Court Opinion

ID: 9819267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:21:24.690274+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:11:32.259781
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HOMER, dissenting: I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court’s finding of unfitness was against the manifest weight of the evidence. Addiction counselor Terry Boughan testified at the termination hearing that respondent was diagnosed as alcohol dependent in 1996. According to Boughan, respondent was unable at that time to maintain abstinence in an outpatient setting but, rather, required the more intensive treatment of a residential treatment facility. Respondent’s service plans required that she abstain from alcohol entirely before she would be able to regain custody of her children. Though respondent could not regain custody of her children without first overcoming her addiction to alcohol, substantial evidence was presented that she continued to drink. On January 31, 1998, officers form the Fulton County sheriffs department observed respondent intoxicated while supervising her children. A CSS caseworker smelled alcohol on respondent’s breath on May 13, 1999, and respondent admitted to the caseworker that she had been drinking the night before. Respondent, herself, testified that she had not abstained from alcohol between October 1998 and April 1999 and had only quit drinking three or four weeks prior to the September 23, 1999, termination hearing. Respondent had stopped attending both AA meetings and addiction counseling by February 1998, though both were also required by her client service plan as a prerequisite to regaining custody of her children. The trial judge, having heard the testimony and observed the demeanor of the witnesses, found clear and convincing evidence that defendant was a habitual drunkard for at least a year prior to March 19, 1999. Though the majority seems to suggest that the State was required to establish precisely how often and how much respondent drank, I find no support for such a standard in either section l(D)(k) of the Adoption Act (750 ILCS 50/l(D)(k) (West 1998)) or the relevant case law. To the contrary, evidence of indulgence without intermission is not necessary to show habitual drunkenness, but rather it is sufficient to show that a person has demonstrated an inability to gain control over his or her habitual craving. In re D.M., 298 Ill. App. 3d at 580, 699 N.E.2d at 217. The refusal to abstain from alcohol consumption and to attend required treatment — even though such refusal would prevent respondent from regaining custody of her children — supports a finding that respondent used alcohol so frequently as to show an inability to control the need or craving for it (see In re D.M., 298 Ill. App. 3d at 580, 699 N.E.2d at 216). I would not find the opposite conclusion clearly apparent. See In re C.M., 305 Ill. App. 3d at 163, 711 N.E.2d at 815 (a trial court’s finding is against the manifest weight of the evidence only if the opposite conclusion is clearly apparent). Consequently, I must respectfully dissent.