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TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS/ABANDONMENT/INCARCERATED
FATHER In this appeal, the respondent father challenged the trial
court’s decision to terminate his parental rights on the grounds
of abandonment. The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s decision,
and citing In re Ashley E., 62 Conn. App. 307 (2001), reasoned that
though the father had occasionally pursued visitation and telephone
calls with the child, the father’s contact was sporadic and marked
by inappropriate, sometimes violent conduct towards the family.
Furthermore, though incarceration alone will not support a finding
of abandonment, the appellate court noted that the father engaged
in conduct which caused his incarceration, thereby disrupting his
relationship with his son. The court observed that the father did
not avail himself of prison programs which would have permitted
him to seek visitation or phone calls with his son. Additionally,
the father’s violent, threatening and erratic conduct caused the
petitioning mother to seek protective orders and take other measures
which barred the father from having access to the child. The appellate
court concluded that “although the father has expressed a desire
to have a positive relationship with his son, by his conduct, he
has abandoned the child by failing to be a responsible parent in
the manner contemplated by our child welfare statutes.”
The appellate court also rejected the father’s claim
that his due process rights were violated when the court declined
to continue the second day of trial to permit the father, who was
being detailed by federal immigration officials, to participate
via teleconference. The court, applying the Matthews v. Eldridge
due process analysis, found that the father’s rights were not violated.
The court noted that the father had participated by phone on the
first day, that the second day of trial involved only the testimony
of the father’s witness—the court-appointed psychologist—that the
father had the witness’s report months prior to trial and therefore
had ample time to offer assistance to his counsel, and that the
transcripts of the second trial date were forwarded to the father,
therefore allowing him and counsel time to review the proceedings
and request an opening of the evidence. Accordingly, despite the
significant nature of the liberty interest at stake, the court ruled
that the father’s interests were adequate guarded and that the state’s
right to protect the well-being of the child and the child’s need
for permanency outweighed any risk of erroneous deprivation of liberty.
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