Opinion ID: 2602482
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Appellate Defenders

Text: In June 1995, the Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District, Division One, decided Appellate Defenders, supra, 35 Cal.App.4th 1819, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 195, in which a father had petitioned under Family Code section 7822 to declare his daughters free from their mother's custody and control. His wife separately petitioned under Family Code section 9000 for a stepparent adoption without the mother's consent. The indigent mother opposed both petitions, and the superior court appointed an attorney to represent her at the consolidated trial. The superior court denied the father's petition, but it granted the step-mother's adoption petition, and in that proceeding it terminated the mother's parental rights. The mother appealed and requested appointment of appellate counsel. ( Appellate Defenders, supra, at pp. 1821-1823, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 195.) The Court of Appeal granted the mother's request for appointed appellate counsel. In its opinion, the Appellate Defenders court expressly disagreed with Curtis S., supra, 25 Cal.App.4th 687, 30 Cal. Rptr.2d 739. Examining the legislative history of the 1984 enactment of former section 237.7 of the Civil Code (later repealed and reenacted without substantive change as Family Code section 7895), the court found no intent by the Legislature to abrogate or restrict the right to appellate counsel established by Jacqueline H., supra, 21 Cal.3d 170. ( Appellate Defenders, supra, 35 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1824-1825, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 195.) The analyses prepared for the Senate and Assembly Committees on the Judiciary stated that the Legislature intended in former section 237.7 of the Civil Code to codify the holding of Jacqueline H., and [t]he reference to `dependent child' ... likely resulted from the Legislature's concern at that time for the inordinate delay and expense of continuing children in foster care pending finality of their cases. ( Appellate Defenders, supra, at p. 1825, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 195.) The court observed that, since the 1987 revision of the juvenile dependency laws, the termination of parental rights of dependent children no longer proceeds under the Civil Code, but follows the comprehensive dependency scheme under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300 et seq., while actions to terminate parental rights in nondependent children continue under the Family Code provisions for freedom from parental custody and control (Fam. Code, § 7800 et seq.) and for adoption ( id., § 8500 et seq.). ( Appellate Defenders, supra, at pp. 1825-1826, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 195.) The court concluded that the reasoning expressed in Jacqueline H. continues to apply ( id. at p. 1826, 145 Cal.Rptr. 548, 577 P.2d 683) and that the right to appointed counsel would be a hollow one if it were limited to trial ( id. at p. 1827, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 195).