Court Opinion

ID: 9581252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:13:03.206694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:48.695130
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I would affirm on all issues without remanding for the entry of a finding on the least restrictive alternative issue. Where the record is clear, as it is in this case, that the trial court consciously reached its decision to terminate parental rights because no lesser restrictive alternative was available, no useful purpose would be served by a remand for the entry of a formal finding to that effect. Were the remand only for the purpose of the performance of a ministerial act — that of couching in a different legal document and perhaps in slightly different words that which the trial court has already expressed — one could accept it as innocuous, if unnecessary. Couched as it *94is, however, the remand invites, if not compels, the mother to request a new eviden-tiary hearing, the denial of which or the grant and unsatisfactory outcome of which will result in another appeal to this court.