In re Ivory W.

The respondent mother appealed from the judgments of the trial court terminating her parental rights with respect to her minor children, I and D. The petitioner, the Commissioner of Children and Families, had filed petitions to terminate the respondent's parental rights after she admitted that she had sent sexually explicit photographs of I to several persons and after the children were adjudicated neglected, committed to the petitioner's custody, and placed in a preadoptive foster home. During the proceedings on the petitions, the respondent filed four separate motions for a continuance of the termination proceedings, asserting, inter alia, that a continuance was required so that she could testify in defense of the termination of her parental rights without jeopardizing her fifth amendment right to avoid incriminating herself in connection with a pending federal criminal proceeding in which she had been charged with certain federal crimes related to her distribution of the photographs of I. The trial court granted the first three motions, but denied the fourth. Following the termination trial, at which the respon- dent did not testify and the trial court did not draw any adverse inference against her due to her silence, the court rendered judgments terminating her parental rights. With respect to both petitions, the court found that the petitioner proved by clear and convincing evidence that the respondent had failed to achieve a sufficient degree of personal rehabili- tation, as required by the applicable statute (§ 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (i)). With respect to the petition related to I, the court additionally found that, as the result of the respondent's conduct in distributing the sexually explicit photographs of I, I had been denied the care, guidance, or control necessary for that child's well-being for purposes of § 17a-112 (j) (3) (C). The court further found that the petitioner had established that the seven factors set forth in § 17a-112 (k) weighed in favor o

The Tennessee Department of Children's Services ("DCS") removed three children from the custody of their parents and placed them with foster parents in March 2012 because one of the children, an infant, was severely malnourished. By July 2012, the children's mother was cooperating with DCS and complying with a permanency plan that set the goal for the children as reunification with their mother or another relative. The mother continued to comply with the permanency plan for the next sixteen months that the children were in foster care. On the day the children were scheduled to begin a trial home visit with the mother, July 31, 2013, the foster parents filed a petition in circuit court seeking to terminate the mother's parental rights and to adopt the children. After the foster parents filed their petition in circuit court, the juvenile court, which had maintained jurisdiction over the dependency and neglect proceeding, ordered DCS to place the children with the mother for the trial home visit. The circuit court trial on the foster parents' petition did not occur until September 2015. By that time, the children had resided with the mother on a trial basis for two years without incident. The mother, DCS, and the guardian ad litem appointed by the juvenile court in the dependency and neglect proceeding opposed the foster parents' petition. The foster parents and a guardian ad litem appointed by the circuit court sought termination of the mother's parental rights. After the multi-day trial, the trial court dismissed the petition, finding that the foster parents had proven a ground for termination by clear and convincing proof but had failed to establish by clear and convincing proof that termination is in the children's best interests. The foster parents appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed. We granted the mother's application for permission to appeal and now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the trial court's judgment dismissing the fost

In this parental termination case, maternal Grandparents sought termination of both Mother's and Father's rights on the grounds of: (1) abandonment by willful failure to support and (2) abandonment by willful failure to visit. The trial court found no grounds for termination as to Mother and only one ground—failure to support—as to Father. The trial court however found that it was not in the child's best interest to terminate Father's rights. We affirm the trial court's judgment in all respects.