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Richard B. v. State6/13/2003
hearing officer. Here, however, as we have seen, Richard's credibility was not central to the court's decisionmaking process. Conversely, the burden on the state's interests of a rule requiring prisoner transports in all termination proceedings would be substantial. Financial costs to the state of moving prisoners would be high, and the administrative burden on the Department of Corrections would be increased by the frequent need to transfer prisoners out to make room for incoming prisoners or face legal action for overcrowding. And as previously noted, significant planning and coordination will often be necessary to accomplish such transfers, and in this case Richard gave little notice to the Department of Corrections of his request to attend the trial in person.
Our holding today is limited and tied closely to the facts of this case. We hold that due process does not in all cases require the transport of an incarcerated parent to a trial to decide the termination of parental rights. The trial court must consider all relevant factors, including the disputed issues, whether a parent plans to testify, the relevance of a parent's testimony to the disputed issues, the costs to the state - financial, administrative, and legal - and any threat to public safety, in deciding whether to grant a motion by a parent to be transported to a termination hearing. On the facts of this case, Richard has not established that his due process rights were violated by Judge Curda's decision not to order the Department of Corrections to transport Richard to the hearing but to allow him to participate telephonically.
V. CONCLUSION
Because we find that the superior court abused its discretion in allowing Henderson & Kay to represent Leslie despite Kay's prior representation of Richard in a related matter, we REMAND for a determination of whether Richard was adversely affected by that representation in this matter, that is, whether Henderson & Kay's conflicting interest had any appreciable effect on the outcome of the termination proceedings. We AFFIRM the superior court's denial of Richard's motion for transport and conclude that it did not violate Richard's right to due process.
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