Opinion ID: 2188520
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: evidence for termination of parental rights

Text: Over J.P.'s objection, the court allowed a DSS caseworker assigned to J.P. and M.P. to testify in an opinion that M.P.'s best interests necessitated termination of J.P.'s parental rights. Also over J.P.'s objection, the court received a Grand Island police officer's testimony that J.P. was arrested in August 1990 for drunk driving. Although J.P., through her assignments of error, complains about the testimony from the DSS caseworker and the police officer, in our de novo review we disregard that particular testimony and direct our attention to other probative evidence on the question whether J.P.'s parental rights in M.P. should be terminated. In connection with a physical injury and anxiety, J.P. received various medications during 1988 through her physician, including Valium, a tranquilizer, and Bancap, an addictive painkiller issued in capsule form. In a meticulous itemization of the medications which he prescribed for J.P., the physician designated the various medications by name and individual prescription or refill. According to J.P.'s physician, Dilaudid and Talwin were not among the medications prescribed for J.P. In any event, J.P. frequently obtained refills for the Bancap and, in May 1990, unbeknown to her physician, was grinding up Bancap capsules, which were then mixed with water to hit or shoot the liquid composition, that is, inject the concoction intravenously. Concerning the intravenous administration of Bancap, J.P. explained: Because being a drug abuser through the past, I was suffering such severe pain that I thought in my mind that the pain would go away faster. When J.P. arrived at the emergency room, a physician with a specialty in internal medicine examined her and diagnosed her condition as an [e]pidural abscess ... a ... staph infection in the area of L4, L5... which had impinged upon her spinal cord. A pocket of pus on her spinal cord. According to the internist, J.P. was malnourished, and her lumbar problem existed because J.P. had multiple skin infection sites from, obviously, intravenous injections with staph abscesses on the skin in multiple locations. Thus, the staph infection resulted from J.P.'s intravenous drug use and accounted for her delirious condition observed by police and paramedics on their arrival at J.P.'s home. Also, the physician noted that there were multiple injection sites about [J.P.'s] body and that J.P.'s intravenous drug use had almost killed her. As a result of his conversations with J.P., the physician learned that in addition to Bancap, J.P. had intravenously taken Dilaudid, an opiate and narcotic analgesic which is a close cousin to morphine, and Talwin, a potent synthetic narcotic analgesic. Both Dilaudid and Talwin are controlled substances, but neither had been prescribed by J.P.'s physician. Two psychologists with several years' experience testified. One testified that J.P. understood the seriousness of drug addiction and that J.P. was very well aware of jeopardizing herself and her son if she went back to that kind of living. The other testified that an illicit controlled substance in the home would be detrimental toto any child's well-being. In view of all the foregoing, the court concluded that the evidence clearly and convincingly established that J.P. had failed to rehabilitate herself regarding her drug abuse and that the best interests of M.P. required termination of J.P.'s parental rights concerning M.P. In unequivocal language, the court-ordered plan for J.P.'s rehabilitation forbade unauthorized use of a controlled substance. Apart from her unusual administration of Bancap, a narcotic obtained by her physician's prescription, J.P. acknowledged her intravenous injection of two controlled substances, Dilaudid and Talwin, narcotic analgesics which she undoubtedly obtained without her physician's prescription, since neither Dilaudid nor Talwin was mentioned among the narcotics prescribed. Testimony from the psychologists established that J.P. recognized the danger to herself and her child in a lifestyle involving illicit drug addiction. Implicit in the psychologists' testimony is the premise that the home must be a child's refuge from today's widespread abuse and misuse of controlled substances as counterfeit passports from the reality of life. In J.P.'s situation, the home was a stage for a play with one inevitable sorry ending, a tragedy for which a child might have been a spectator, but need not become a player. See, In re Interest of H.P.A., 237 Neb. 410, 466 N.W.2d 90 (1991); In re Interest of Q.R. and D.R., 231 Neb. 791, 438 N.W.2d 146 (1989). Hence, from our de novo review, we conclude that the evidence clearly and convincingly establishes that J.P. willfully failed to comply with the court-ordered plan of rehabilitation and that, under the circumstances, the best interests of M.P. require termination of J.P.'s parental rights in her child. Consequently, we affirm the judgment of the county court for Hall County. AFFIRMED. BOSLAUGH, J., concurs in the result.