Opinion ID: 2517116
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The State Was Excused from Making Active Efforts After Wilson Refused To Cooperate with OCS and Threatened OCS Social Workers.

Text: Wilson's appeal hinges on the argument that the state declined to make active efforts because his assigned caseworkers at OCS considered him threatening from their initial contacts with him and never reached out to him beyond those preliminary interactions. Their hostility towards him, as Wilson describes their behavior, inspired them only to make passive or token efforts for services that addressed his problems, specifically his abusive tendencies. If a parent has a long history of refusing treatment and continues to refuse treatment, OCS is not required to keep up its active efforts once it is clear that these efforts would be futile. [18] In K.N. v. State , we considered the willingness of the parent to complete the steps necessary for reunification in evaluating whether OCS met the active efforts requirement. [19] After one of the father's sons died while under his care, the state moved to terminate the father's rights to his other children. [20] The father initially refused to sign his treatment plan or submit to a psychological evaluation. [21] He ultimately submitted to the psychological evaluation under the threat of court sanctions and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. [22] The father contended that the state only had him undergo this evaluation in order to have his rights terminated. [23] In advising that even though the state could have done more to attempt to unify the family, we upheld the superior court's active efforts finding because it [was] unlikely that further efforts by [the state] would have been effective in light of [the father's] attitude. [24] We have similarly excused OCS from pursuing further active efforts in other cases where the parents have evinced no interest in cooperating with OCS. In A.A. v. State, we upheld an active efforts finding where the state failed to even make a case plan. [25] While explicitly noting that we did not condone the failure to create a case plan, we held that although the [state's] efforts in relation to A.A. may have been relatively passive, A.A. demonstrated a lack of willingness to participate in treatment and therefore the state satisfied ICWA's active efforts requirement. [26] Wilson was more than simply uncooperative and difficult  he had a history of violent behavior and threatened OCS social workers. After finding that Jones had come to his property to investigate the claims that ultimately led to the children's removal, Wilson called Jones's supervisor and threatened that if Jones returned to his home she would not leave the property alive. He also threatened to duct-tape any social workers that entered his property and leave them in the woods. He repeated these threats to Talkeenta troopers. Wilson continued to display this behavior following the removal of his children. When Mallett missed her first weekly telephone conference with Wilson and Sarah, Wilson left a message to the effect of [Mallett] better watch [herself] because [she doesn't] know who he is and what he can do. Jones, who estimated that at the time she had completed about 150 investigations, testified that [w]e've not had direct threats of this voracity ever in any removal I've done. Moreover, Wilson was simply unwilling to cooperate with OCS. His past interactions with OCS show that he consistently refused OCS's services. OCS records and testimony reveal that he ignored OCS recommendations and refused OCS services in 1998, 2002, and 2003. In fact, in 2005, Wilson and Sarah refused to even allow OCS onto their property. This pattern continued when OCS presented Wilson with the case plan at issue here. He stated flatly that he would not comply with three requirements (of the five included in the case plan) unless they were court-ordered: the psychological evaluation, the substance abuse assessment, and the domestic violence classes. Wilson contends that OCS should have sought the court order to have him undergo a psychological evaluation. Even putting aside our precedent which excuses further active efforts once the parent expresses an unwillingness to participate, requiring OCS to seek court orders for every uncooperative parent would put a huge and pointless burden on the department and the court system. Moreover, Wilson was unwilling to even talk to the social workers. At the first hearing following removal of the children, he told Jones that she was not allowed to speak to him and yelled at her. Sarah explicitly instructed Jones not to talk to her husband. Wilson similarly refused to talk to Mallett when she was assigned to the case. Soon after Mallett established weekly telephone calls with Wilson and Sarah, Wilson refused to allow Sarah to speak to Mallett and forcibly ended conversations. Finally, Wilson ignored OCS's instructions. For example, Mallett arranged supervised visitation at OCS's offices after Alaska Family Services, which usually conducted supervised visitation on a contract basis, refused to supervise visitation because of Wilson's earlier threats and actions. Mallett explicitly conditioned the visits on Wilson remaining away from the premises during the visits. But Wilson ignored the condition and was seen in the parking lot during Sarah's visitation, forcing cancellation of the visits. Wilson threatened OCS social workers, consistently declined OCS services since 1998, explicitly refused to cooperate with his current case plan, cut off communication with OCS social workers, and disobeyed OCS's orders. He created the situation where it was difficult and dangerous for OCS to work with him to reunify him with his children.