MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2017 ME 174
Docket: Wal-17-57
Submitted
On Briefs: July 20, 2017
Decided: August 1, 2017
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, and HJELM, JJ.
IN RE MYRA B. et al.
PER CURIAM
[¶1] The parents of Myra B. and Nicole B. appeal from a judgment of the
District Court (Belfast, Worth, J.) terminating their parental rights to the
children pursuant to 22 M.R.S. § 4055(1)(A)(1)(a) and (B)(2)(a), (b)(i), (b)(ii)
(2016). They challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support the judgment
and the court’s discretionary determinations of the children’s best interests.
Because the evidence supports the court’s findings and discretionary
determinations, we affirm the judgment.
[¶2] Based on competent evidence in the record, the court found by clear
and convincing evidence that the parents were unwilling or unable to protect
the children from jeopardy within a time reasonably calculated to meet their
needs, unable to take responsibility for the children within a time reasonably
calculated to meet their needs, and that termination of their parental rights was
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in each child’s best interest. See In re Caleb M., 2017 ME 66, ¶ 27, 159 A.3d 345.
The court based this determination on the following supported factual findings:
At the jeopardy hearing . . . , the parties agreed and the Court found
that Myra and Nicole were in circumstances of jeopardy in the care
of [either parent] due to:
serious abuse or neglect as evidenced by the threat of
serious harm, including serious injury, and/or serious
mental and emotional impairment, and the deprivation
of adequate food, clothing, shelter, supervision, and/or
care. This abuse or neglect is due, in part, to unsanitary
and unsafe conditions of the home, the ongoing
exposure of the children to significant conflict and
domestic violence, and [each parent’s] insufficiently
and inconsistently treated mental health[.]
. . . .
Nicole and Myra have been living with their maternal
aunt . . . since being placed there by agreement in April, 2015, an
arrangement continued when the children came into the State’s
custody in May, 2015. When the children first moved into the
[foster] home, they presented with many problems. Myra was
self-abusive, biting and hitting herself, and striking her head
against walls and floors. Nicole had the habit of hiding behind
furniture and inside closets. They have hurt themselves, each other
and third persons, damaged property and disrupted classrooms.
The children have described seeing their parents fight and hurt
each other, hurt their half-brother . . . and hurt them. Whenever the
girls hear a raised voice or an angry voice, they start to act badly,
or try to get away and hide. One of the children has told [the foster
mother] that she is scared of her mother, and does not want to be
hurt anymore. She has also said that she does not like it when
daddy takes a belt to her. Both children have required psychiatric
hospitalization.
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. . . In their aunt’s home, their aggressiveness against each
other has diminished. They have gained some ability to be calm
and non-violent. However, . . . the girls still have grave behavioral
and mental health struggles. They require consistent, supportive,
informed, capable parenting.
. . . .
Unfortunately, neither parent has made sufficient progress
towards the alleviation of jeopardy to be able to provide these
individual girls, with their serious, particular and individual needs,
with a safe, supportive home.
. . . .
. . . The [parents] have been unable to empathize with their
fragile daughters and unable to place the girls’ needs ahead of their
own. . . . On one occasion when one of the children said that she did
not want to see her parents, [the father] angrily told the child that
the visit was not about her, that instead it was about his and [the
mother’s] rights. Both parents personalized the children’s distress,
telling the children when the children became anxious and upset
during a visit that they were hurting their parents’ feelings. . . . [The
parents] do not have the capacity to make the changes necessary to
protect the girls from harm. . . . [The parents] participated in
numerous services, but the gains they made were minimal.
. . . .
The [parents] have struggled to consistently maintain safe
and even minimally sanitary housing. They have made efforts to
improve the cleanliness of their home, but its condition has varied
during visits from others. . . . The state of the home remains unsafe
for Myra and Nicole.
. . . .
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[The parents] have tried to change, but their efforts have not
resulted in changes sufficient to meet the children’s needs, and to
protect them from further harm. It is in the children’s best interests
that the reunification process end; it is time now that they know
they are in a forever home and will be kept safe.
[¶3] Contrary to the father’s challenges to the court’s factual findings, the
determinations of the weight and credibility of the witnesses’ testimony were
for the trial court to make. See In re Cameron B., 2017 ME 18, ¶ 10, 154 A.3d
1199. We are also unpersuaded by the mother’s argument that the
Department’s reunification efforts were inadequate or that the alleged
inadequacy rendered the evidence supporting the court’s findings of unfitness
insufficient. See In re Doris G., 2006 ME 142, ¶ 16, 912 A.2d 572.
[¶4] The court’s supported findings were sufficient for the court to have
found at least one ground of parental unfitness, see In re I.S., 2015 ME 100, ¶ 11,
121 A.3d 105; the court adequately explained how the deficits of the parents
render each parent unable to meet the individual needs of each child, see In re
Jazmine L., 2004 ME 125, ¶ 16, 861 A.2d 1277; cf. In re Thomas D., 2004 ME 104,
¶ 39, 854 A.2d 195; and the court did not err or abuse its discretion in
determining that termination of the parents’ parental rights, with a
permanency plan of adoption, is in each child’s best interest, see In re Thomas
H., 2005 ME 123, ¶¶ 16-17, 889 A.2d 297.
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The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
Thomas F. Shehan, Jr., Esq., Searsport, for appellant father
Jeremy Pratt, Esq., and Ellen Simmons, Esq., Camden, for appellant mother
Janet T. Mills, Attorney General, and Hunter C. Umphrey, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office
of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee Department of Health and Human
Services
Belfast District Court docket number PC-2015-4
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY