Jeanne T. Tate advocated on the behalf of children at the Supreme Court of Florida in the case of a proposed amendment to the Florida Rules of Juvenile Procedure and Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure.
The Select Committee on Claims of Ineffective Assistance of Counsel in Termination of Parental Rights Proceedings and The Florida Bar’s Appellate Court and Juvenile Court Rules Committees have submitted to the Florida Supreme Court a joint out-of-cycle report offering the Court two sets of amendments to the Florida Rules of Juvenile Procedure and Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure. The proposals are in response to the Court’s request for proposed rules for raising claims of ineffective assistance of counsel following the termination of parental rights. See J.B. v. Florida Department of Children and Families, 170 So. 3d 780, 793-795 (Fla. 2015). The first set of rules are narrowly tailored to provide an ineffective assistance of court-appointed counsel claim for indigent parents whose parental rights have been terminated (Narrow Set of Amendments). The second set of rules is broader and would apply to counsel for all parents whose parental rights have been terminated (Broad Set of Amendments).