30:4C-15 Petition to terminate parental rights, conditions.

15. Whenever

(a) it appears that a court wherein a complaint has been proffered as provided in chapter 6 of Title 9 of the Revised Statutes, has entered a conviction against the parent or parents, guardian, or person having custody and control of any child because of abuse, abandonment, neglect of or cruelty to such child; or

(b) (Deleted by amendment, P.L.1991, c.275);

(c) it appears that the best interests of any child under the care or custody of the division require that he be placed under guardianship; or

(d) it appears that a parent or guardian of a child, following the acceptance of such child by the division pursuant to section 11 or 12 of P.L.1951, c.138 (C.30:4C-11 or 12), or following the placement or commitment of such child in the care of an authorized agency, whether in an institution or in a resource family home, and notwithstanding the reasonable efforts of such agency to encourage and strengthen the parental relationship, has failed for a period of one year to remove the circumstances or conditions that led to the removal or placement of the child, although physically and financially able to do so, notwithstanding the division's reasonable efforts to assist the parent or guardian in remedying the conditions; or

(e) the parent has abandoned the child; or

(f) the parent of a child has been found by a criminal court of competent jurisdiction to have committed murder, aggravated manslaughter or manslaughter of another child of the parent; to have aided or abetted, attempted, conspired, or solicited to commit such murder, aggravated manslaughter or manslaughter of the child or another child of the parent; or to have committed, or attempted to commit, an assault that resulted, or could have resulted, in the significant bodily injury to the child or another child of the parent; or the parent has committed a similarly serious act which resulted, or could have resulted, in the death or significant bodily injury to the child or another child of the parent; a petition to terminate the parental rights of the child's parents, setting forth the facts in the case, shall be filed by the division with the Family Part of the Chancery Division of the Superior Court in the county where such child may be at the time of the filing of such petition. A petition shall be filed as soon as any one of the circumstances in subsections (a) through (f) of this section is established, but no later than when the child has been in placement for 15 of the most recent 22 months, unless the division establishes an exception to the requirement to seek termination of parental rights in accordance with section 31 of P.L.1999, c.53 (C.30:4C-15.3). Upon filing the petition, the division shall initiate concurrent efforts to identify, recruit, process and approve a qualified family to adopt the child.

A petition as provided in this section may be filed by any person or any association or agency, interested in such child in the circumstances set forth in subsections (a) and (f) of this section. The division shall seek to be joined as a party to a petition filed to terminate the parental rights of a child in the care and custody of the division unless the division has established an exception to the requirement to seek termination of parental rights in accordance with section 31 of P.L.1999, c.53 (C.30:4C-15.3).

L.1951,c.138,s.15; amended 1958, c.79; 1962, c.141; 1962, c.197, s.18; 1991, c.91, s.327; 1991, c.275, s.3; 1995, c.416, s.2; 1997, c.175, s.17; 1999, c.53, s.29; 2004, c.130, s.55.