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Determining
Custodial Status of Biological Parent
The Appellate
Court of Connecticut reversed a termination of parental rights decision
on the ground that the trial court erroneously found that the respondent
father was the non-custodial parent of his newborn son. The court
held that absent a court order to the contrary, biological parents
have equal right to custody of a child. Therefore, it was not appropriate
for the trial court to assume the mother was custodial and make
the father prove his custodial status.
The respondents,
an un-married couple who had their first child committed to DCF,
had two other children committed to DCF when they were born. At
the hearing on the neglect petitions regarding both children the
mother entered a plea of nolo contendere; the father was not permitted
to participate because he was deemed the non-custodial parent. After
subsequent motions were filed addressing the question of the father’s
non-custodial status, the court ordered that the issue be resolved
by the fact-finder at the subsequent termination of parental rights
trial. At the termination hearing, the court determined that the
father had not provided enough evidence to prove that he was a custodial
parent and terminated both the mother and father’s parental rights.
On appeal the father claimed his parental rights were improperly
terminated since he was not allowed to take part in the neglect
proceeding and he was indeed a custodial parent.
The Appellate
Court found the father to be a custodial parent here because the
mother did not have to prove she was a custodial parent and because
there is no legal authority that stands for the proposition that
a parent must prove that he or she is custodial to contest a neglect
petition. There is a presumption that the rights of both parents
with regard to their children are equal, and here both parents were
at the hospital together for the births of both children, and they
spent equal amounts of time with them before the children were taken
into custody by the DCF.
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