NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.

UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL

AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE

ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS

DIVISION ONE

IN RE TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO R.R., S.R., and 

E.R.

No. 1 CA-JV 23-0025

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County

No. JD40085

No. JS21273

The Honorable Adele Ponce, Judge

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Vierling Law Offices, Phoenix

By Thomas A. Vierling

Counsel for Appellant Jamil Ahmad Muhammad Rafiq

Denise L. Carroll, Scottsdale

Counsel for Appellant Ainun Samad

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Tucson

By Jennifer R. Blum

Counsel for Appellee Department of Child Safety

FILED 7-20-2023
IN RE TERM OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO R.R. et al.

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MEMORANDUM DECISION

Judge Paul J. McMurdie delivered the Court’s decision, in which Presiding 

Judge D. Steven Williams and Judge Samuel A. Thumma joined.

M c M U R D I E, Judge:

¶1 Ainun S. (“Mother”) and Jamil R. (“Father”) appeal the 

juvenile court’s order terminating their parental relationship with their 

three children. We find no error and affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

¶2 Mother and Father are parents of three minor children. In 

October 2020, the youngest child was born substance-exposed to 

methamphetamine and was placed in intensive care. When the Department 

of Child Safety (“Department”) learned of the exposure birth, it questioned 

the parents. Mother did not know what substance caused the positive test 

result but stated, “someone put a curse on her,” causing it. Father denied 

any drug use but tested positive for amphetamines and methamphetamines 

about a week after the child’s birth.

¶3 The Department tried to implement a present danger plan but 

could not find a responsible adult available to help. The Department, 

therefore, removed the children from the home and put them in a kinship 

placement with a neighbor in the family’s apartment complex.

¶4 The Department referred the parents for reunification 

services, including substance-abuse testing and treatment. Father was 

resistant to participation in drug testing and either missed the testing or 

tested positive several times between December 2020 and February 2021. 

Mother tested positive in October 2020 but later tested negative for a time. 

In January 2021, the Department assigned the parents a parent aide, but 

they often missed their sessions.

¶5 In April 2021, the juvenile court found all three children 

dependent and implemented a family reunification case plan. Mother and 

Father continued to miss their parent-aide sessions regularly, and Father 

would not allow Mother to attend the sessions alone. The parent-aide

assignment closed in June 2021 because the parents did not improve.
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¶6 During a home visit in August 2021, a Department worker 

noticed bruises on Mother’s ankles, but Mother denied their existence. 

Later, the Department learned that Mother and Father were involved in a 

domestic violence incident in 2019 that led to Father’s arrest. The 

Department referred Mother for domestic violence counseling, but the

referral was closed for lack of contact.

¶7 By September 2021, Father’s substance-abuse testing and 

treatment referrals had closed because of a lack of engagement. In October 

2021, the Department suspected Father had been abusing drugs and asked 

both parents to test. Mother and Father tested positive for 

methamphetamines, and the tests revealed chronic use over the previous 

90 days.

¶8 At this point, the Department moved to change the case plan 

to severance and adoption. The juvenile court found the parents had “done 

very little to demonstrate sobriety and engagement in services.” But the 

court declined to grant the Department’s request, instead opting to “give 

the parents one final opportunity to demonstrate they are going to engage 

in services and demonstrate that they want to reunify with the children.”

¶9 The Department again referred Mother for substance-abuse 

treatment, but after several months, the referral was closed for lack of 

participation. And in January 2022, the Department referred Mother for 

domestic violence counseling for a second time, but it closed for lack of 

contact.

¶10 In February 2022, the parents began working with a parental 

education program, but the program reported that the parents could not 

“focus on the tasks at hand.” The parents felt their children “were removed 

without cause, and [they] denied substance abuse and domestic violence in 

their relationship.” The referral closed unsuccessfully.

¶11 In March 2022, the Department referred Mother for 

substance-abuse treatment for the third time. In April 2022, the Department 

referred Father for the fourth time. Mother completed her intake and was 

recommended for standard outpatient treatment, but Father did not 

participate. Father’s referral closed in June.

¶12 In May 2022, Mother and Father absconded with the children 

after a supervised visit. Police located the family later that evening and 

arrested the parents for abducting the children. They found the children’s 

birth certificates and social security information in a backpack and $5000 in 

Mother’s possession, which she stated was all their money. Mother 
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admitted they planned to drive to North Carolina. Later, while Father was 

incarcerated, he threatened to kill the children’s foster parents upon his 

release.

¶13 In June 2022, the Department petitioned to terminate 

Mother’s and Father’s parental rights on the 15-months’ time-in-care 

ground. See A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(8)(c).

¶14 Mother completed an intake assessment for another domestic 

violence counseling referral in August 2022. Mother attended less than half 

her sessions between August and September and was discharged by the 

end of October without meeting her goals. The therapist also noted that 

services were unlikely to be successful because Mother “continue[d] to lie 

to providers and do [the] bare minimum of showing up only because she 

[thought] she ha[d] to.”

¶15 The termination adjudication hearing began in November 

2022. Mother continued denying the domestic violence allegations, and 

Father claimed Mother had repeatedly beaten him. Both parents claimed 

another man, not Father, had committed the 2019 domestic violence 

incident. And Father testified that he only tested positive for drugs because 

his friends drugged him at a party.

¶16 The parents did not identify any relatives that could act as the 

children’s placement. Still, the case manager testified that the Department 

had found an adoptive home for the children that would maintain their 

connection to their religion and foreign culture.

¶17 In January 2023, the juvenile court granted the Department’s 

termination petition. The court found both parents’ testimony not credible

and added that their “failure to participate in services stemmed from, not 

an inability to understand what the Department wanted, but their 

insistence that there were no problems to remedy and services were not 

warranted.” The court then found that termination and placement in the 

adoptive home was in the children’s best interests and terminated Mother’s 

and Father’s parental rights on the 15-months’ time-in-care ground.

¶18 Mother and Father appealed, and we have jurisdiction under 

A.R.S. §§ 8-235, 12-120.21(A)(1), and 12-2101(A)(1).

DISCUSSION

¶19 The juvenile court terminated Mother’s and Father’s parental 

relationships under A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(8)(c), which requires the Department 
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to prove by clear and convincing evidence that (1) the children were in a 

court-ordered out-of-home placement for at least 15 months, (2) the 

Department made a “diligent effort to provide appropriate reunification 

services,” (3) the parents could not remedy the circumstances that caused

the out-of-home placements, and (4) there was a “substantial likelihood 

that [the parents would] not be capable of exercising proper and effective 

parental care and control in the near future.” See Donald W. v. Dep’t of Child 

Safety, 247 Ariz. 9, 17, ¶ 25 (App. 2019). The court also must find by a 

preponderance of the evidence that termination is in the children’s best 

interests. Alma S. v. Dep’t of Child Safety, 245 Ariz. 146, 149–50, ¶ 8 (2018).

A. The Juvenile Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion by Concluding

that the Department Made a Diligent Effort to Provide Appropriate 

Reunification Services to Mother.

¶20 Mother argues that the juvenile court erred by terminating 

her parental relationship because the Department failed to prove by clear 

and convincing evidence that it offered reunification services. We review 

the court’s order for an abuse of discretion, viewing the facts in the light 

most favorable to sustaining the court’s ruling. Calvin B. v. Brittany B., 232 

Ariz. 292, 296, ¶ 17 (App. 2013). We will affirm if the order is supported by 

sufficient record evidence. Id.

¶21 The Department had to establish that it “made a diligent effort 

to provide appropriate reunification services.” A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(8). Mother 

contends, “the Department did not submit [referrals] for the necessary

domestic violence counseling.” But the court found that the Department 

made four referrals for Mother for domestic violence counseling. At least 

two referrals closed because Mother never contacted the agency. The 

Department also referred the parents to a parental education program, but 

it closed unsuccessfully because they could not “focus on the tasks at hand.”

When Mother eventually began domestic violence counseling, she attended 

less than half her sessions, and the therapist reported that the services were 

unlikely to succeed because Mother lied and put forth minimal effort.

¶22 As the juvenile court found, these facts show that the 

Department appropriately tried to reunify the family. Mother has shown 

no error in the court’s conclusion.

B. The Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion by Concluding that 

Termination Was in the Children’s Best Interests.

¶23 After the juvenile court finds that a statutory termination 

ground exists, it must find by a preponderance of the evidence that 
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termination is in the children’s best interests. Alma S., 245 Ariz. at 149–50, 

¶ 8. Termination is in the children’s best interests if the children will benefit 

from severance or be harmed if severance is denied. Id. at 150, ¶ 13. To make 

this determination, the court “must consider the totality of the 

circumstances existing at the time of the severance determination.” Id. at 

150–51, ¶ 13. We do not reweigh the evidence on appeal and accept the 

court’s factual findings if reasonable evidence supports them. Id. at 151, 

¶ 18. But we review the sufficiency of the findings de novo as a mixed 

question of fact and law. Francine C. v. Dep’t of Child Safety, 249 Ariz. 289, 

296, ¶ 14 (App. 2020). We will affirm the termination order unless it is 

clearly erroneous. Alma S., 245 Ariz. at 151, ¶ 18.

¶24 First, Mother cites Mary Lou C. v. Arizona Department of 

Economic Security, 207 Ariz. 43, 50, ¶ 19 (App. 2004), to argue that 

termination was not in the children’s best interests because the existing 

placement was not meeting the spiritual and cultural needs of the children. 

In Mary Lou C., we explained that the juvenile court could consider whether 

the current placement met the children’s needs as a best-interests factor. 207 

Ariz. at 50, ¶ 19. But this factor was just one of several examples the juvenile 

court could consider. We also stated that the best-interests requirement 

could be met if “the petitioner proves that a current adoptive plan exists for 

the child . . . or even that the child is adoptable.” Id.

¶25 Here, the court reasonably concluded that the current 

placement was meeting the children’s needs and that the children were 

adoptable. Mother’s claim is, therefore, meritless.

¶26 Next, Father argues that the Department failed to meet its 

burden of proof. He points to his participation in some of the Department’s 

programs and argues that the court “did not give sufficient weight to [his] 

reunification efforts.” But we will not reweigh evidence on appeal. Alma S., 

245 Ariz. at 151, ¶ 18.

¶27 The court reasonably concluded that the current placement 

was meeting the children’s needs, the children were adoptable, termination 

would provide them with permanency and stability, and denying 

termination would harm them by increasing their risk of exposure to

substance abuse, domestic violence, and other harms. The court did not

abuse its discretion by concluding that termination was in the children’s 

best interests.
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C. The Court Did Not Fundamentally Err by Not Considering a 

Guardianship for the Children.

¶28 Finally, Father argues that the court erred by terminating his 

parental relationship rather than establishing a guardianship. Because 

Father did not raise this issue before the juvenile court, we review it only 

for fundamental error. Brenda D. v. Dep’t of Child Safety, 243 Ariz. 437, 

447–48, ¶¶ 37–38 (2018). Thus, to prevail, Father must establish that 

fundamental error exists and that it prejudiced him. Id. at ¶ 38.

¶29 Under A.R.S. § 1-601, the State may not infringe on Father’s 

right to direct his children’s upbringing “without demonstrating that the 

compelling government interest as applied to the child[ren] involved is of 

the highest order, is narrowly tailored and is not otherwise served by a less 

restrictive means.” Father contends that guardianship would have been a 

less restrictive means by which the government could provide the child 

with permanency and stability.

¶30 A court, however, may establish a permanent guardianship 

only if “[t]he likelihood that the child would be adopted is remote or 

termination of parental rights would not be in the child’s best interests.” 

A.R.S. § 8-871(A)(4). And here, the juvenile court found the children are 

adoptable and that termination would be in their best interests. As a result, 

the court could not establish a guardianship.

¶31 On the record presented, Father has failed to show any error, 

let alone fundamental error resulting in prejudice.

CONCLUSION

¶32 We affirm.