Court Opinion

ID: 9621350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:56:42.332383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:02.833913
License: Public Domain

Wendell L. Griffen, Judge, dissenting. I would affirm the circuit court’s termination of appellant’s parental rights with regard to both of her children. The majority’s rationale is that the circuit court erred in terminating appellant’s parental rights because she had corrected the condition that caused the removal of her children. It is true that the children were initially removed from appellant’s home due to her drug usage. However, in determining that it is in the children’s best interests to be returned to appellant’s care because she is sober, the majority adopts a narrow view of the best interests of the children. The majority ignores the trial court’s additional finding that subsequent events demonstrated that the return of the children to appellant was contrary to their health and safety. That is, the circuit court recognized that factors in addition to appellant’s newly-found sobriety were relevant in determining the best interests of her children. The statute governing the termination of parental rights, Arkansas Code Annotated § 9-27-341 (Supp. 2003), provides in relevant part: [b] (3) An order forever terminating parental rights shall be based upon a finding by clear and convincing evidence: (A) That it is in the best interest of the juvenile, including consideration of the following factors: (i) The likelihood that the juvenile will be adopted if the termination petition is granted; and (ii) The potential harm, specifically addressing the effect on the health and safety of the child, caused by continuing contact with the parent, parents, or putative parent or parents; and (B) Of one (1) or more of the following grounds; (i)(a) That a juvenile has been adjudicated by the court to be dependent-neglected and has continued out of the custody of the parent for twelve (12) months and, despite a meaningful effort by the department to rehabilitate the parent and correct the conditions that caused removal, those conditions have not been remedied by the parent. (vii) (a) That other factors or issues arose subsequent to the filing of the original petition for dependency-neglect that demonstrate that return of the juvenile to the custody of the parent is contrary to the juvenile’s health, safety, or welfare and that, despite the offer of appropriate family services, the parent has manifested the incapacity or indifference to remedy the subsequent issues or factors or rehabilitate the parent’s circumstances that prevent return of the juvenile to the custody of the parent. At the conclusion of the termination hearing, the court orally stated its justification for termination, inter alia, as follows: Your commitment to breaking your ties with your past is very shallow to the point that I am afraid for these children. I would love to be able to say let’s wait another six months and see if you can break that tie, but I’m just not sure that you understand. And I’m not sure that there won’t be another man that will come along with some other enticement and you won’t make the bad choice again. Because of that doubt along with the fact that we’ve had this case already in this court for eighteen months on one child and a year on the other,11 cannot take that chance. Termination of paren tal rights will be granted. The court subsequently entered separate termination orders for each child. With regard to A.W., the court found that it would be contrary to his best interests to return him to appellant’s custody, that he had been adjudicated to be dependent-neglected and had been out of the home for twelve months, and that the conditions that caused his removal had not been remedied by his mother. With regard to L.M., the court found that it would be contrary to her best interest to be returned to appellant’s custody, and that there was little likelihood that services to the family would result in reunification. I do not believe the circuit court’s findings were clearly erroneous. First, even though the circuit judge was mistaken as to the amount of time the children had been out of the home, this does not warrant reversal, because the judge still acted properly under § 9-27-341 in ordering termination. At the time of the termination hearing, A.W. had been out of appellant’s home for more than twelve months, as required by § 9-27-341(b)(3)(B)(i)(a). Because of the length of time that A.W. had been out of the home, the court was required by Arkansas Code Annotated § 9-27-338 (Supp. 2003) to determine a permanency goal that was in A.W.’s best interests. While the court obviously could have taken more time with L.M., whose case had only been open for seven months, it was not required to do so because its determination that termination was proper with respect to appel-lee’s rights to L.M. was based on § 9-27-341 (b)(3) (A) and § 9-27-341(b)(B)(vii)(a), which do not mandate that the child be out of the home for a specified period of time. Second, I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that appellant had worked “diligently” at the drug rehabilitation program for seven months. The case was opened in September 2001. Appellant had just graduated from her six-month program on the same day that the termination hearing was held in July 2003. It is true that appellant passed all of her drug tests while in treatment. However, the greater weight of the evidence was consistent that, until March 2003, only three months prior to the termination hearing, appellant did not take her drug problem seriously. For example, she lied to the court about her drug abuse. In the May 2002 hearing, appellant testified that she had used drugs only one time, when appellee first opened its case on her. However, immediately following the same hearing, appellant tested positive for marijuana. Further, she continued to use drugs even after A.W. was removed from her custody. Prior to L.M.’s birth, appellant testified that she would never use drugs while she was pregnant. However, she used cocaine when she was pregnant with L.M., which required L.M. to remain hospitalized for an extended stay after she was born. Moreover, one week after L.M. was born and removed from appellant’s custody, appellant again tested positive for cocaine. In addition, as late as March 17, 2003, only three months prior to the termination hearing, appellant told her DHS caseworker that she did not want to complete a six-month program because she and Raymond Morgan, L.M.’s father, wanted to be married and he could not support two households while she was in rehabilitation. According to appellant, Morgan was a drug user whom she met shortly after he was released from jail for selling crack. After her first attempt at drug rehabilitation, she lived with Morgan. She stated she was engaged to Morgan before L.M. was conceived. At the review hearing held on March 18, 2003, appellant testified that Morgan was still using drugs and had caused her to lose her apartment. She stated that Morgan was “bad” for her and that she would no longer see him. Yet, later in the same week, she used her weekend pass to visit him. Appellant’s CASA caseworker testified that on July 2, 2003, less than two weeks before the termination hearing, appellant stated that she was going to wait until after the termination hearing to decide whether to marry Morgan. The foster mother testified that nine days before the termination hearing, and in the presence of the children, Morgan encouraged appellant to “go smoke some weed.” At the termination hearing, Morgan was described by his parole officer as a parole absconder with an active felony warrant. Ben Perkins, appellant’s drug counselor, testified that he had confidence appellant would stay clean and sober. However, he also opined that appellant’s desire to continue her relationship with Morgan showed poor judgment. Perkins further stated that if appellant maintained a relationship with Morgan, she was in jeopardy of backsliding into drug use, and that her possibility of failure was high if she continued her relationship with Morgan. Thus, appellant’s casual attitude about sobriety, her association with Morgan during her recovery period, and her insistence on determining whether to marry him pending the outcome of the termination hearing, demonstrates that her efforts to engage in behavior that will support her sobriety has been anything but diligent. While the majority is to be commended for its hope that appellant will remain drug-free, I join the circuit judge in concluding that there is no reason to subject her children to the vagaries of her life with a known drug-dealer. The trial court was well within its authority to consider those factors in deciding the best interests of the children. Third, while appellant’s relationship with Morgan may not have interfered with her responsibilities at Chance Sobriety, more importantly, this relationship did interfere with her relationship with her children. Appellant either never truly understood or never cared about the effect that her continued relationship with Morgan had on her attempts to remain sober, which, in turn, affected her relationship with her children. During her six-month stay at Chance Sobriety, appellant shared her one-hour weekly visits with her children and Morgan. According to the foster mother, during some of the visits appellant sat on Morgan’s lap and seemed more interested in Morgan than in bonding with her children. In short, appellant did not make it a priority to establish a relationship with her children. During appellant’s six-month stay at Chance Sobriety, she missed several visits with her children. She missed three visitations because her privileges had been suspended, because she broke the drug treatment facility’s rules, one of which was a rule forbidding fraternization with a male patient. She also missed four visitations due to other factors, such as oversleeping. Thus, appellant missed almost two months’ visitation with her children during a six-month stay — nearly one-third of her allowed visitation. The CASA volunteer concluded that appellant’s behavior demonstrated a lack of conviction for the goal of reuniting with her children. Fourth, it is obvious that the circuit court assessed appellant’s lack of credibility, based on her previous conduct in lying to the court regarding her drug usage and her relationship with Morgan, when judging her statements that she intended to remain drug-free, that she understood why she needed drug treatment, and that she would not continue her relationship with Morgan. Contrary to the majority’s assertion, it did not require speculation for the court to determine that appellant intended to continue a relationship with Morgan. The trial court did not conjure or surmise that appellant was considering marriage to him less than two weeks prior to the termination hearing. Appellant testified to that effect. I see no reason why the trial court should not have considered the effect of that intention when it determined whether denying the petition to terminate parental rights was in the best interest of two small children. Finally, while appellant is to be commended for remaining sober for six months, this “eleventh-hour” effort, alone, is not a sufficient ground to preclude termination. Arkansas Code Annotated section 9-27-338(a)(4)(E)(iii) (Supp. 2003) provides that a parent’s cooperation in following the court’s order in the months or weeks immediately preceding the permanency hearing are insufficient grounds for retaining reunification as the permanency plan. The majority is mistaken when it asserts that appellant had been sober for over six months. Appellant completed the six-month rehabilitation program on the day of the termination hearing. She had only been sober for six months as of the day of the hearing. Further, she only began demonstrating sincerity about remaining sober during the three months immediately before the termination hearing. Except for weekend passes, she had resided at the rehabilitation facility. Thus, the record does not demonstrate whether she will remain sober in the real world. In any event, despite appellant’s recent sobriety, the circuit court found ample reasons demonstrating why it was not in the children’s best interests to be returned to her care. In the final analysis, we make the grave decision to terminate parental rights because our legislature intends that judges make the “best-interest” determination based on what the record shows is likely to happen to helpless children, not what we hope will happen to parents. I hope appellant remains sober. I hope she either finds a drug-free companion or that Raymond Morgan drastically improves his behavior. However, like the trial court, I am more concerned about the harm likely to befall two dependent children from appellant’s misjudgments than I am convinced the trial court was wrong or am concerned about the implications if the trial court was wrong. If the trial court was wrong about appellant (a view I do not endorse), the children are likely to be safe, nevertheless. If the majority is wrong, the children are likely to be endangered in ways that cannot be remedied by apologies. I respectfully dissent, and I am authorized to state that Judge Pittman joins this opinion.   The court was mistaken as to the length of time that L.M.’s case had been open because she was only seven months old at the time of the termination hearing.