Background
IG was born in July 2022 while both parents were jailed on murder charges. After the mother abandoned an initial adoption plan and offered no available caregiver, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services placed IG in foster care. DNA testing later established respondent-father’s paternity, and the parents completed an affidavit of parentage in July 2024. IG was eventually placed with her maternal grandparents, who wished to adopt her.
Father was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 37 to 60 years in prison. DHHS sought termination, and the trial court terminated his parental rights under MCL 712A.19b(3)(h), reasoning that his imprisonment would deprive IG of a normal home for more than two years and that termination served her need for permanence and stability. Father appealed, arguing among other things that DHHS had not made reasonable efforts to reunify him with IG.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals agreed that DHHS failed to make reasonable reunification efforts. Because DHHS did not establish aggravated circumstances excusing that obligation, it remained required to create and adapt a service plan that gave father a meaningful opportunity to participate despite his incarceration.
DHHS provided father no services he could actually use, supplied no workbooks or comparable materials, and did not adequately investigate or pursue in-person or video visits. The court’s review of the applicable prison policy showed that it contained a process through which DHHS personnel could facilitate visits between prisoners and their children, contrary to the caseworker’s reliance on an earlier order stating that the prison did not permit parenting time.
The failure was plain error affecting father’s substantial rights because it eliminated a critical part of the child-protective process and undermined the framework of the termination proceedings. The court vacated the termination order and remanded for further proceedings without addressing father’s remaining challenges to the statutory ground or best-interest determination.
Key Takeaways
- Incarceration alone does not relieve DHHS of its duty to make reasonable efforts toward reunification when no statutory aggravated circumstance has been established.
- DHHS must adapt services to an incarcerated parent’s circumstances, including investigating available visitation procedures and providing usable alternatives when formal prison programs are unavailable.
- An incarcerated parent may potentially provide proper care and custody through a suitable relative or guardianship, an issue that remained open on remand.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that reunification efforts must be concrete and individualized, even when a parent faces decades in prison. Agencies and trial courts cannot rely on assumptions about prison restrictions without examining the governing policies and pursuing available avenues for services and parent-child contact.
It also confirms that the complete denial of reunification services can constitute outcome-affecting plain error even when the parent did not preserve the objection below, because the omission compromises the basic framework and fairness of the termination proceeding.