Adoption of Anisha (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-096-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 15-P-1611 Appeals Court ADOPTION OF ANISHA.[1] No. 15-P-1611. Suffolk. May 12, 2016. – August 5, 2016. Present: Kafker, C.J., Cohen, & Green, JJ. Massachusetts Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. Jurisdiction, Care and protection of minor, Custody of child, Juvenile Court. Juvenile Court, Jurisdiction. Parent and Child, Care and protection of minor, Custody. Minor, Care and protection, Custody. Petition filed in the Suffolk County Division of the Juvenile Court Department on December 18, 2013. The case was heard by Stephen M. Limon, J. Sherrie Krasner for the mother. Ashley M. Green for the child. Kerry David Strayer, Assistant Attorney General, for Department of Children and Families. KAFKER, C.J. The primary issue presented in this appeal is whether a judge of the Juvenile Court properly exercised jurisdiction over a care and protection petition regarding an infant where the mother, who had previously lost custody of six older children, secreted the child out of the Commonwealth and then the United States to avoid oversight by the Department of Children and Families (DCF). We conclude that the judge properly denied the mother’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction while he further explored the issue of which State — Tennessee or Massachusetts — had jurisdiction, and that he correctly exercised jurisdiction pursuant to G. L. c. 209B, § 2(a)(4), once Tennessee declined jurisdiction. We also conclude that there was overwhelming evidence to support the judge’s determination that the mother was unfit to parent the child, and we therefore affirm the decree terminating the mother’s parental rights.[2] See G. L. c. 119, § 26; G. L. c. 210, § 3. Background. We recite the procedural history and the relevant facts as found by the judge, reserving additional facts for our discussion of the legal issues. Child’s birth and DCF’s response to G. L. c. 119, § 51A, report. The mother was returning to Massachusetts from her father’s funeral in Maine when she went into labor. She gave birth to the child at a hospital in New Hampshire in November, 2013. The judge found that the child was the “[m]other’s eighth child and . . . none of the older seven [were] in her care and custody following the untimely death of one and the removal of the other six older children by [DCF].” After the child’s birth, the mother completed a form with information from […]