Court Opinion

ID: 9600984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:34:38.05876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:48:11.271178
License: Public Domain

*678RUSSELL, J.,
dissenting.
The commitment of the children to the temporary custody of the Department in November 1978 was justified by the evidence of child abuse by Crews, and the neglected condition of the children while the mother lived with him. However, the mother thereafter “worked really hard” with the Department to regain custody of her children, married Richardson and ended her association with Crews. She testified that she complied with every suggestion the Department made. In December 1979 the Department’s caseworker was “feeling very confident that she [the mother] would get the kids back.”
The Department’s attitude toward her changed when it lost contact with her for the first four months of 1980. During this time Richardson was incarcerated. The mother was unable to find work and was forced to live in conditions of great poverty with a sister in Pittsylvania County. She testified that she had no money, had no access to a car, and that her sister refused to drive her to Martinsville. “Every time I would go to borrow a phone from somebody they’d say I’d run their bill up and I wasn’t working, and I wouldn’t pay for it.” Although she was unable to make the necessary long distance calls, she did write a letter to the Department asking for an appointment. When this was arranged, she was unable to keep it because her sister “let on like she didn’t have no gas and the car wouldn’t crank.”
The Department evidently rejected these explanations and filed petitions for termination of parental rights. Thereafter it was relatively easy for the Department to present evidence adverse to the mother, e.g., (1) the children were at first upset by her visitations but, as time passed, the younger two no longer recognized her, (2) the children were doing “extremely well” in foster homes, and (3) she is still poor and unemployed, and lives with Richardson in a house which lacks running water.
These cases have a way of developing a tragic momentum of their own. No doubt the Department found good foster homes for the children in which they would adjust well, with the passage of time. It is also not surprising that visitations with their mother would at first upset them, and later become meaningless if their separation from her were sufficiently protracted. For all of this we have only the delays of litigation to blame. These children have now been away from their mother for over three and one-half *679years. The longer the separation lasts, the more insistent such evidence becomes.
The mother’s relative poverty and fourth-grade education, contributing to her limited employment opportunities, go no further to disqualify her as a parent than does her home’s lack of running water. We have not reached a point where the State may take over the children of those who have the misfortune to be poor.
The problems giving rise to the original custody placement were resolved. This case turns on whether the mother failed, “without good cause, ... to follow through with appropriate, available and reasonable rehabilitative efforts” proposed by the Department, and whether the termination of parental rights is “in the best interests of the children].” Code § 16.1-283(B)(2)(c). The Department has the burden of establishing these matters by “clear and convincing evidence.” Id. I think it failed to do so. See also: Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982).
I would reverse and remand for retrial in light of the conditions found to exist at the time of retrial.
POFF and STEPHENSON, JJ., join in dissent.