Case Title: In re J.L., Juvenile

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2006-388

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 2007-04-25T00:00:00Z

Document:
In re J.L., Juvenile (2006-388)

2007 VT 32

[Filed 25-Apr-2007]

                                 ENTRY ORDER

                                 2007 VT 32

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2006-388

                             JANUARY TERM, 2007


  In re J.L., Juvenile                }          APPEALED FROM:
                                      }
                                      }
                                      }          Chittenden Family Court
                                      }  
                                      }
                                      }          DOCKET NO. F415-8-04 CnJv

                                                 Trial Judge:  Linda Levitt

             In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       ¶  1.  Mother and father appeal termination of their parental
  rights.  We affirm.

       ¶  2.  The following facts were established at the termination
  hearing.  At the time of the hearing, mother and father had been in a
  relationship for approximately nine years.  Father had provided mother with
  drugs throughout the course of their relationship.  Mother and father had a
  child, J.L., who was born on August 8, 2004.  J.L. is mother and father's
  third child.  J.L. tested positive for drugs at the time she was born.

       ¶  3.  Mother and father lived separately at the time of J.L.'s
  birth.  Shortly after J.L.'s birth, the Department for Children and
  Families (DCF) placed J.L. with her father due to mother's drug use. 
  Mother was not to have any unsupervised contact with J.L.  Unbeknownst to
  DCF, however, mother moved in with father after J.L. was placed in the
  home.  Father and mother were using and selling drugs and not attending to
  the children's needs.  In January 2005, police searched the residence
  pursuant to a warrant and found drugs in the home.  The couple's three
  children were present in the home at the time of the police action, as were
  two of father's children from another relationship.  Father was charged
  with and convicted of drug possession, conspiracy to receive stolen
  property, and simple assault, and was sentenced to serve two-to-ten years. 
  His earliest possible release date is July 2007.
   
       ¶  4.  After the drugs were found in father's home, J.L. and her
  siblings were found to be children in need of care and supervision (CHINS),
  and placed into DCF custody.  The DCF disposition report set reunification
  as a goal but established a three-to-six-month time frame for mother and
  father to make "consistent and significant progress" on multiple issues
  including addressing their drug use and the domestic violence between them,
  as well as establishing a safe and stable home for the children.  J.L. was
  placed with a foster family, where she remained at the time of the August
  2006 termination hearing.

       ¶  5.  Following the two-day hearing, the family court terminated
  both parents' residual parental rights.  The court found that while mother
  had improved her parenting skills to some extent between September 2005 and
  September 2006, this improvement came too late to salvage mother's
  relationship with J.L., who was twenty-four months old at the time of the
  termination hearing and had been with her foster parents for eighteen of
  those months.  The family court concluded that there were changed
  circumstances due to the stagnation of mother's parenting skills.  The
  court opined that mother would have to have been ready to parent J.L. by
  "mid-2005" to preserve any chance of forming a positive relationship with
  J.L.; instead mother was homeless, jobless, and using drugs at that time. 
  Regarding father, the court noted that he had engaged in minimal services
  related to drug use and parenting skills, and, in any case, would be
  incarcerated until mid-2007 - too long for J.L. to wait to have a stable
  placement.  In concluding that termination was in J.L.'s best interests,
  the family court noted that she had thrived on many levels in the care of
  her foster parents.

       ¶  6.  Mother and father raise separate arguments on appeal.  In
  reviewing the family court's decision, "[o]ur role is not to second-guess
  the family court or reweigh the evidence, but rather to determine whether
  the court abused its discretion" in terminating parental rights.   In re
  S.B., 174 Vt. 427, 429,