Court Opinion

ID: 9881832
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-04 14:18:03.482661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:12.916740
License: Public Domain

Cite as 2023 Ark. App. 445
                     ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
                                         DIVISION IV
                                         No. CV-23-165

                                                   Opinion Delivered October 4, 2023
SAHARA GONZALES
                                  APPELLANT
                                                   APPEAL FROM THE SEBASTIAN
V.                                                 COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, FORT
                                                   SMITH DISTRICT
ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN                       [NO. 66FJV-21-56]
SERVICES AND MINOR CHILD
                        APPELLEES HONORABLE SHANNON L. BLATT,
                                  JUDGE

                                                   AFFIRMED

                                    MIKE MURPHY, Judge

        This is a companion case to Gonzales v. Arkansas Department of Human Services, 2023

 Ark. App. 444, also handed down today. In both cases, the Sebastian County Circuit Court

 terminated appellant Sahara Gonzales’s parental rights. This is an appeal from the

 termination of Gonzales’s parental rights to her sixth child, MC6, born March 20, 2020.

 The legal issues pertaining to all the children were addressed in a single termination petition,

 hearing, and termination order. On appeal, Gonzales challenges only the court’s best-interest

 finding. We affirm.

        MC6 entered his siblings’ previously opened case in February 2021. The Department

 exercised custody because Gonzales was using methamphetamine, she had drugs in the

 home, and she failed to keep the other juveniles in counseling as required.
       On March 1, 2021, the circuit court held a probable-cause hearing wherein it found

that probable cause existed for the emergency order to remain in place. On April 26, the

court held an adjudication hearing and, on the basis of the parties’ stipulation, found that

MC6 was dependent-neglected due to parental unfitness. The court also found that the

allegations in the petition and accompanying affidavit were substantiated by the proof, and

it ordered that the case goal be reunification. Additionally, it ordered that MC6 be placed

with Gonzales at her residential-treatment facility, and should she leave, MC6 was not to go

with her. Further, the circuit court ordered Gonzales to follow the case plan and complete

the services enumerated therein.

       The case proceeded as described in Gonzales, 2023 Ark. App. 444, and Gonzales’s

rights to her children—including MC6—were terminated on December 12, 2022. The

relevant facts, arguments, and this court’s conclusions are set forth in the companion case

and are incorporated herein. Accordingly, we affirm.

       Affirmed.

       GLADWIN and GRUBER, JJ., agree.

       Leah Lanford, Arkansas Commission for Parent Counsel, for appellant.

       Kaylee Wedgeworth, Ark. Dep’t of Human Services, Office of Chief Counsel, for

appellee.

       Dana McClain, attorney ad litem for minor child.

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