§ 19-8-10.When surrender or termination of parental rights of living parent not required; service on parents in such cases; involuntary termination of rights

Not every parent will sign a surrender. This section lets the court grant an adoption anyway — ending that parent’s rights through the adoption itself — when it finds a listed ground by clear and convincing evidence. Subsection (a) can stand in for the surrender or termination that § 19-8-4, § 19-8-5, § 19-8-6 or § 19-8-7 would otherwise require. Its five grounds are that the child has been abandoned by the parent; the parent can’t be found after a diligent search; the parent is insane or otherwise incapacitated from surrendering; the parent caused the child to be conceived through nonconsensual sexual intercourse with the biological mother, or when the biological mother was less than ten years of age; or the parent, without justifiable cause, has failed to exercise proper parental care or control due to misconduct or inability, as set out in paragraph (3), (4) or (5) of § 15-11-310(a) in the Juvenile Code. The text pairs that fifth ground with a finding that adoption is in the child’s best interests, after considering the child’s physical, mental, emotional and moral condition and needs, including the need for a secure and stable home.

Subsection (b) adds grounds only for stepparent and relative adoptions under § 19-8-6 or § 19-8-7. The court may go ahead without the surrender if it finds by clear and convincing evidence that the parent, for one year or longer immediately before the petition was filed and without justifiable cause, significantly failed either to communicate, or make a bona fide attempt to communicate, with the child in a meaningful, supportive, parental manner, or to provide for the child’s care and support as required by law or judicial decree. The text again ties this to a best-interests finding, and § 19-8-18 requires one before the court grants any adoption under §§ 19-8-4 through 19-8-7.

Subsection (c) protects the parent. He or she must be personally served with a conformed copy of the petition and the court’s order under § 19-8-14 fixing the hearing date. If personal service fails, notice goes by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested, or statutory overnight delivery to the last known address. If those fail too, notice is published once a week for three weeks in the official organ of the county where the petition was filed and of the county of the parent’s last known address. Publication may start at the same time as the other efforts and needs no court order, but before relying on it the petitioner must aver that diligent efforts at the other methods failed. Notice counts as received on the earliest of personal service, the delivery date on the receipt, or the last publication. The parent isn’t a party and need not answer, but may appear and show cause why the adoption shouldn’t end his or her rights. Under subsection (d) and § 19-8-13, the petition pleads facts supporting the grounds, and compliance with these notice rules, in place of the usual surrenders and affidavits. The section was last amended in 2021.