Joint judiciary drops guardianship termination bill

Courtesy photo — Metro Creative | A legislative bill that more explicitly outlined factors for judges to consider in guardianship cases did not earn a majority vote in the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee Thursday.

SHERIDAN — More specific guidelines of guardianship terminations and orders were sought in a drafted bill by the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee Thursday, but the bill did not carry a majority and will not be sponsored by the committee in the upcoming legislative session starting Jan. 8.

All three Sheridan County representatives on the committee — Sen. Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan, Rep. Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, and Rep. Mark Jennings, R-Sheridan — voted against the bill moving forward.

The bill would have helped guide hearings for terminations of guardianship for children. Guardianship is when a child has been removed by the court system from their birth parents and placed into legal guardianship with another family member or outside entity like foster care. Parents may file a petition to terminate that guardianship and receive their children back into their home.

Upon filing the petition for termination, courts consider the best interests of the child. The bill establishes factors courts would have to consider including: competency and fitness of the parent; physical and mental ability of the parent and guardian to care for the child; any parental absence leading to the guardianship; the amount of involvement the parent had with the child during the guardianship; length of time the child has resided with the guardian and the extent to which a substantial relationship has been established between the child and the guardian; and a number of other factors.

The executive director of Compass Center for Families, Susan Carr, said while she has no comment on the bill due to not following it and not wanting to speak while being ill-informed, she does not think it’s an overreach of the courts to consider various things before allowing a guardianship to be reversed.

“In some cases, those parents really need to show that they are capable of parenting their children in a safe and meaningful manner,” Carr said in an email to The Sheridan Press. “As always, I get concerned about those unintended consequences of any bill because we can’t possibly predict every scenario that comes before the court.”

Carr said there will be some who use the considerations against perfectly capable parents in order to control outcomes, and she doesn’t know what the right direction for the courts would be.

After hearing public comment and explanation from judges, Kinskey said the bill reached too far.
He said in Sheridan when the bill was in its infancy, it was meant to give judges clarity in the law when reviewing the petitions to terminate guardianship for children.

“This bill goes way beyond that, I think, and I don’t know how to fix it to get it to that,” Kinskey said. “Probably we should have started with asking the judges to give us an outline with what they thought would really help, but I think this bill goes too far from the real issue that’s being presented to us as I understand it.”

Cassie Craven, a Cheyenne attorney and member of the Wyoming Liberty Group, said she supported a tiered return schedule after finding that a parent is fit to have the children back and due process in the court is afforded.

“As far as these presumptions and the burden of proof, it goes too far,” Craven said about the list of proving parental ability to terminate guardianship.

A large concern of the committee was the rights of the parent, but public comment also brought up the rights of the children.

The issue of whose rights are more important, the parent’s or the child’s, was left unanswered during the session.

Carr said she is always in favor of children’s rights and believe their best interest should always come first in court.

“But our laws and our Constitution is not written that way,” Carr said. “We must depend on the good judgment of judges to ensure that the child’s interest is being served as well as the parent’s constitutional right to parent. It’s really not a black-and-white issue and no one-size-fits-all solution exists.”

The bill will not go forward with support from the committee but can be brought up individually by a member of the Legislature if one so chooses in January.

The Joint Judiciary Committee met Thursday afternoon and throughout the day Friday to discuss other bills being considered for sponsorship from the committee.

The video recordings, agendas and potential legislation can be found on the Wyoming Legislature’s website.

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Joint judiciary drops guardianship termination bill