Court Opinion

ID: 9519131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:10:02.489801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:43:48.869992
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE BARRY, dissenting: I agree with Justice Stengel that in proceedings involving efforts to terminate residual parental rights, the matter of whether adoption is in the best interests of an infant ward is not material until the unfitness of a nonconsenting parent has been resolved as a separate and distinctly separate prior issue. By someone’s standards, it is always possible to find a better home for a child than the one Providence has bestowed. For that reason alone, natural relationships are protected by law unless the unfitness of the parents is demonstrated by clear and convincing proof. That quantum is not established by a showing that the Department has nurtured parent-child attachments between an infant ward and a foster home by isolating a child in its legal custody from contacts with his parents. (In re Taylor, 30 Ill. App. 3d 906, 334 N.E.2d 194 (1st Dist. 1975).) As the circuit judge expressed it, evidence of efforts by the Department to encourage such permanent attachments so that out of a human reluctance for disrupting an infant’s life courts will feel compelled to adjudicate in favor of a Department policy of effecting adoptions must be vigorously loathed by judicial disfavor. It is clear that the circuit court erred here in deciding that out of considerations for the best interests of the infant it was compelled to find the natural mother unfit. It is clear, also, as Justice Stengel notes, that there is conflicting proof justifying different inferences on the matter of whether, considering her circumstances, Mrs. Hrusosky demonstrated sufficient parental concern and interest. But “it is her efforts to carry out her parental responsibilities, rather than their successes, which should be considered in determining the correctness of a finding of unfitness ” * (In re Taylor.) I disagree, however, that it is the function of this court to weigh the conflicting relevant proof and to elect the appropriate inferences, and I am not persuaded that this record so overwhelmingly favors the Department that no judgment in favor of Mrs. Hrusosky could ever stand. Since the circuit court gave no consideration to the relevant proof, but erroneously based its decision as to the mother’s unfitness solely on consideration of the child’s best interests, a remandment is necessary in my view. I would vacate the judgment of the circuit court and remand the cause with specific directions to reconsider the proof heretofore made in accordance with the law as set forth in In re Taylor.