Court Opinion

ID: 9791990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:21:41.59748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:40.008131
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, J.,
dissenting.
The majority errs when it holds that due process under the Fourteenth Amendment does not require the state to pay $2,500 to $3,700 to bring father from the Washington State Penitentiary to the Lane County Jail to defend his *489parental rights in person. The majority quotes the Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 US 319, 335, 96 S Ct 893, 47 L Ed 2d 18 (1976), three-part balancing test, 100 Or App at 486, but misapplies it and reaches a wrong, and fundamentally unfair, result.
As to the privacy interest at stake, father has a fundamental liberty interest as a parent. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 US 645, 92 S Ct 1208, 31 L Ed 2d 551 (1972). The majority opinion correctly acknowledges that “[father’s] interest in his parental rights is undoubtedly great.” 100 Or App at 486. That fundamental liberty interest was not present in Babock v. Employment Division, 72 Or App 486, 696 P2d 19 (1985), an unemployment compensation case to which the majority gives so much weight. 100 Or App at 486.
As to the risk of erroneous deprivation of father’s parental interest, the majority asserts that “we cannot say that the probable value of [father’s] physical presence in assuring an accurate and just decision was great[,]” 100 Or App at 487, and calls father’s presence “at best a marginal improvement in the factfinding process.” 100 Or App at 487. The majority’s conclusions are wrong. The purpose of a termination proceeding is to determine a person’s fitness to continue as a parent. This is one of the most difficult tasks that a court can undertake. As stated by the court, in State v. Jamison, 251 Or 114, 117, 444 P2d 1005 (1968):
“The permanent termination of parental rights is one of the most drastic actions the state can take against its inhabitants.”
To minimize the risk of error, the court must be able to determine as accurately as possible what kind of person the parent is. Demeanor has an importance that it does not have in other kinds of proceedings, such as an unemployment compensation hearing.
Because the state did not provide the expenses for father to appear, the court could not evaluate his demeanor. A key witness adverse to father was the child’s mother, who did appear in person. Although father admitted certain “key facts about which mother testified,” 100 Or App at 488, he also contradicted her testimony on other “key facts,” including her allegations of physical abuse and various criminal charges. Mother’s parental rights were also at issue, but that only *490heightens the need for the court to be able to weigh father’s credibility against hers. The majority, therefore, seriously underestimates the probable value of father’s presence in court.
The majority asserts that father failed to point to a “specific portion of the trial [that] was affected by his absencef.]” 100 Or App at 487. He does not need to, because his absence affected the entire proceeding. The majority fails to evaluate correctly the importance to the trial court of observing father when determining his credibility and parental fitness, as well as the importance to father of an opportunity to be at his counsel’s side and to face witnesses when they give adverse testimony.
As to the governmental interest, the majority concedes that the state’s $2,500 to $3,700 interest is only “financial.” 100 Or App at 487. Its interest is weak. Again, this is not an unemployment compensation hearing where, according to the majority, the state has a “strong interest in telephone hearings as a fair and efficient way to conserve its limited resources.” 100 Or App at 486.
After identifying and characterizing the three factors that it must balance under Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, the majority then strikes an unfair balance. Despite its efforts at the end of the opinion to explain what it has done, 100 Or App at 488, in actuality it has failed to place on the scale the great weight of father’s fundamental interest in his parental rights. Contrary to Mathews, the majority weighs two factors only — not three. As it earlier stated:
“We must balance what would be at best a marginal improvement in the factfinding process against a somewhat less marginal governmental interest.” 100 Or App at 487.
I have already emphasized that the majority errs when it evaluates father’s presence as only a “marginal improvement in the factfinding process.” 100 Or App at 487. It is at least of equal importance that the majority has not placed in the balance at all father’s parental interest. If the majority had given that interest proper weight, it could not have reached the result that it did in view of the weak interest of the state.
I dissent.
*491Joseph, C. J., and Buttler and Rossman, JJ., join in this dissent.