Opinion ID: 2068331
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: whether the trial court was clearly erroneous when it found child was a dependent or neglected child.

Text: Mother asserts the trial court's determination that Child is dependent or neglected is based upon factual findings which are clearly erroneous. State must show by clear and convincing proof that Child is dependent or neglected. In re S.L., 419 N.W.2d 689, 692 (S.D.1988); Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 769, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 1403, 71 L.Ed.2d 599, 617 (1982). This court does not decide factual issues de novo[.] In re D.H., 354 N.W.2d 185, 188 (S.D.1984). We will not disturb the court's findings unless they are clearly erroneous and we are, after a review of all the evidence, left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made. In re A.M., 292 N.W.2d 103, 105 (S.D.1980) (citing In re V.D.D., 278 N.W.2d 194, 197 (S.D.1979)). The trial judge told Mother during the 1989 adjudicatory hearing that, though State was not attempting to terminate her parental rights at the moment, such an attempt was just a very small step from where they were. Mother said she understood it was up to her to make significant changes in [her] life and in [her] approach to parenting[.] Mother now asserts the record demonstrates the court was clearly erroneous when it found she only minimally complied with her several case service plans and when the court characterized her compliance as perfunctory at best. A review of the record convinces us the trial court's characterizations are not clearly erroneous. The highlights of Mother's compliance with her first case service plan, which was in effect for eight months, are brief. In June, 1989, four months into that plan, Mother, and sometimes stepfather, began to attend weekly family therapy sessions. Even so, two of those sessions only came about because Child's caseworker took him to see Mother. She attended only one session each in July and in August. [10] Aside from these family therapy sessions, Mother visited Child only twice. She failed to keep visitation appointments, including one set up on Child's birthday. Mother neither wrote nor phoned Child between April and September. Mother also moved back to the Pierre area without notifying DSS. In October, 1989, a review hearing was held and a new, more structured case service plan, nineteen sections long, was signed by Mother and DSS. As before, it required Mother to attend alcohol treatment programs, family therapy, counseling and parenting classes, though now the time table was more structured. She was also required to maintain contact with Child at least once a week through a phone call and a letter. Shortly after she signed this plan, Mother used trickery on Child to abduct him from Viborg, where he was in a foster home. We are not persuaded by Mother's assertions that these requirements were so onerous as to explain why her compliance with this second plan was almost nonexistent. Mother signed another case plan in March, 1990. [11] Various concessions were made by DSS, but Mother again failed to follow through. In May, this case service plan was modified. A progress review meeting was held July 18 after several postponements due to Mother's failure to appear. This review showed that in a period of five weeks, from the end of May through the end of June, Mother attended four of seven appointments with her mental health counselor, three of four appointments with a psychologist, two-thirds of her AA meetings, and she met with Child at least once a week. Though this was Mother's best attempt to meet any case service plan, her compliance was still such that the tentative September date for reunification was to be delayed. Mother saw Child on August 7 and then disappeared for fourteen months. Although there were occasions of at least partial compliance with at least some portions of some of the case service plans, the record is replete with numerous instances where Mother failed to do anything to meet her service plans. The record further reveals numerous instances where Mother made appointments for counseling, for treatment, for AA, for visitation, and for phone calls, but failed to keep them. A few weeks of partial compliance in 1989 and 1990 by Mother, with only two of what amounts to four case service plans, does not leave us with the conviction the trial court was mistaken when it characterized Mother's compliance as minimal or perfunctory. Mother next disputes the court's finding that she initially showed little affection and had initial problems of parenting in her first therapy sessions. During the June, 1989, sessions, Mother's parenting skills appeared to be improving and counselors felt she was developing a good bonding relationship with Child. Nevertheless, the record also shows Child's relationship with Mother was reversed in that his role was more like a parent instead of a child[.] Mother's offer of her later behavior to dispute this finding is not relevant to the court's finding concerning her initial behavior. In this regard, abducting Child through trickery and disappearing from Child's life for in excess of a year, tends to refute assertions of later good parenting. This finding is not clearly erroneous. Lastly, Mother asserts there is nothing to support the finding that Child was sexually abused or exposed to sexual abuse in the home environment. The record shows otherwise. When Child was first removed from Mother's home, he told the police officer his fifteen-year-old brother was sleeping, and having sex, with his aunt, M., since her husband, D., committed suicide. Child also related M.'s six-year-old son, R., was sleeping in the same bed with M. and Brother and that when R. wakes up while they are having sex, M. beats R. Mother admits she condoned this situation. [12] Child also related that he was sleeping with his mother and would get angry when he had to get out of bed when his mother brought other men home to her bed. As a result of Child's evaluation at McKennan Hospital's psychiatric unit, there was concern about Child's belief that D. had not committed suicide. Child believed one of D.'s homosexual friends had killed him and Child would be the next victim. While at Crossroads, Child disclosed other sexual abuses which had occurred to him in Wyoming by a man who was living in the Pierre area and who was often at Mother's home. Mother admitted at the first adjudicatory hearing in 1989, that Child has been subjected to mistreatment or abuse by his stepfather and/or a grandparent. The evidence clearly and convincingly supports this finding and the trial court's conclusion that Child was dependent and neglected.