A mother who kept her 2-year-old son in a drug den will get another chance to get him back, despite state law saying her parental rights could be terminated.
At a court hearing Tuesday, Cynthia Kiewatt, 43, learned that she could be reunited with her son if she follows Hennepin County's case plan requiring drug treatment, random drug tests, stable housing and other steps. Her son was placed into foster care last week after he was found sleeping in a bed in a Bloomington motel room within feet of a syringe filled with heroin. Kiewatt and four other addicts found in the room were arrested. Kiewatt is in jail facing child endangerment charges.
Due to her long history of drug abuse and prostitution, Kiewatt has twice involuntarily lost the parental rights to her children, which in the eyes of the law make her "palpably unfit" to be a parent to any future children.
In cases such as Kiewatt's, state law requires the director of a child protection agency to ask their county attorney to file a petition terminating parental rights for any new child. But whether county attorneys take that action is up to them.
It's a step Hennepin County could have taken with Kiewatt when her son was born addicted to drugs in May 2013 and placed into foster care. Instead, she was reunited with him about four months later.
Several attorneys who practice in child protection told the Star Tribune that counties typically file to terminate parental rights in situations like this one.
Told about the details of the case, Lilia Panteleeva, the director of the St. Paul-based Children's Law Center, said, "I think there should be a fast track [to terminate parental rights]. She has already been given another chance she would not have gotten in most counties when [her son] was born, and she failed to protect him."
The county attorney is simultaneously prosecuting Kiewatt for child endangerment and presenting a plan to reunite her with her son.