Court Opinion

ID: 9651864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:54:01.211176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:41.740680
License: Public Domain

SHEPHERD, J.,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
This case concerns the extremely difficult issue involving the rights of mentally retarded persons to parent and live their lives as normal as possible and the State’s obligation to encourage and support that right.2 I begin by noting we are well-past the point of judging whether or not the mother, N.S., exercised good judgment in having the three young children involved in this case, or even the extent to which she was equipped to make that judgment. It is a fait accompli. We have no reason to believe she did not want these children, or lacked the ability to consent. Moreover, although she loves these children and “maintains a significant attachment and bond with them,” through no fault of her own, she lacks the mental capacity to care for them on her own.
Dr. Sandra Klein, one of the two expert psychologists who testified at the termination of parental rights hearing, captured this case in its essence:
[This] is a very sad case. This is not a mother who is — this is not a mother who is a malicious, malevolent, intent individual who purposely wanted to harm her children. This is a mother who has three children who is very limited IQ wise and because of that limitation impairs her ability to care for her children. The low level of IQ is not [her] fault.
She did not take drugs and become mentally retarded. She did not become involved in a reckless accident and become mentally retarded. This is something that wasn’t made [by her], she was born with this.... There is a bond [between this mother and her three children], she is connected.
Although it is my clinical impression that independently on her own [] — the chances of her ever being able to come to the point of caring for her children on her own are almost non existent. However that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t deserve, you know, to love her children or for her children to know her or to be nurtured by her.... They’re going to surpass her like I previously indicated. But this is [t]he[i]r mother and she is very motivated to do what she can for these children. Her basi[c] difficulty is her IQ and she can not (sic) fix that. There is no cure for developmental delay. I can’t fix it, she can’t fix it....
Legally, we are called upon to resolve the conundrum in this case through application of the “least restrictive means” test, a judicially mandated appendage to Florida’s termination of parental rights statute, § 39.806, Fla. Stat. (2009), in recognition of the fact that in our society, “a parent has a *781natural God-given legal right to enjoy the custody, fellowship and companionship of his offspring. This is a rule older than the common law itself....” Padgett v. Dep’t of Health & Rehab. Servs., 577 So.2d 565, 570 (Fla.1991) (quoting State ex rel. Sparks v. Reeves, 97 So.2d 18, 20 (Fla.1957)). In application, as our Supreme Court has held, this means that when the state infringes upon such a right, it must do so in the “most narrowly-tailored” and “least intrusive” manner consistent with the object to be accomplished. N. Fla. Women’s Health & Counseling Servs. Inc. v. State, 866 So.2d 612, 641 (Fla.2003).
In the usual case, satisfaction of this test is relatively uncomplicated. Typically, an “offending parent” has intentionally abandoned his child, abused the child, intentionally or recklessly exposed the child to danger, abused drugs or alcohol to the detriment of the child, or become incarcerated. A cursory review of the cases relied upon by the majority demonstrates that each emanates from such a self-inflicted parental flaw. See Fla. Dep’t of Children & Families v. F.L., 880 So.2d 602, 605 (Fla.2004) (actual abuse, drug abuse, and domestic violence); B.C. v. Fla. Dep’t of Children & Families, 887 So.2d 1046, 1048 (Fla.2004) (incarceration); In re T.M., 641 So.2d 410, 410 (Fla.1994) (actual abuse and incarceration); Padgett, 577 So.2d at 568 (actual abuse); A.J. v. K.A.O., 951 So.2d 30, 32 (Fla. 5th DCA 2007) (abandonment and incarceration); In re K.W., 891 So.2d 1068, 1069 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004) (drug abuse).3 In such a case, as stated by the majority, “[DCF] ordinarily must show that it has made a good faith effort to rehabilitate the parent and reunite the family, such as through a current performance agreement or such other plan for the present child.” See Maj. op. at 778 (citing Padgett, 577 So.2d at 571) (emphasis added). If the Department makes the effort and the parent does not respond, the element is satisfied. See, e.g., In re K.W., 891 So.2d at 1069.
However, our case is not an ordinary case. There was no need — except perhaps for confirmatory purposes — to offer N.S. a case plan. Case plans do not improve IQ.4 Nevertheless, N.S. eagerly embraced every service the Department had to offer her and completed her plan. Unremark-ably, the experts’ assessment of N.S., after her journey through the system, was the same as before she began that journey: she wants to parent, but cannot do so without assistance.
It is at this juncture I believe this case fails of proof and should be remanded for further proceedings. The purpose of the Florida Department of Children and Family Services is to serve. The Department has yet to offer a meaningful service to N.S. The only meaningful service it can offer N.S. is an effort to determine whether there is a suitable relative or other placement for N.S. and her children whereby she can exercise the fundamental *782right to motherhood our society promises every child-bearer (or father) wherever it can be had, the mentally impaired being no exception. Such an arrangement, if it were to be found, would ensure the rights of both the mother and the children are fully protected.
The Department offered no proof at the trial that it made any effort to inquire about the availability of such an arrangement. The case plan requirements, imposed by the Department on N.S. before it decided to terminate her parental rights, were taken from a page of those that the Department would require of an “offending parent” who had the ability to rehabilitate herself and achieve reunification with her children: a psychological evaluation, parenting classes, refrain from criminal activity, stable housing and child support. The document includes no mention of a “plan” to search for an alternative long-term placement with a relative or friend whereby N.S. could live with and parent her children, and there is indeed no evidence such a solution was given any studied deliberation by the Department or Guardian despite the fact that N.S. has a large extended family located in Miami-Dade County.
To the contrary, the Department, the Guardian ad Litem, and the trial court operated under a paradigm placing the burden upon mentally deficient N.S. to come forward with a solution satisfactory to the court, and in failing to do so, she would lose her children. When a paternal great grandmother came forward, the Department and Guardian adjudged her unqualified because she already had been involved in the children’s lives and had failed to remedy the problem. With only the most cursory degree of consideration, an offer from a cousin to become involved was rejected because her offer, from the witness stand, was not sufficiently adequate. The trial judge was concerned. As he stated during an especially revealing cross-examination of the case manager, during which counsel for the mother elicited the fact that the plan for N.S. reflexively (and abruptly) changed from reunification to termination at the Guardian’s insistence upon confirmation of the mother’s inability to parent without assistance, “I think it’s important here to know if the mother received competent services and it’s a very important issue.” The fact of the matter is that after her IQ was determined, no further services were offered to N.S., including the most important of all, establishing whether or not there was some alternative permanent arrangement or placement in which N.S. could live her life and parent her children; and the position of both the Department and Guardian was that such was not necessary to termination in this case. As the Department stated in its final argument, “[all] the least restrictive means test means [is] that we made a good faith effort to rehabilitate the parent and unite a family such as through a case plan and other case plans with the family.” Counsel for the Guardian dutifully adopted this argument in his own closing argument. The trial judge ultimately capitulated, “[T]he children have to be returned as long as the parent comes up with a way of being able to parent with assistance.” (Emphasis added).
Of course, not only is this paradigm illogical in the circumstance of a case like this but, more importantly, it is contrary to law. It is apodictic in a termination of parental rights case that the Department has the burden to prove termination is the least restrictive alternative to satisfy the State’s obligation to protect the child. See L.B. v. Dep’t of Children and Families, 835 So.2d 1189, 1195 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002). It is equally incontrovertible that the Department must prove this element, as with all other elements of a termination case, by *783clear and convincing evidence. See § 39.809(1), Fla. Stat. (2009); N.L. v. Dep’t of Children & Family Servs., 843 So.2d 996, 999 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003). A cursory review of the record reveals the government was not held to this level of obligation. In fact, the Department’s case coordinator, Lucy de Lange, testified she was unaware of “any [departmental] courses that provide services to developmentally delayed parents [such as N.S.] and another relative that would be able to co-parent with them.” There is reason to believe the Department is not ordered in such a way to effectively handle a case like this.
The Department places its primary reliance for affirmance on A.W. ex rel. B.W. v. Dep’t of Children & Families, 969 So.2d 496 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007). However, in that case, not only did there exist “little bonding” between the child and the mentally impaired mother, there was record evidence the mother had engaged in physical abuse toward the child, and exhibited “anger management issues and a low frustration tolerance” that placed the child “at risk.” Id. at 500-02. Unlike the case before us, the mother in A.W., albeit mentally deficient, was also an “offending parent.” See supra at 781.
Justice Barkett’s specially concurring opinion in Padgett aptly articulates the crucial legal (and moral) difference between a mother whose only sin is that she has deficient parental capabilities for reasons beyond her control, and the same parent who has additionally engaged in some form of actual physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse of her child:
I write to emphasize that the evidence necessary to terminate parental rights is not simply the bare assertion of an expert that parents lack the “capacity to parent their child.” Rather, the decision must be supported by factual evidence of actual physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse.
Permanent severance of the parent-child relationship is a serious matter that involves constitutionally protected liberty interests. The United States Supreme Court has stated:
The fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child does not evaporate simply because they have not been model parents or have lost temporary custody of their child to the State. Even when blood relationships are strained, parents retain a vital interest in preventing the irretrievable destruction of their family life.
To ensure that the rights of both parent and child are fully protected, the reasons for the permanent termination of parental rights must go far beyond the fact that others may be more capable of caring for the child....
Clearly, conclusions that parents manifest a low level of intelligence or lack emotional and cognitive resources by themselves would not be enough to terminate parental rights. Those characterizations undoubtedly describe thousands of individuals who are now, and will continue to be, loving parents. Such findings are a far cry from clear and convincing proof of abuse, neglect, or abandonment.
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[B]ecause parental rights are recognized as a fundamental liberty interest, the state must prove that termination of those rights is the least restrictive alternative. ... Termination of parental rights should be the remedy of last resort, employed only when other reasonable alternatives have been exhausted.
Padgett, 577 So.2d at 572 (internal citations omitted).
*784I find no evidence in the record, pursuant to which I can comfortably conclude, that the Department, Guardian, or even the court made the effort to ascertain whether a permanent arrangement existed with a relative or friend in which N.S. and her children’s express desire that they remain together could be preserved. Because the burden lies with the Department to prove by clear and convincing evidence that termination is the least restrictive means available to both protect the children and at the same time honor N.S.’ fundamental right to parent, to which we as a society are pledged, I would reverse this case and remand it for re-adjudication of the children as dependent, without prejudice to the Department to re-institute termination proceedings, if appropriate, at such time as it is evident termination of N.S.’ rights is the least restrictive alternative available to protect the life, safety and health of these children. See § 39.811, Fla. Stat. (2009); J.J. v. Dept. of Children & Families, 886 So.2d 1046, 1048 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004).
In so doing, the Department should be reminded that the elements of the “least restrictive means” test, requiring a showing that termination of parental rights is the least restrictive means of protecting the child from serious harm, are separate from, and not to be confused with the “manifest best interest” test. Id. (describing a two-step process inherent in statutory scheme for termination of parental rights in which the manifest best interest test is addressed only after one of the grounds for termination under section 39.806 has been proven); accord V.J. v. Dep’t of Children & Family Servs., 949 So.2d 1128, 1129 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007). It is quite apparent from the record the foster parents desperately wish to adopt these children. The record contains substantial evidence from which one might conclude these children would be “better off’ if they were adopted by their current foster parents. However, “the fact that a child may be better off materially or otherwise with the prospective adoptive parent[s] should never become the focal point in a termination proceeding.” In re E.C., 33 So.3d 710 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010) (citing Kingsley v. Kingsley, 623 So.2d 780, 788 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993)). A review of the record shows, while understandable, albeit legally unacceptable, it is this all too human sentiment that infected the Department’s handling of this case and carried it to its predictable end. In so doing, the system benignly skirted its central, prescribed duty — the preservation of the family unit wherever that is reasonably possible.
I would reverse the termination of parental rights as to N.S.

. I dissent only from the majority’s approval of the termination of parental rights of the mother in this case. I concur in the majority’s affirmance of the termination of parental rights of the father, D.R., which is also the subject of this appeal.

. Along with these cases, the majority also cites L.D. v. Dep’t of Children & Family Servs., 957 So.2d 1203 (Fla. 3d DCA), review denied, 967 So.2d 197 (Fla.2007), to support its holding that the Department's obligation to N.S. was “simply” to offer her a case plan and services before proceeding to termination. See Maj. Op. at 778. To the contrary, in L.D., we reversed a termination of parental rights because, inter alia, the Department failed to prove actual abuse, i.e., the required "nexus between the mother’s conduct of drinking alcohol and harm to the child,” id. at 1205, and the least restrictive means test because the Department failed to do a home study or other investigation to determine whether there was a suitable permanent custody arrangement with a relative. Id. at 1207.

. N.S. has an IQ of 55. Her IQ score places her in the bottom one percent of the population in this regard.