Zirkin reverses course on amendment, placing at risk ending-parental-rights bill

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ANNAPOLIS – An influential senator said Monday afternoon that he will hold fast to an amendment that will likely end the enactment chances of legislation designed to make it easier for courts to strip parental rights from a mother or father who conceived the child through non-consensual intercourse.

Sen. Robert A. “Bobby” Zirkin, D-Baltimore County, said he would move to have the bill sent back to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, which he chairs, if the Senate removes a provision of the bill allowing evidence of the alleged rapist’s prior bad acts to be introduced at the civil termination-of-parental-rights trial. That provision is opposed by the House Judiciary Committee, whose support would be critical to passage of the legislation in the House.

A time-consuming recommital would kill the legislation for this year, as would any other procedural delay, because the 2016 General Assembly session ends at midnight

Zirkin, who had opposed the amendment when it was before the committee, said he would support it on the Senate floor because it was the panel’s “work product.”

Sens. Jamin B. “Jamie” Raskin and Susan C. Lee, both Montgomery County Democrats and committee members, said they continue to oppose the prior-bad-acts amendment and would back its removal from the bill, Zirkin’s threat to move for recommital notwithstanding.

Sen. Brian J. Feldman, D-Montgomery, has said he intends to introduce an amendment to remove the prior-bad-acts provision.

Raskin and Lee would not comment on whether they could defeat a recommittal motion.

The controversial amendment was introduced by Sen. Jim Brochin, D-Baltimore County, who said courts should admit into evidence the prior bad acts of accused rapists if their earlier misbehavior is similar to the violent sexual act for which they stand accused. Brochin has long supported the legislation for criminal cases, citing prosecutors who say prior-bad-acts evidence is critical for successful rape prosecutions in many cases.

The House Judiciary Committee, however, has perennially opposed the measure.

The Senate committee approved other, less controversial amendments to the termination-of-parental-rights bill.

These changes would enable a bench trial rather than a hearing at which a judge would terminate parental rights if it is determined by “clear and convincing evidence” that “non-consensual” intercourse occurred and that the child was “conceived as a result of the act.” The bill would also require clear and convincing evidence that it is in the child’s best interest to terminate the parental rights.

The amended bill would also provide that only the other parent – not the child or the child’s guardian – can file a complaint to terminate parental rights based on the alleged non-consensual sex. The complaint would have to be filed within five years of the child’s conception, as opposed to a House-passed bill that has no limitations period and would permit the child or the child’s guardian to file for termination of parental rights.

Another amendment would require that the complaint be filed in the circuit court where the child resides.

The proposed Rape Survivor Family Protection Act, as passed by the House and unchanged by the Senate committee, would bar judges from terminating the alleged rapist’s parental rights if the parents were married at the time of conception, unless he or she was convicted of non-consensual sexual contact in the act that conceived the child.

The measure, House Bill 646, would also provide that any testimony given by the alleged rapist in the termination-of-parental-rights proceeding be inadmissible in a criminal proceeding involving the same alleged act of rape, except to impeach his or her testimony at the criminal trial.