Appellant, the unwed father of Baby Boy Davis sought custody of the child, and opposed adoption by the G. family. The court found that adoption would be in the child’s best interest, and therefore granted it. Appellant now contends that the District of Columbia adoption scheme violates due process by permitting the termination of parental rights (through adoption) over the objection of a natural parent, without a finding that the natural parent is unfit to raise the child. Appellant also argues that it was error to deny a mistrial where the trial judge had seen inadmissible evidence in an ex parte letter, although the information was expressly disregarded in deciding the case. Neither ground has merit.
Appellant and the child’s natural mother lived together for about two years, although they never married. They separated while the mother was pregnant, and she sought an adoptive placement before the child’s birth. The child has lived with the G. family since the age of about five weeks. The child was about one and a half years old when their petition for adoption, now under review, was granted.
The court found that adoption by the G. family would be in the best interest of the child. To say that the evidence and subsidiary findings provide overwhelming support for that ultimate finding is an understatement. As the court found, appellant has only his biological tie with the child in his favor; all else is decisively in favor of the adoption petition.
II
Under D.C.Code 1981, § 16-304(e), the trial court can grant an adoption over the objection of a natural parent if it finds that the parent’s consent is withheld contrary to the child’s best interest. Appellant urges that to permit adoption, with the concurrent termination of preexisting parental rights, without requiring a finding of parental unfitness, violates the parent's right to due process.
However, the constitutional issue has already been resolved by the court. In re J.S.R., D.C.App., 374 A.2d 860 (1977), upheld the adoption statute, holding that it is constitutionally permissible to order adoption over the objection of a parent if that is the “least detrimental available alternative,” without necessarily finding that the losing party is “unfit.”1 While appellant attempts to cast his position as not inconsistent with In re J.S.R., in fact it amounts to a direct attack on that decision’s principal holding.2
The Supreme Court cases invoked by appellant are either inapposite or consistent with the constitutionality of the D.C. statute. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972), established that a natural father, even of an illegitimate child, has the right to a due process hearing (applying the substantive state law) before his rights are terminated.3 However, appellant’s claim is not founded on procedural, but substantive due process — a challenge to the best interest standard. Contrary to appellant’s suggestion, Stanley does not stand for the proposition that the father of an illegitimate child has a constitutional right to block adoption unless he is unfit. Lack of fitness was an essential finding in that case only because under state law, that was the only basis for granting an adoption without parental consent even when the parents were married.
In Quilloin v. Wolcott, 434 U.S. 246, 98 S.Ct. 549, 54 L.Ed.2d 511 (1978), the Supreme Court came relatively close to disposing of the present case. It found that a best interest standard satisfied the due process rights of the nonconsenting parent, at least where the effect is simply to recog*1185nize an existing family unit.4 However, the Court declined to address whether the best interest standard would always suffice, i.e., even where the child has not already been integrated into the adoptive family for some time. In Quilloin, the child had lived with the natural mother and her husband (the adoptive father) for nine years, whereas in the present case we are dealing with an infant who had been with the G. family for about a year and four months at the time of the court order.
Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380, 99 S.Ct. 1760, 60 L.Ed.2d 297 (1979), is relied on by appellant, but its holding is based on equal protection;5 the due process ground was explicitly not addressed. Id. at 394 n. 16, 99 S.Ct. at 1769 n. 16. Therefore, the case is inapposite in the present context.
Finally, in Santosky v. Kramer, - U.S. -, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982), the Court held that procedural due process requires findings based on clear and convincing evidence before parental rights are terminated.6 In that case, under applicable state law, parental fitness was the test. However, the Court carefully refrained from any constitutional holding regarding the substantive criteria, limiting its attention to the standard of proof.
In the absence of subsequent contrary Supreme Court authority, our opinion in In re J.S.R. requires rejection of the due process challenge.7
Affirmed.