Court Opinion

ID: 9591147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:02:35.751682+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:07.713106
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment, with the following qualifications.
1. The opinion measures the Hickses’ evidence, with respect to their reasons for revoking consent, by the test provided by law for revocation of surrender of their son. The opinion states that the Hickses must show evidence (presumably by preponderance) "of fraud, duress or incapacity sufficient to invalidate their consent.” In In the Interest of B. G. D., 224 Ga. App. 124, 127 (479 SE2d 439) (1996), we agreed whole court that a surrender can be set aside if (by preponderating evidence) it was "based on duress, fraud, incapacity or other grounds which address the voluntariness of the consent.” We should keep the exact language; as it is a court-created rather than statutory legal test, it will be used repeatedly, and it is crucial to the finality of adoptions.
2. Further, the opinion states that “the Hickses must show that [shelter] was offered as an inducement to part with their child.” As authority for the establishment of this requirement of proof of fact *643and burden of proof, Douglas v. State, 263 Ga. 748, 749 (3) (438 SE2d 361) (1994), is cited. The opinion in that case does say that “In order to violate § 19-8-24 (a) (2), . . . the financial assistance must be held out to induce parents to ‘part’ with their child.” The Court is there construing a criminal statute and interpreting it to mean that the State must prove this fact beyond a reasonable doubt. This statute has implications in the context of the adoption proceeding as well, in that the same requirement of proof of fact would be put on the surrendering parents as put on the State, but for a different purpose. The State seeks to prove a criminal act. The surrendering parents seek to prove, by this same evidence, that the surrender was not voluntary as a matter of law because it was illegally induced. That would be one of the “other grounds” referred to in B. G. D., supra.
Decided June 3, 1997.
Before Judge Stevens.
Thurmond, Mathis & Pickett, Janice L. Mathis, for appellants.
Knox & Swan, William B. Swan, Jr., for appellees.
It helps put the evidence in context when it is known that the child was a baby when the adoption proceeding began in April 1996 and concluded in September. The child was born October 17, 1995.