In Re Lyric N.

Upon competing petitions for adoption of a minor child whose parents are deceased, the trial court conducted a bench trial and a comparative fitness analysis of the petitioner, who is the child’s maternal grandmother, and the intervening petitioner, who is the child’s paternal aunt. The trial court found that it was in the best interest of the child to be adopted by the paternal aunt while also maintaining visitation with the maternal grandmother. Prior to the bench trial, the trial court set aside its own previously entered order granting what had been presented to the trial court by the maternal grandmother as an uncontested petition for adoption of the child despite the paternal aunt’s status as custodian of the child pursuant to a juvenile court order. In the trial court’s final order, it granted the paternal aunt’s petition for adoption and directed that the maternal grandmother would have unsupervised visitation with the child on alternate Sundays. The maternal grandmother has appealed both the order setting aside the initial grant of her adoption petition and the judgment granting the paternal aunt’s petition. Discerning no error in the trial court’s decision to set aside the initial adoption decree, we affirm the set-aside order. However, having determined that under the facts and circumstances of this case, the trial court committed reversible error by conducting an in camera interview with the child without counsel or a court reporter present and then withholding the court’s summary of the testimony until entry of the final judgment, we vacate the court’s judgment granting the paternal aunt’s petition. We remand for the trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing solely to afford the parties an opportunity to present evidence in response to the child’s testimony and to enter a judgment after consideration of all proof presented during the trial and on remand.