Court reverses inmate's parental rights termination.

Byline: Kevin Featherly

A District Court erred in ruling that a social worker made "reasonable efforts" to keep an imprisoned inmate united with his children, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled. It ordered Ramsey County to try again.

To protect the minors involved, the court identifies the offender only by his initials, "D.C." The 30-year-old is serving a 160-month sentence in Stillwater prison for shooting an innocent bystander after a 2017 street fight.

The trial court terminated D.C.'s parental rights on April 18, 2019. He appealed the decision from prison.

The District Court acknowledged that, despite his many serious problems, D.C. is a loving father to his three children. He has maintained telephone contact with the oldest child while incarcerated and his toddler twins listen in on those conversations, according to court records.

The children live with their maternal grandmother and are doing well, according to court records. Both she and their guardian ad litem testified in District Court that continued contact with their father is beneficial to the oldest child and does no harm to the twins. Both women want D.C.'s relationship with his kids to continue.

Nonetheless, the guardian ad litem supported terminating his parental rights "because she believed that it was the only option." The grandmother hopes to adopt the kids, according to court records.

After his rights were terminated, D.C. appealed, claiming that the Ramsey County social worker who prepared the family's case plan did not seek his legally required direct input. The plan laid out conditions that D.C. would have to meet to maintain his parental rights.

Instead of working with him, the social worker wrote the plan with the grandmother's input. According to court records, the social worker said she found it too difficult to communicate with D.C. behind bars.

Nor did the social worker have the completed case plan mailed to D.C. in prison, because it contained confidential information. She worried he would not be the only person who might see the confidential document inside the prison.

Through the entire process, the social worker spoke to D.C. just once, in July 2018, shortly after he was transferred from the Hennepin County jail to Stillwater following his assault conviction.

Eventually, nine months after the children were settled into out-of-home placement, the document was delivered to D.C. by his prison case manager. However, the prison case manager made no effort...