Tennessee Father’s Sentence for Armed Robbery Made Him Unfit Parent

Tennessee law case summary on termination of parental rights in family law from the Court of Appeals.

In Re Chandler M.  – Tennessee parental rights terminated

The child in this Tennessee parental rights termination case was born in 2011.  In 2012, the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services filed a petition to terminate the parental rights of both parents.  The mother was uncooperative in determining the identity of the father, but after a number of tries, the father, who was by then incarcerated, was finally located.  He was serving a sentence of 12 years for an armed robbery.  He testified that he planned to marry after release from prison, had a job lined up, and wanted to eventually be a parent to the child.

The trial court terminated the father’s parental rights on the grounds of statutory confinement for a sentence of ten years or more.  The father then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The appeals court first noted that in all parental termination cases, there is an important constitutional dimension, and that parental rights must not be terminated in the absence of clear and convincing evidence of the statutory grounds.

In the case of imprisonment, parental rights cannot be terminated unless the parent’s actions are found to be a broader pattern of conduct which renders the parent unfit.  There must be a wanton disregard of the welfare of the child.  In this case, the father argued that this standard was not met because he was not even aware of the child’s existence at the time he committed the acts which led to his incarceration.

But the court found in this case that the father was aware that the mother was pregnant after he had sex with her.  Even though he was initially misled to believe that another man was the father, the appeals court agreed with the lower court that the father’s conduct leading to his incarceration amounted to abandonment of the child.

The father also argued that he would be eligible for release after serving one year of his sentence, and was therefore not really incarcerated for more than ten years.  However, the court carefully examined the statute and concluded that it applied in this case.  The court noted that the father was “well aware from his past experience” that probation could be revoked at any time.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the termination of the father’s rights.  Judge Swiney concurred in the result of the case, but would have interpreted the statute regarding ten years’ imprisonment differently.

No. M2013-02455-COA-R3-PT (Tenn. Ct. App. July 21, 2014).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see Tennessee Child Custody Law.  See also Miles Mason’s book available on Amazon.com Tennessee Parenting Plans and Child Support Worksheets: Building a Constructive Future for Your Family featuring actual examples of parenting plans and child support worksheets from real cases.