Abstract
Parents’ right to control the upbringing of their own children is long-established in the United States. However, in the case of child abuse, neglect, or abandonment, a state can terminate parental rights, permanently severing the legal relationship between a parent and a child. In New Mexico, to terminate parental rights for abuse or neglect the State must prove three elements by clear and convincing evidence: (1) the child is abused or neglected; (2) the conditions that brought the child into care are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future and (3) this is the case despite reasonable efforts by the State to assist the parent. Prior to 2002, “reasonable efforts,” the third prong of the termination test, primarily assessed the State’s behavior, not the parent’s behavior. Parental behavior was assessed under the second prong: whether the dangerous conditions were likely to change. However, beginning in 2002, in State ex rel. Children, Youth & Families Department v. Patricia H., New Mexico courts began conflating parental behavior with the State’s statutory obligation to engage in reasonable efforts, making it easier for courts to terminate parental rights, a practice that was later reaffirmed in 2018 by In re Anhayla H. This comment argues: (1) the phrase “level of cooperation” has been used to refer to such a broad range of behavior that the term is virtually meaningless, providing the State “arbitrary or standardless” enforcement power that would be unconstitutional in a criminal setting; (2) courts have determined the State engaged in reasonable efforts based on evidence that the parent was uncooperative, even without requiring the State to show how the lack of cooperation actually hampered their efforts or that the State engaged in efforts to help the parent overcome their uncooperativeness; and (3) using lack of cooperation as a measure of reasonable efforts has allowed courts to consider parental behavior that would otherwise be legally irrelevant.
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Recommended Citation
Monika Myers,
Weakening the Reasonable Efforts Requirement in New Mexico Termination of Parental Rights Cases,
56
N.M. L. Rev.
167
(2026).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmlr/vol56/iss1/7
