker testified that the children’s extended family had meant a lot to them and “ha[d] really kept them as healthy as they are.” Although the social worker testified that the children needed permanency, predictability, and stability in their lives, she explained that “they’re doing veiy well by comparison [to other children who have been in foster care for the same length of time].”4
The social worker also testified “these children are attached to their parents. I think they love their parents.” She explained, “I think that they would, if they could have what they wanted, they would be back with their parents and their parents would be able to take care of them.” Before father was incarcerated, he and mother visited the children for two hours three times a week and were allowed to have extensive phone contact.5 Generally, the visits went very well with only minor difficulties. After his incarceration, father consistently wrote letters to his children and maintained his interest in them. At the time of the June 1999 hearing to *455decide whether father’s parental rights should be terminated, he was due to be released from prison in approximately four months. Following his release, he expected to be in a halfway house in Eugene, which would prevent him from taking custody of the children immediately. He accordingly understood that the children might remain in foster care for as long as a year while he got a job and provided a house for them. He also recognized that he would need SCF’s approval before the children could be returned to him.
At the termination hearing, the representative for SCF explained that she had “not spoken to any of [father’s] treatment providers” in the penitentiary about his progress there. Rather, she testified that SCF “is not willing to consider him and is not able to consider him as a resource for his children because he is incarcerated. What the children need is permanency.” She explained: ‘Well, as Dr. Basham stated, because he’s undergoing services in prison, that’s not a demonstration of his ability to remain clean and sober once he’s out. And therefore, it’s the agency’s position [that it is] in the best interests of these children not to continue to wait any longer as they’ve already waited for three years.”6
Following the termination hearing, the trial court agreed with SCF that the children need permanency now. The trial court found that father’s belief that making the children wait a few more months will not harm them “is an example of father’s continued inability to put the children’s needs ahead of his own.” The trial court was also unconvinced that father would remain drug free after his release from prison and concluded that “the fact of father’s continued incarceration and the high likelihood that he will relapse pose an unacceptable risk to the mental and emotional well being of the children.” The trial court accordingly terminated *456father’s parental rights and committed the children to the permanent care, custody, and control of SCF.
On appeal, SCF argues that the trial court properly terminated father’s rights under ORS 419B.504 (1997).7 That statute authorizes termination if “the parent or parents are unfit by reason of conduct or condition seriously detrimental to the child and integration of the child into the home of the parent or parents is improbable within a reasonable time due to conduct or conditions not likely to change.” Textually, the statute requires a court to answer two related but separate questions. The first is whether a parent is presently unfit by reason of conduct or condition that is seriously detrimental to the child. State ex rel Juv. Dept. v. Johnson, 165 Or App 147, 156, 997 P2d 231 (2000); State ex rel SOSCF v. Burke, 164 Or App 178, 186-87, 990 P2d 922 (1999); State ex rel SOSCF v. Wilcox, 162 Or App 567, 573, 986 P2d 1172 (1999). If the parent is presently unfit by reason of conduct or condition, a court must ask whether that conduct or condition makes it improbable that the child can be integrated into the parent’s home within a reasonable time. See id. In determining whether integration can occur within a reasonable time, the focus is on the child’s “emotional and developmental needs and ability to form and maintain lasting attachments.” See ORS 419A.004(17); State ex rel SOSCF v. Duncan, 164 Or App 610, 613-14, 993 P2d 818 (1999). If the parent is presently unfit and integration is not probable within a reasonable time, the final question is whether termination is in the child’s best interests.8
*457The initial issue is whether father is presently unfit by reason of conduct or condition that is seriously detrimental to the children. See ORS 419B.504; State ex rel SOSCF v. Armijo, 151 Or App 666, 681, 950 P2d 357 (1997). SCF advances two grounds for saying that he is. It argues initially that father’s incarceration makes him unfit. As SCF recognizes, however, we have consistently held that incarceration alone does not warrant a finding of unfitness, although a prolonged period of incarceration will warrant such a finding. Compare State ex rel Juv. Dept. v. Jenkins, 59 Or App 702, 707, 651 P2d 1374 (1982) (finding that father was not unfit even though he was incarcerated for a substantial period), with State ex rel Juv. Dept. v. Kenneth M., 27 Or App 185, 555 P2d 933, rev den 276 Or 873 (1976) (terminating parental rights of father serving life sentence for murdering children’s mother). In this case, father had four more months left on his federal sentence when the trial court was asked to decide whether his parental rights should be terminated.9 Additionally, he will have to spend some time in a halfway house before he will be in a position to care for the children. We have never held that such a relatively short period of separation made a parent unfit. We decline to do so here.
SCF also appears to argue that father’s substance abuse makes him unfit as a parent. It is certainly true that before 1996, father had a long and persistent history of drug use. That drug use led to and resulted in the neglect of his children. Had SCF moved to terminate father’s parental rights in 1996, the record suggests that SCF would have been successful. However, because of its efforts to rehabilitate mother, SCF waited for several years before seeking to terminate both parents’ rights. By the time the termination hearing took place in June 1999, father had made significant progress toward turning his life around and resolving the single issue — his use of illegal drugs — that had prevented him from being a good father to his children. As Basham concluded in his February 1997 psychological report, “if [father is] able to show ongoing recovery and if [he is] able to demonstrate good involvement in services and maintain [his] *458ongoing recover[y], there is a reasonable prospect that [he] could continue raising the children successfully.”
Since 1997, father has done all that Basham asked. He has participated in numerous programs. He has demonstrated good involvement in services; he has maintained his ongoing recovery; and he consistently has received high praise from all of the treatment providers who have worked with him. SCF, however, argues that we should discount father’s progress. It notes that his former mother-in-law testified that father “knows what people want to hear, he knows the right thing to do, [and] he knows the right thing to say.” His former mother-in-law explained that “most of the time he believes [what he is saying]. But he just doesn’t seem to be able to make it happen.” SCF also argues that father’s “pattern of relapses into substance abuse treatment” calls into question the possibility that he will continue to stay drug free after his incarceration.
We address SCF’s last point first. The evidence in the record shows two relapses either after or during treatment. Father was in a treatment program when he met mother in 1990, and both of them relapsed after they began their relationship. That relapse continued until father was arrested in 1996. The record does not disclose any details about the first treatment program, the length of time father participated in it, or his prognosis after he completed treatment. The second relapse occurred while father was in the ACES program. After a single positive urinalysis, father sought increased help and the counselor who worked directly with father concluded that “[t]hat was the needed boost that he required. He has done an excellent job in his treatment since that time.” The record does not disclose any other relapses after treatment. It does, however, disclose that after the single relapse while he was in the ACES program father’s progress has been exemplary.10
SCF also relies on the testimony of father’s former mother-in-law to show that although father may be saying the right things to his treatment providers, he will not be able *459to carry through with his plans. However, the professionals who worked with father, and countless other substance abusers, found father’s progress exemplary. In their professional judgment, father had accomplished what few other persons in his position had. SCF provided no evidence that directly contradicted those persons’ assessment of father’s accomplishments. Indeed, Basham testified that he could express no opinion on whether father’s progress was genuine, as the professionals believed, or insubstantial, as father’s former mother-in-law apparently believed. We appreciate the dissent’s concern that father may relapse. We cannot say, however, that SCF has proven by clear and convincing evidence that father’s prior drug use makes him presently unfit. As we explained in Armijo, 151 Or App at 679-80, the point is not that we are certain that father will succeed. Rather, the record does not show, by clear and convincing evidence, that he will not. In light of father’s considerable efforts to become a better parent, father is entitled to a reasonable opportunity to show that those changes are permanent. See State ex rel CSD v. Rollins, 136 Or App 7, 13, 900 P2d 1072 (1995), adhered to 140 Or App 222, 914 P2d 1094 (1996).
On this record, neither father’s incarceration nor the possibility of a relapse provides clear and convincing evidence that father is presently unfit under ORS 419B.504 (1997). See Rollins, 136 Or App at 13-14. Accordingly, we need not decide whether the conduct or condition that makes father unfit also makes integration of his children into his home improbable within a reasonable time. See ORS 419.504 (1997); Wilcox, 162 Or App at 573. Although father’s parental rights should not have been terminated, that conclusion does not mean that his children must be returned immediately to him. See Rollins, 136 Or App at 14. As we explained in Johnson, while working toward returning the children to father, SCF may take appropriate action if intervening events warrant such action. 165 Or App at 161.
Reversed.

 The referral stated that mother was not supervising the children.

 According to the terms of mother’s stipulation, if the termination of father’s parental rights is not upheld on appeal, mother can move to vacate the stipulated judgment.

 Basham also noted that father “does not appear to have a full antisocial personality disorder, but does have some issues with authority and resentments about how he has been treated.” Basham accordingly noted that father had antisocial personality traits. He observed that the presence of those traits is a negative prognostic sign that father will remain free from drugs after he is released from prison.

 The social worker acknowledged that on November 2, 1998, she had told the Court-Appointed Special Advocate
“the children are in a good, stable home, are feeling secure about being there. ÍThe social worker] feels like [daughter] is a little parentified, not too badly, though, and that she does the worrying for the two. That [sonl basically follows her lead and is concerned when she’s concerned. Overall though, she thinks the children are doing really well.”

 A SCF social service specialist testified that this is much more visitation than most of SCF’s clients have. The reason for such extensive visitation was that the foster parent was able to supervise the visits and because SCF had received positive reports about the parents from Relief Nursery and from Head Start, where the children had been enrolled before the parents’ arrests in May 1996.

 SCF’s representative appears to have placed too much reliance on Basham’s testimony in two respects. First, Basham did not say that the fact that father was undergoing services in prison is no indication that he will remain clean and sober when he is released. Rather, Basham testified in response to a hypothetical question that the fact that father had remained clean and sober in prison was not a reliable indicator. When Basham answered that question, he had no information about either the programs in which father had participated while in prison or his counselors’ assessment of his progress. Second, Basham testified that he could not offer an opinion on father’s prospects once he was released because he had not seen him in more than two years.

 In its petition to terminate father’s parental rights, the state alleged two statutory grounds for termination: (1) that father was unfit, see ORS 419B.504 (1997) and (2) that he failed or neglected without reasonable and lawful cause to provide for the basic physical and psychological needs of the children for six months before the petition was filed, see ORS 419B.506 (1997). The trial court found only that father was unfit under ORS 419B.504 (1997). On appeal, SCF has not argued that father failed or neglected to provide for the children’s basic physical and psychological needs for the six months before it filed the petition to terminate father’s parental rights. We accordingly limit our analysis to the question whether father is unfit under ORS 419B.504 (1997).

 SCF must prove each statutory element by clear and convincing evidence. We review the record de novo, ORS 419A.200(5), although we give ‘“considerable weight’ to the Itriall court’s findings on issues of credibility,” Burke, 164 Or App at 187.

 We recognize that father had been incarcerated for approximately three years before the termination hearing began. The question, however, is whether he is presently unfit by reason of his incarceration.

 We note that to the extent mother’s substance abuse has contributed to father’s, father testified that he has no wish to remain in their marriage and wants to raise the children on his own.