Adoption in Maryland
Moves Forward by John R. Greene
The recent revision of the adoption
law in Maryland was important. The revision of the Adoption Code and the Rules has resulted in the law of termina- tion of parental rights and adoption, in Maryland, more cohesive and straight- forward. The Adoption Code that existed prior
to January 1, 2006, was a compilation of many divergent amendments that had been passed over the years (Md. Code Ann. Family Law, Section 5-301 et seq.). It had not been comprehensively revised for almost 50 years. It was set forth in relatively few sections which covered most aspects of guardianship (with right to consent to adoption) and adoption. It did little to distinguish between the dif- ferent types of guardianship/adoption actions that were brought in Maryland - public agency, private agency or in- dependent proceedings. It was hard
to determine what applied to each of these truly separate types of actions with separate proceedings. This was certainly apparent considering the little distinction it made between public and private agency adoptions that involve a two-step procedure with termination of parental rights and appointment of guardianship. That process was followed by the separate adoption proceeding, versus independent adoption actions (actions which do not involve agencies) that are only one-step with termina- tion of parental rights and adoption occurring contemporaneously.1
The
code prior to 2006 often could baffle the inexperienced practitioner as to ap- plicability of the various sections to each type of case. Additionally, the code was outdated and fragmented as a result of the lack of comprehensive review of the code for decades.
The opportunity for change of the
adoption law in Maryland came in 2000, as a result of an initiative of the Administrative Office of the Courts’ Legislative Subcommittee of the Foster Care Improvement Project. This sub- committee was composed of judges, masters, public defenders, Legal Aid attorneys, assistant attorneys general and practitioners and was chaired by the Honorable Pamela North of the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. The subcommittee had been charged with revising the Child in Need of Assistance (CINA) statute (Md. Code Ann. Family Law). Upon completing the revision and obtaining legislative approval of the revised CINA Code, the subcommittee quickly realized that the Adoption Code as it existed conflicted with many of the changes made to the CINA Statute. The subcommittee also quickly realized
1 In a Child In Need of Assistance case,
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46 Trial Reporter
where a Department of Social Services finds that reunification of a family is inappropriate, it will proceed for guard- ianship and termination of parental rights through a guardianship procedure. Once termination of the parents’ rights and guardianship is granted, it will permit adoptive parents it has chosen to proceed forward with a separate action to complete the adoption. Similarly private child place- ment agencies also proceed with a similar two step process – where the agency is working with parents who seek to place their child for adoption, the agency ob- tains guardianship and also terminates the parents’ rights in one action. Following that process, the adoptive parents who have been chosen may proceed for adop- tion in a separate proceeding. In contrast, in independent adoptions, or where placement is arranged by other than a child placement agency, the adoption does not involve a two step process. There, the adoptive parents file one procedure for adoption seeking a Decree of Adoption which terminates the parents’ rights and grants the adoption concomitantly.
Winter 2008
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