Court Opinion

ID: 9620373
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:41:42.603452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:49.788248
License: Public Domain

GRANT, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The economic chaos which caused this mother to exhaust all of her options for child care and which finally caused the emotional duress leading to placement of her children with the state for adoption is starkly apparent from this record. Furthermore, the actions of the respondent and its counsel are less than admirable. The right to direct the up-bringing of one’s children “is one of the most basic of all civil liberties.” Flores v. Flores, 598 P.2d 893, 895 (Alaska 1979). The right to the care, custody, companionship, and control of one’s children “undeniably warrants deference and, absent a powerful countervailing interest, protection.” Lassiter v. Dept. of Social Serv., 452 U.S. 18, 27, 101 S.Ct. 2153, 2159-60, 68 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981) (quoting Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 1212-13, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972)).
Adoption was unknown to the common law; the basis and results are conferred by statute. Adoption is therefore a creature of the state. In re Maricopa County Juv. Action No. A-25646, 130 Ariz. 589, 637 P.2d 1092 (App.1981). As such adoption *376statutes must be strictly construed. Westerlund v. Croaff, 68 Ariz. 36, 198 P.2d 842 (1948).
Based on the evidence presented below the mother alleged the following as grounds to set aside the adoption: (1) there was legal cause to set aside her consent, i.e. fraud, duress, or undue influence in signing the relinquishment; (2) lack of notice to the natural parents regarding the February 23 adoption hearing; and (3) fraud upon the court stemming from LDS Social Services’ failure to fully disclose the circumstances of the adoption to the judge at the time of the adoption hearing. It is the third ground with which I am most concerned.
When first faced with the question of the revocability of a consent to adoption, our Supreme Court stated that consent “may not be revoked after the child has been placed in the possession of the adoptive parents except for legal cause shown, as where the consent was procured through fraud, undue influence, coercion or other improper methods.” In re Adoption of Holman, 80 Ariz. 201, 207, 295 P.2d 372, 376 (1956) (emphasis in original). The Holman decision was later interpreted to stand for the proposition that consent to adoption could be revoked, so long as the adoptive process had not begun. In re Gila County Juv. Action No. 3824, 124 Ariz. 69, 601 P.2d 1353 (App.1979). But see In re Yuma County Juv. Action Nos. J-81-339 and J-81-340, 140 Ariz. 378, 382, 682 P.2d 6, 10 (App.1984) (questioning the continued validity of Gila County Juv. Action No. 3824 in light of subsequent statutory amendments).
In 1983, the legislature amended the adoption statutes to include a provision that “consent to adopt is irrevocable unless obtained by fraud, duress or undue influence.” A.R.S. § 8-106(E). Although this amendment purports to limit the prior judicial decisions, the statute does not state the point in the adoption process at which the statutory provision should apply. Three time frames within the adoption process are relevant: (1) after consent but before the process has begun; (2) after the process has begun; and (3) after a decree of adoption is entered.
Since the adoption statutes must be strictly construed this statute should be read as limiting the revocability of the consent to adopt only after the adoption process is complete. Moreover, according to the statutory scheme for the adoption process, the consent must be filed with the court. A.R.S. § 8-109(B). The statute should be applied only to the time after the consent is filed, which normally coincides with the adoption hearing and decree.
Subsequent to the statutory amendment of A.R.S. § 8-106, this court stated the general rule as follows:
We thus conclude that once a valid written consent to adopt has been given and the adoption process has begun, a parent may not revoke that consent unless there is a showing of some compelling reason for the revocation____ This conclusion is in accord with the 1983 legislative amendment to A.R.S. § 8-106, which now clearly precludes the revocation of a consent to adoption given in accordance with the requirements of A.R.S. § 8-107 except upon the basis of fraud, duress or undue influence.
Yuma County Juv. Action Nos. J-81-339 and J-81-340, 140 Ariz. at 382, 682 P.2d at 10. Significantly, the “some compelling reason” standard is less than the “legal cause” standard of the statute, the same standard required by the courts after the adoption is final. See In re Adoption of Holman, 80 Ariz. 201, 295 P.2d 372 (1956).
In the present case, the mother expressed her desire to revoke her consent about five months after signing the relinquishment. She unequivocally told the attorney for the adoption agency that she wanted all adoption processes halted if not yet final. At that point, the consent had not been filed, nor had the adoption hearing been held. However, the petition for adoption had been filed, and the children had been placed with the prospective adoptive family on a foster care basis. At the hearing to revoke consent, the agency’s representatives testified that the natural parent’s consent is effective when given to the agency, regardless of any later communications by the parent. The agency’s in*377terpretation of the legal significance of the consent expedites the adoption process; but it cuts off the rights of the natural parents too soon, particularly where, as here, the natural parent has no independent legal advice about the rights being relinquished.
In proceedings to terminate the legal rights of a natural parent, the state must provide counsel for an indigent natural parent and counsel must be effective in representation of the parent. In re Gila County Juv. Action No. J-3824, 130 Ariz. 530 at 532, 637 P.2d 740 at 742; Rule 20, Rules of Procedure for Juvenile Court. The United States Supreme Court has decided that in parental termination proceedings initiated by a state, Fourteenth Amendment due process may require that counsel be appointed for a parent. Lassiter, 452 U.S. at 32-34, 101 S.Ct. at 2161-2163. Therefore if this natural mother had been at risk of losing her children in a parental termination proceeding, counsel would have been provided to her to represent her parental interests. Why should the risk of losing children by “consent” be less protected? The state provides counsel to indigent criminal defendants who plead guilty as well as those who go to trial. Rule 6.1, Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure. The consequences here are no less dire. The parent-child relationship is an important liberty interest in which the state cannot interfere without providing the parents fundamentally fair procedures. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982). The termination of parental rights by A.R.S. § 8-537 is not inherently or factually distinguishable from a parental termination by consent and adoption. To allow the mother to consent to termination of her parental rights without the safeguard of advice of counsel is fundamentally unfair when the consent cannot be revoked prior to the adoption hearing and the mother need not be given notice of the adoption hearing as the majority holds. The crux of due process is the right to be heard and the right to adequately represent one’s interests. Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32, 61 S.Ct. 115, 85 L.Ed. 22 (1940).
This mother did her best to protect her interests. She visited LDS Social Services offices requesting information about her children. After two visits she was given the name of counsel for the agency. She wrote to him immediately, requesting that the adoption proceedings be stopped. He did not respond. He did not inform the court of the letter. The mother wrote to the juvenile judge twice. The first letter was forwarded to two other judges. The second letter went astray when the children could not be located because they had not yet been formally adopted. As the United States Supreme Court stated in Lassiter:
If, as our adversary system presupposes, accurate and just results are most likely to be obtained through the equal contest of opposed interests, the State’s interest in the child’s welfare may perhaps best be served by a hearing in which both the parent and the State acting for the child are represented by counsel, without whom the contest of interests may become unwholesomely unequal.
452 U.S. at 28, 101 S.Ct. at 2160.
The result reached by the trial court and affirmed by the majority was derived from an “unwholesomely unequal” process and therefore I dissent and I would set aside the adoption.