Adoption of Garret (and two companion cases) (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-009-18)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 17-P-79 Appeals Court ADOPTION OF GARRET (and two companion cases[1]). No. 17-P-79. Hampden. October 4, 2017. – January 22, 2018. Present: Agnes, Sacks, & Lemire, JJ. Adoption, Care and protection, Dispensing with parent’s consent, Visitation rights. Parent and Child, Adoption, Care and protection of minor, Dispensing with parent’s consent to adoption, Custody. Minor, Care and protection, Custody, Visitation rights. Petitions filed in the Hampden County Division of the Juvenile Court Department on August 2, 2012. The cases were heard by Lois M. Eaton, J. Katrina McCusker Rusteika for the mother. Madeline Weaver Blanchette for Garret & another. Briana Rose Cummings for Susan. Jeremy Bayless for Department of Children and Families. William B. Tobey, for the father, was present but did not argue. AGNES, J. This termination of parental rights case involves a blended family consisting of seven individuals: the mother, the father, and their child, Susan; Garret and Elizabeth, the father’s children from a prior relationship; and Peter and Michael, the mother’s children from her prior marriage. On August 2, 2012, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) filed two petitions pursuant to G. L. c. 119, § 24, in the Juvenile Court alleging that all five children were in need of care and protection. A judge granted DCF temporary custody of Elizabeth that same day. DCF was subsequently granted temporary custody of the remaining four children on August 21, 2012. Both the mother and the father waived their rights to a temporary custody hearing on September 10, 2012. The care and protection petitions were later consolidated. The termination trial occurred over the course of eleven days in 2014; twenty-three witnesses testified and over fifty exhibits were introduced in evidence. The judge subsequently made 913 written findings of fact and seventy-one conclusions of law, including conclusions regarding the fourteen factors enumerated in G. L. c. 210, § 3(c), with respect to each parent.[2] As relevant to this appeal, the judge found that the mother and the father were unfit to parent Susan and their other respective children both at the time of trial and into the future.[3] All of the children were adjudicated in need of care and protection and were committed to the care of DCF pursuant to G. L. c. 119, § 26. Pursuant to G. L. c. 210, § 3, the judge terminated […]