In re Thomas D., 2004 ME 104

Summary

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court reviewed the termination of Angela and William D.'s parental rights to Thomas D. The court held that, absent an established rehabilitation and reunification plan requiring specific services, the father's failure to abstain from alcohol or complete substance-abuse and batterers-intervention programs did not constitute clear and convincing evidence of parental unfitness. The court vacated the termination judgment as to both parents and remanded for reconsideration of the mother's unfitness and Thomas's best interests.

Holdings

1. When termination is premised on a parent's failure to obtain or complete specific services, the absence of an established rehabilitation and reunification plan requiring those services prevents the parent's failure, standing alone, from constituting clear and convincing evidence of parental unfitness.
2. The record did not support by clear and convincing evidence the finding that William was unwilling or unable to protect Thomas from jeopardy, take responsibility for him within a reasonable time, or make a good-faith effort to rehabilitate and reunify.
3. Although competent evidence supported the finding that Angela was unable to care for Thomas's special needs, her termination judgment had to be vacated because the assessment of Thomas's best interest and the effect of Angela's cohabitation with William had to be reconsidered after William's rights were not terminated.
4. A rehabilitation and reunification plan is a central component of child-protection proceedings following a jeopardy determination and ordinarily should be finalized before a termination hearing when reunification efforts are required.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the father's failure to abstain from alcohol and complete substance-abuse counseling and a batterers-intervention program could establish parental unfitness when no rehabilitation and reunification plan required those services.
2. Whether the evidence established prospective jeopardy or inability to assume parental responsibility as to the father by clear and convincing evidence.
3. Whether the mother's parental-rights termination judgment and the best-interest determination had to be reconsidered after the father's termination judgment was vacated.
4. Whether the evidence independently supported a finding that the mother was unable to care for Thomas's severe developmental disabilities.

Disposition

vacated