Justices consider sufficiency of evidence in parental‑rights termination tied to domestic violence and remediation efforts

May it please the court — the Supreme Court heard argument in a parental‑rights termination where counsel for the parents urged reversal for legal insufficiency and the state defended the jury’s findings that parental conduct endangered the children and that termination served their best interests.

Counsel for the parents framed the case as one in which the record contained undisputed evidence of improvement and disputed evidence that the children’s later psychiatric hospitalizations were caused by parental conduct rather than the consequences of removal and delayed visitation. Counsel for the father opened by saying, “This is not a case where father was woefully incapable of caring for his children,” and stressed evidence that the father had provided food, shelter and that both parents had engaged with services before trial.

The Department’s case emphasized repeated episodes of domestic violence and control…