Arizona Family Law - Standard Lowered For Taking Kids From Parents
Paul Davenport
Associated Press
Apr. 30, 2005 12:00 AM
An Arizona Supreme Court ruling requires juries and judges deciding what's in a child's best interest to use an evidence standard that could make it easier to permanently end an unfit parent's rights.
A child's need to live in a "loving, stable" home is at least as important as an unfit parent's rights, the Supreme Court said in the unanimous ruling Thursday.
Click here for the full opinion from the Arizona Supreme Court.
The ruling said at least some lower courts deciding what is in a child's best interest mistakenly thought that they had to use a heightened standard of proof - "clear and convincing" - that is fairly difficult to prove.
With the ruling, judges and juries now must use the easier-to-prove standard of "preponderance of evidence," which essentially means that more evidence supports one side of a dispute than the other.
Judges or juries decide whether termination of a parent's right is in a child's best interest only after first using the higher standard of clear and convincing to decide whether abuse, neglect or other circumstances open the door for possible termination.
While parents have a constitutional right to fairness under the law, that right shouldn't weigh so heavily in the best-interest determination that it means a child's own interests aren't given enough weight, the Supreme Court's issued said.
"At this stage, the child's interest in obtaining a loving, stable home, or at the very least avoiding a potentially harmful relationship with a parent, deserves at least as much weight as that accorded the interest of the unfit parent in maintaining parental rights," Vice Chief Justice Ruth McGregor wrote for the court.
If deciding a child's best interest required a higher standard of proof, a court could "be required to leave the child in status quo, despite finding by a preponderance of the evidence that doing so exposes the child to jeopardy," McGregor said.
The opinion analyzed the constitutional issues after first concluding that the state law that authorizes terminations of parental rights is ambiguous on what standard to use for determining a child's best interest. However, legislators made a distinction between that determination and the earlier one of whether a parent was unfit, McGregor wrote.
The ruling came in a Pima County case filed by maternal grandparents. The trial court denied the grandparents' action to terminate a man's parental rights to his daughter after he went to prison. The case has been sent back to Pima County Juvenile Court.
The ruling represents a major change because Arizona courts had been using the higher standard in their best-interest determinations.
Barbara Atwood, a University of Arizona law professor who teaches family law, said McGregor astutely and persuasively analyzed the different interests at stake in a proceeding that is the equivalent of "capital punishment" for parental rights.
"The way the burden of proof tips the balance reflects a policy choice on their part," Atwood said of McGregor and other justices. "She does a good job of showing why the less onerous standard of proof should govern on that phase."
The Supreme Court's decision partially overturned rulings by two lower courts and ordered a Pima County judge to reconsider the case and to use the correct standard.
It is expected that the matter will go to the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state high court's ruling to see whether it protects the rights of both children and parents to maintain family relationships.
