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| A visual depiction of a 90-word sentence |
By Elizabeth Kruska
Pro tip: if your sentence is 90 words long, that sentence is too long.
This is a short opinion and hopefully this will be a short summary. Hopefully I’ll lose those five pounds of winter weight before beach season. We can all hope for a lot of things.
MC was a child involved in a CHINS case in 2014. In 2018 his parents voluntarily relinquished their parental rights to MC. This put MC in the sole custody of DCF.
DCF wanted to place MC in a placement out of state. This happens sometimes in DCF cases. Vermont’s great but we don’t necessarily have all the placements and programs that kids in our state might need. But, DCF can’t just put a child in another state because DCF doesn’t have jurisdiction in any other state. DCF has to have an agreement with that state’s DCF counterpart, and they do that through the Interstate Compact on Placement of Children. Or, as we in the juvie biz call it, the ICPC.
Here’s the other thing. Generally, if a child is going to another state, the court has to make findings that this is okay to do. Parents are also supposed to be consulted. A lot of times parents agree, since the program or placement is often the right thing for the child. But, what do you do if there aren’t any parents because their rights have been terminated?
That’s the question in MC, and the problem that springs out of the 90-word sentence.
I should add a quick disclaimer here. I did not work on this case, but I am aware of it. And I’m aware of it only because I happened to be near MC’s lawyer one day and saw that she was visibly frustrated by this statute. I believe I recall her saying, “This is the worst sentence I’ve ever seen.” She didn’t mention the name or subject matter of the case, but I can’t imagine there are that many people this annoyed with this particular sentence in early 2018.
Anyway, this annoyed attorney represented MC and she didn’t think the out-of-state placement was appropriate for this child, for whatever reason. She consulted the terrible statute and believed the right course of action was to have a hearing. The court held a hearing and decided that MC had the right to a hearing on whether or not he would be placed out of state. Then the court reviewed the statute and determined that the statute said if the parents’ rights were terminated there was no right to a hearing. MC filed a motion to reconsider, which the court denied. MC appealed.
SCOV reverses this one and modestly says “we acknowledge [the statute] is not a model of clarity.” This is somewhat in line with my fellow juvenile counsel referring to this as the worst sentence she’d ever seen. I don’t know what the trial judge said when she read it, but I would imagine it was somewhere between these two sentiments.
Anyway, SCOV probably made one of those sentence diagrams like we all did in junior high and realized what the sentence really says.
Turns out, the purpose of the statute is for kids to request a hearing on whether they’re getting placed out of state. If a child asks for that hearing, the child must be heard. The portion of the statue that talks about a parent being judicially terminated just stands to mean that if a parent’s rights have been terminated, that they don’t get notice of the hearing.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense that kids couldn’t challenge out of state placement just because their parents' rights have been terminated. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense that only parents could challenge out-of-state placement. There’s also a piece about when kids with delinquencies can have out of state placement hearings, and to say that kids with CHINS cases couldn’t have the same kinds of hearings also doesn’t make sense.
So, to sum up: a confusing statute with too many words leads to multiple intelligent people having varying readings of the statute and SCOV says the child is allowed to have a hearing before being placed out of state. Fin.
MC was a child involved in a CHINS case in 2014. In 2018 his parents voluntarily relinquished their parental rights to MC. This put MC in the sole custody of DCF.
DCF wanted to place MC in a placement out of state. This happens sometimes in DCF cases. Vermont’s great but we don’t necessarily have all the placements and programs that kids in our state might need. But, DCF can’t just put a child in another state because DCF doesn’t have jurisdiction in any other state. DCF has to have an agreement with that state’s DCF counterpart, and they do that through the Interstate Compact on Placement of Children. Or, as we in the juvie biz call it, the ICPC.
Here’s the other thing. Generally, if a child is going to another state, the court has to make findings that this is okay to do. Parents are also supposed to be consulted. A lot of times parents agree, since the program or placement is often the right thing for the child. But, what do you do if there aren’t any parents because their rights have been terminated?
That’s the question in MC, and the problem that springs out of the 90-word sentence.
I should add a quick disclaimer here. I did not work on this case, but I am aware of it. And I’m aware of it only because I happened to be near MC’s lawyer one day and saw that she was visibly frustrated by this statute. I believe I recall her saying, “This is the worst sentence I’ve ever seen.” She didn’t mention the name or subject matter of the case, but I can’t imagine there are that many people this annoyed with this particular sentence in early 2018.
Anyway, this annoyed attorney represented MC and she didn’t think the out-of-state placement was appropriate for this child, for whatever reason. She consulted the terrible statute and believed the right course of action was to have a hearing. The court held a hearing and decided that MC had the right to a hearing on whether or not he would be placed out of state. Then the court reviewed the statute and determined that the statute said if the parents’ rights were terminated there was no right to a hearing. MC filed a motion to reconsider, which the court denied. MC appealed.
SCOV reverses this one and modestly says “we acknowledge [the statute] is not a model of clarity.” This is somewhat in line with my fellow juvenile counsel referring to this as the worst sentence she’d ever seen. I don’t know what the trial judge said when she read it, but I would imagine it was somewhere between these two sentiments.
Anyway, SCOV probably made one of those sentence diagrams like we all did in junior high and realized what the sentence really says.
Turns out, the purpose of the statute is for kids to request a hearing on whether they’re getting placed out of state. If a child asks for that hearing, the child must be heard. The portion of the statue that talks about a parent being judicially terminated just stands to mean that if a parent’s rights have been terminated, that they don’t get notice of the hearing.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense that kids couldn’t challenge out of state placement just because their parents' rights have been terminated. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense that only parents could challenge out-of-state placement. There’s also a piece about when kids with delinquencies can have out of state placement hearings, and to say that kids with CHINS cases couldn’t have the same kinds of hearings also doesn’t make sense.
So, to sum up: a confusing statute with too many words leads to multiple intelligent people having varying readings of the statute and SCOV says the child is allowed to have a hearing before being placed out of state. Fin.
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