Court Opinion

ID: 9633326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:43:09.459994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:16:26.690306
License: Public Domain

Springer, J.,
dissenting:
I dissent in this case for essentially the same reasons that I dissented in Bush v. State, Dep’t Hum. Res., 112 Nev. 1298, 929 P.2d 940 (1996). Bush was a case in which the State permanently terminated the parental rights of two parents because the court believed the parents were not smart enough to raise their two children. The case now before us is in many respects more tragic than Bush because this mother’s children were taken away from her just because she was poor.
As I pointed out in Bush, the State’s modus operandi appears to be to go into the homes of handicapped, powerless and usually very poor parents, remove their children (almost always without the parents’ having counsel) and put the children into the home of substitute parents who are more affluent than the natural parents and more pleasing to social service agents than the natural parents. After the children are taken out of the home of their natural parents, the State imposes upon the natural parents a “reunification plan” that is frequently beyond the capacity of the parents to deal with. After the natural parents flunk the reunification test, the State files a petition to cut the natural parents oif from their children permanently, and to “free them for adoption” by the Welfare-qualified, substitute parents — all under the shibboleth of “the best interest of the child.”
Concurring Justice Shearing believes that the State “shows compassion” when it deprived this mother of her son. I say, “The helping hand strikes again.” I have no reason to doubt that, as put in the majority opinion, the child is “thriving in his foster home”; but, in my opinion, this does not justify permanently depriving an American Indian mother of her natural son and depriving the child of his priceless heritage.1
*154This case is only one of an ever-increasing number of cases in which destitute parents come before this court desperately pleading that their children not be taken away from them forever. There can be no doubt that over the past year the number of these cases has dramatically increased. The reason for the apparent exponential growth in parental terminations is not clear to me. Concurring Justice Shearing suggests that the rash of termination cases has been brought about “because the parent or parents irrefutably demonstrated their inability to care for their children.” It does not make sense to me, however, that the number of incompetent parents in this state has all of a sudden grown to the point that this court sees two or three of these cases during each monthly oral argument session, whereas not too long ago we had this number in a year’s time. It seems much more likely to me that the State’s recent rush to terminate natural parental rights, particularly the rights of destitute and handicapped parents, is the result not of an overnight increase in the number of incompetent parents but rather of a conscious, executive decision on the part of welfare officials.2
I do not understand fully what public policy or political agenda has brought about the plethora of parental terminations or why the State appears to these parted parents and their attorneys to be *155so intent on dissolving the families of the poor, powerless and handicapped. One possible explanation for it all can be found in the change in the law in 1987, when NRS 128.105 was amended to provide that the “primary consideration in any proceeding to terminate parental rights must be whether the best interests of the child will be served by termination.” This amendment provides no justification for the run-away parental terminations that we are now experiencing. The best interests of the child has always been the “primary” consideration in judging the dispositional grounds for termination. See, e.g., Champagne v. Welfare Division, 100 Nev. 640, 691 P.2d 849 (1984); Chapman v. Chapman, 96 Nev. 290, 607 P. 2d 1141 (1980). As I noted in my dissent in Bush, it appears likely that the statutory amendment has been misread to say that the best interests of the child is the only consideration necessary in order to terminate the parental rights of poor and handicapped parents.
In Bush, the State took the Bushes’ children out of the home of their handicapped parents and placed them for adoption in a “better” home. In the present case, the State took a child away from a poor mother because she was “without independent housing, employment and appropriate finances, and unable to provide adequately for the physical, emotional and financial needs of her son,”3 and then terminated her parental rights because the mother was found to have “chronically failed to complete the [reunification] case plan.” I see the present case as being very similar to the Bush case, except that the child’s mother, Ms. Recodo, was not mentally handicapped, as were the Bushes.
The mother in this case, Adrina Recodo, is enrolled with the Goshute/Shoshone Indian Tribe. She asserts herself, as put by the trial judge, “very strenuously about her American-Indian heritage” and “asserts that there is a long tradition of welfare agencies taking Indian children from parents and allowing adoption by other families.” The trial court took the position that “permanency” was more important than the boy’s Indian heritage, stating that “[r]egardless of his heritage, Michael is entitled to a permanent, stable, and loving home” and “that even if adopted by non-Indian parents, his heritage” can still be preserved.
I see the State’s permanent exclusion of this American Indian boy’s natural mother from his life as an example of the pattern outlined in the Bush dissent. The child’s mother was destitute, and it may have been necessary and advisable that the child be placed for a limited time in temporary foster care; however, as in so many cases, temporary really means permanent. Once the *156child was taken away from the mother, the usual disastrous problems ensued. Let me now recount from the record how this tragedy took place.
Adrina Recodo was the victim of an abusive domestic relationship, and she sought the help of a social worker on the Paiute Reservation, stating that she was having problems taking care of her son after she got out of the relationship. She told her caseworker that she had no income, no place to live and no transportation. In need of money, food and a place to live, the State’s response was to send Ms. Recodo to a psychologist. The State also decided to take her son away from her and to place him in foster care. Ms. Recodo was destitute; and on many occasions she was faced with the choice of eating or spending the money on transportation that would take her to school or to try and find a job. She received no State assistance in obtaining housing, although obtaining adequate housing was made a condition of the reunification plan. My reading of the record tells me that it was unfair for the court to hold, under these circumstances, that Ms. Recodo flunked the reunification test.
The trial judge stated in his written Decision that “the [Welfare] Division cannot be expected to get Recodo a job, a home, and to provide financial stability.” Such a statement, to my way of thinking, wrongly justifies the position apparently taken by the State in this case: “Get a job; get a home; and get financial security — or lose your son permanently.” Certainly Ms. Recodo tried to do something about her destitution. Deborah McEwan, Director of Social Services for the Moapa Band of Paiutes, testified that it was a “[p]retty fair assessment” when counsel asked if Ms. Recodo “tries so hard to improve herself [that] she bites off more than she [can] chew . . . and sometimes fail[s] when she over shoots what she believes she’s going to be able to accomplish.” Ms. Recodo tried to keep the State from taking her child away from her, but did not quite make it.
Ms. Recodo’s social worker recognized that, among many problems, transportation was a major problem for Ms. Recodo:
The reservation is in a very rural area and commuting to Las Vegas is fifty plus miles. And, we had at that time no suitable day care at the reservation. He was an infant. We had Head Start, but there was no way for her to leave him.
The record is replete with descriptions of the almost insurmountable obstacles put in the way of Ms. Recodo by the State. I do not undertake in this dissent to present a complete account of the tragic conditions that resulted in Ms. Recodo’s son being placed in a non-Indian home and taken away from his mother forever; but I do want to say that my reading of the record tells *157me that Ms. Recodo did not, under Champagne, “deserve” to lose her child permanently. 100 Nev. at 648, 691 P.2d at 855 (footnote omitted).
With regard to dispositional grounds, I certainly do not believe that “under no reasonable circumstances [will] the child’s best interest be served by sustaining the parental tie.” Id. at 652, 691 P.2d at 858. There are many reasons for not severing the parental tie in this case. We recognized in Champagne that “there does come a time when society must give up on a parent. A child cannot be kept in suspense indefinitely.” Id. at 651, 691 P.2d at 857. In my opinion, much of the “suspense” caused in this case was caused by the State itself in not giving more assistance to a woman who was living under extremely trying circumstances. The time had not come to “give up on” this mother.
The trial court made the sad observation that “[t]he difficult aspect of this case is the realization that one day Recodo may determine that Michael is a priority and make the progress necessary to reunify with Michael.” The trial court recognized the possibility that Ms. Recodo was going to make the “progress necessary” to place this child back with its mother. In my view, termination of this mother’s parental rights was premature and unseemly. I would reverse the termination order.

 I would note that this case is the exception to the rule because there is an indication of an intention on the part of the foster parents to adopt the child. Most of the cases that I have seen of late simply terminate the parental rights *154of the poor or handicapped parents and leave the child adrift with no parents at all. I understand the current “permanency” fad and the perceived need to place children in more “stable” homes; but this, in my view, does not necessitate permanent severance of natural parental ties, except in the direst of cases. I do not see why terminating this child’s heritage by removing his Native American mother from his life can be said to be in his “best interests,” especially when there is no evidence that by keeping the natural parental ties intact he would lose the “permanency” and stability that he apparently enjoys in foster placement.

I wish to note, as I have in previous, similar dissents, that I do not impute bad motives to the state welfare officials. I believe that the explosion of parental rights cases arises out of good faith decisions by officials which are largely based upon a misreading of the child protection statutes and upon misperceptions as to what is in the “best interests” of children. Long-term child custody arrangements outside of the home are often necessary and in the best interest of a child; however, it is in relatively rare instances that the only way in which a child’s best interest can be served is to take his or her natural parents away permanently. I do not propose, as suggested by the Shearing concurrence, that the State is willy-nilly “plucking children out of poor homes and placing them in ‘more affluent’ homes”; all I am pointing to is a pattern, frequently called to our attention by attorneys appointed to represent destitute and handicapped parents (attorneys for the appeal and when it is too late to do much good for parents who have already lost their children), a pattern in which the children are taken away in a proceeding in which the parents are not represented and which result in the parents being placed in a position from which it is virtually impossible for them to get their children back.

Petition filed July 2, 1993.