Court Opinion

ID: 9894407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-01 18:04:20.340699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:42.287200
License: Public Domain

Filed 10/31/23 In re Alexander M. CA2/7
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions
not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion
has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
                                      DIVISION SEVEN

 In re ALEXANDER M. et al.,                                 B327153
 Persons Coming Under the
 Juvenile Court Law.                                        (Los Angeles County
                                                            Super. Ct.
                                                            No. 22CCJP04861A-B)
 LOS ANGELES COUNTY
 DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN
 AND FAMILY SERVICES,

           Plaintiff and Respondent,

           v.

 KEVIN M. et al.,

           Defendants and Appellants.

     APPEALS from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles
County, Stephen C. Marpet, Juvenile Court Referee. Appeal by
Yasmeen M. dismissed as moot; appeal by Kevin M. affirmed.
     Jamie A. Moran, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant Kevin M.
     Megan Turkat Schirn, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant Yasmeen M.
      Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy,
Assistant County Counsel, and Brian Mahler, Deputy County
Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
               _________________________________
       The juvenile court at a disposition hearing on February 15,
2023 declared now-seven-year-old Alexander M. and three-year-
old Lilith M. dependent children of the court and removed them
from the custody of their parents, Yasmeen M. and Kevin M.,
after sustaining a petition pursuant to Welfare and Institutions
Code section 300, subdivision (b)(1),1 alleging that Yasmeen had
failed to take medication prescribed for her mental health
condition and during one incident, while unmedicated,
threatened Alexander with a knife, and that Kevin, despite
knowing of Yasmeen’s mental and emotional problems, failed to
protect the children from her. Without challenging the juvenile
court’s jurisdiction findings or disposition orders adjudging the
children dependents of the court, Yasmeen appeals the removal
orders, arguing there were reasonable means to protect the
children while they remained in her care. Yasmeen’s appeal has
been mooted by the court’s subsequent orders returning the
children to her custody.
       Kevin similarly does not question the jurisdiction findings
or adjudication of dependency but contends there was insufficient
evidence to support removal of the children from his custody. We
affirm those removal orders.

1     Statutory references are to this code unless otherwise
stated.

                                2
      FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
     1. The Dependency Petition and Detention
      In December 2022 the Los Angeles County Department of
Children and Family Services filed a section 300,
subdivision (b)(1), petition alleging Yasmeen had mental and
emotional problems, including manic episodes and a diagnosis of
bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression; failed to take
medication for her condition as prescribed; and on one occasion,
while Alexander was on a bed, held a knife in her hands and
made stabbing motions toward him. The petition also alleged
Kevin’s knowledge of Yasmeen’s problems and failure to protect
the children from her. The juvenile court issued a protective
custody warrant on December 8, 2022 temporarily removing the
children from their parents’ physical custody and ordered them
detained from their parents at the December 16, 2022 detention
hearing.
     2. Evidence at the Jurisdiction/Disposition Hearing
      As shown by the Department’s reports and attachments in
evidence at the February 15, 2023 jurisdiction/disposition
hearing, Kevin and Yasmeen were married and had two children:
Alexander, who was autistic, and Lilith, who at the time of the
hearing was two years old. Both children had developmental
issues. Kevin and Yasmeen argued frequently and had what the
maternal uncle described as a “toxic” relationship.
      In March 2022 Kevin and Yasmeen were arguing at home
while Yasmeen was holding Lilith. When the argument
escalated, Yasmeen punched Kevin, spat on him and threw a 10-
pound wooden statue at him, striking his arm. Police arrived at
the scene in response to a call about the domestic violence

                                3
incident, and a police report was prepared. Kevin declined to
press charges.
       On October 1, 2022 police officers responded to an early
morning domestic violence call by Yasmeen. When they arrived
at Kevin and Yasmeen’s home, Kevin instructed one of the
officers to watch a video dated September 30, 2022 recorded on
Kevin’s cellphone. According to the officer, the video showed
Yasmeen, with her left arm around Alexander’s neck in a
headlock, holding in her right hand a knife with a four-inch blade
next to Alexander’s head. Yasmeen, visibly distressed and
crying, threw Alexander on the bed, where he landed face down.
Yasmeen walked around the bed and again wrapped her arm
around Alexander’s neck. She raised her right hand while
holding the knife and thrust the knife toward Alexander’s head,
but stopped before the knife made contact with Alexander’s body.
She then let Alexander go.
       Yasmeen provided the police her perspective of the
September 30, 2022 incident. Kevin had been berating her that
day after she returned from a doctor’s visit and called her a
“dumb bitch.” A heated argument had ensued; and Kevin shoved
Yasmeen, who was pregnant with their third child, with both
hands. He then approached her with a knife and pointed it at
her. Yasmeen “shoulder ‘checked’” him, causing him to drop the
knife. She grabbed it and locked herself in Alexander’s room.
Kevin unlocked the door and punched her in the face to try to get
the knife, but she continued to hold onto it. At that point she
blacked out. When her “memory ‘faded’ back in,” she found
herself in her own room with her two children but did not know
where Kevin was. Later, in the evening, Yasmeen and Kevin had
engaged in another argument that escalated into a physical

                                4
altercation. According to Yasmeen, Kevin had been the
aggressor, grabbing her arm and pushing her onto a bed while
she had been holding Lilith.
       When speaking to the police on October 1, Yasmeen
explained she suffered from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and
depression and experienced memory lapses as part of her mental
illness. Although Yasmeen’s doctor had prescribed her
medication that did not interfere with her pregnancy and that
she wanted to take, Kevin refused to allow her to do so and
flushed Yasmeen’s medication down the toilet. She had been off
her medication for several months, including during the
September 30, 2022 incident. She had a manic episode that day,
temporarily blacked out and did not recall what was depicted in
the video.
       In a subsequent interview several months later (January
2023), Yasmeen provided a very different version of the
September 30, 2022 incident, which included no mention of Kevin
shoving her, approaching her with a knife, punching her or any
other physical interaction with Kevin during their arguments
that day. She recalled pushing Alexander onto the bed but could
not remember what happened after that. She stated she had
swung a remote control back and forth in her hand and never had
a knife.
       One of the officers who responded to the October 1, 2022
call and talked to Yasmeen observed bruising on Yasmeen’s lip
and right eye, which Yasmeen had pointed out when she told the
officer Kevin had punched her in the face the prior day. A
different officer who interviewed Yasmeen two days later saw a
bruise on Yasmeen’s arm that Yasmeen said came from an

                               5
assault by Kevin. Yasmeen at that time reported Kevin
physically abused her.
       Although he had shown officers the video of the
September 30th incident, Kevin refused to provide a copy to law
enforcement. He later denied that he had a video of the incident,
that Yasmeen wielded a knife or that there had been any physical
altercation at all between them. In addition, Kevin refused, at
least initially, to cooperate with the Department’s investigation.
He refused to allow the children’s social worker inside the home
and to respond when the social worker requested information or
attempted to contact him, requiring the social worker to obtain a
court order to enter the home and see the children.
       The Department had previously investigated Kevin for
domestic violence involving the mother of another child of his.
That woman had obtained a five-year restraining order against
Kevin, who was ordered to complete a domestic violence program
through the family law court in Orange County.
       Explaining the need for Alexander’s and Lilith’s removal
from parental custody, the social worker expressed concern for
the children’s safety due to the domestic violence in their home
and Kevin’s history of domestic violence with the mother of
Alexander and Lilith’s half-sibling; Yasmeen’s mental health
crisis on September 30 and her failure to take medication
prescribed for her condition; and Kevin’s recording of the incident
rather than intervening and calling the police. The social worker
was also concerned about Kevin’s refusal to cooperate with
investigations by the police and the Department.
       At the jurisdiction/disposition hearing Kevin’s counsel, with
Kevin present, told the court Kevin acknowledged he should have
intervened in the incident rather than record it, but continued to

                                 6
dispute Yasmeen used a knife. Asked by the court whether he
remembered that the video showed Yasmeen holding a knife with
a four-inch blade, Kevin replied he did not recall. Apparently
commenting on the relative credibility of Kevin and the officer
who had viewed the video and had described what he saw, the
court observed that the officer “has no axe to grind at all.”
Finding the allegations of the dependency petition supported by a
preponderance of the evidence, the court sustained the
dependency petition as to both Yasmeen and Kevin.
      Proceeding immediately to disposition the court, after
hearing the arguments of counsel, declared the children
dependents of the court and removed Alexander and Lilith from
their parents’ custody, finding by clear and convincing evidence
the children were at substantial risk of physical or emotional
harm in their parents’ care and there were no reasonable means
to protect the children without removal.2 Finding Kevin’s “failure
to protect is extreme,” the court stated that finding was one of its
reasons for removal.
                          DISCUSSION
      1. Yasmeen’s Challenge to Removal at Disposition Is Moot
       “A court is tasked with the duty to decide actual
controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and
not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions,
or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the

2     The court also ordered for both parents family reunification
services, monitored visitation, participation in counseling and a
parenting program for special needs children. As to Yasmeen the
court further added ongoing psychiatric care and medication
management and required she take all prescribed psychotropic
medication.

                                 7
matter in issue in the case before it. A case becomes moot when
events render it impossible for a court, if it should decide the case
in favor of plaintiff, to grant him any effective relief. For relief to
be effective, two requirements must be met. First, the plaintiff
must complain of an ongoing harm. Second, the harm must be
redressable or capable of being rectified by the outcome the
plaintiff seeks.” (In re D.P. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 266, 276 [cleaned
up].)
       Yasmeen contends the February 15, 2023 disposition orders
removing the children from her custody should be reversed
because reasonable means existed to protect them while
remaining in her care. On September 19, 2023, while this appeal
was pending, the juvenile court at a six-month review hearing
(§ 366.21, subd. (e)) ordered the children returned to Yasmeen’s
custody.3 Because the September 19, 2023 orders provide
Yasmeen with the only relief she seeks in her appeal, we dismiss
her appeal as moot.

3     We grant the Department’s motion to take judicial notice of
the September 19, 2023 orders. (Evid. Code, §§ 452, subd. (d)(1),
459, subd. (a).) Although the juvenile court ordered the children
returned to Yasmeen’s custody on condition she and the children
reside in the home of the maternal grandparents or any other
Department-approved home, the record on appeal indicates
Yasmeen had already moved out of the family home and lived
with the maternal grandmother.
       The court on September 19, 2023 permitted Kevin to have
unmonitored visitation with the children but did not return them
to his custody.

                                  8
      2. Substantial Evidence Supports the Disposition Orders
         Removing the Children from Kevin’s Custody
       The paramount purpose of the dependency laws “is to
provide maximum safety and protection for children who are
currently being physically, sexually, or emotionally abused, being
neglected, or being exploited, and to ensure the safety, protection,
and physical and emotional well-being of children who are at risk
of that harm.” (§ 300.2, subd. (a); see In re Cole L. (2021)
70 Cal.App.5th 591, 601; In re A.F. (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 283,
289.)
       After a dependency petition has been sustained pursuant to
section 300, the court may order a child removed from the
physical custody of a parent based on its finding, by clear and
convincing evidence, that the child would be at substantial risk of
physical or emotional harm if the parent were to live with the
child and there are no reasonable means by which the child can
be protected without removal. (§ 361, subds. (c)(1) [parent with
whom the child resided at the time the petition was initiated],
(d) [parent with whom the child did not reside at the time the
petition was initiated]; In re T.V. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 126,
135; see In re Anthony Q. (2016) 5 Cal.App.5th 336, 347.) “The
parent need not be dangerous and the minor need not have been
actually harmed before removal is appropriate. The focus of the
statute is on averting harm to the child.” (In re D.B. (2018)
26 Cal.App.5th 320, 328; accord, In re T.V., at pp. 135-136; In re
T.W. (2013) 214 Cal.App.4th 1154, 1163.)
       Because an order for removal under section 361,
subdivisions (c) and (d), must be based on clear and convincing
evidence, we “must determine whether the record, viewed as a
whole, contains substantial evidence from which a reasonable

                                 9
trier of fact could have made the finding of high probability
demanded by this standard of proof.” (Conservatorship of O.B.
(2020) 9 Cal.5th 989, 1005; see In re Nathan E. (2021)
61 Cal.App.5th 114, 123 [“[i]n reviewing for substantial evidence
to support a dispositional order removing a child, we ‘keep[ ] in
mind that the [juvenile] court was required to make its order
based on the higher standard of clear and convincing evidence’”];
see generally In re I.J. (2013) 56 Cal.4th 766, 773 [“‘In reviewing
a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the
jurisdictional findings and disposition, we determine if
substantial evidence, contradicted or uncontradicted, supports
them. “In making this determination, we draw all reasonable
inferences from the evidence to support the findings and orders of
the dependency court; we review the record in the light most
favorable to the court’s determinations; and we note that issues
of fact and credibility are the province of the trial court.”
[Citation.] “We do not reweigh the evidence or exercise
independent judgment, but merely determine if there are
sufficient facts to support the findings of the trial court”’”].)
       The “appellant has the burden to demonstrate there is no
evidence of a sufficiently substantial nature to support the
findings or orders.” (In re D.B., supra, 26 Cal.App.5th at pp. 328-
329.)
       Kevin’s contention there was insufficient evidence to
support removal of Alexander and Lilith from his custody is
fundamentally flawed. Kevin presents a summary of the record
that omits many of the facts underlying the juvenile court’s
decision. He relies, for example, on Yasmeen’s relatively benign
description of the September 30, 2022 incident during her
January 2023 interview in which she denied wielding a knife,

                                10
and he ignores Yasmeen’s prior statements that recounted his
physical violence toward her. The juvenile court was entitled to
accept some of Yasmeen’s statements and reject others. (See,
e.g., In re Daniel G. (2004) 120 Cal.App.4th 824, 830 [“As part of
its task, the trier of fact may believe and accept as true only part
of a witness’s testimony and disregard the rest. On appeal, we
must accept that part of the testimony which supports the
judgment”]; Kelly-Zurian v. Wohl Shoe Co. (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th
397, 409 [“a reviewing court will not . . . pass upon the credibility
of witnesses [citation], and the trier of fact is entitled to accept or
reject all or any part of the testimony of any witness”].)
       The record contains ample evidence from which the
juvenile court reasonably determined under the heightened clear
and convincing standard that the children would be at
substantial risk of physical or emotional harm if Kevin were to
live with them and there were no reasonable means by which the
children could be protected without removal. Evidence
supporting the court’s decision included Kevin recording
Yasmeen’s September 30, 2022 mental health crisis, even while
she thrust a knife toward Alexander, rather than intervene or
seek help to protect the boy; subjecting the children to risk of
harm by refusing to allow Yasmeen to take medication prescribed
for her mental health condition and throwing it away; and
essentially leaving his young, special-needs children without
adult supervision during the time Yasmeen said she had blacked
out. There was also substantial evidence Kevin exposed the
children to domestic violence and was physically abusive to
Yasmeen when the children were nearby, thus endangering
them. (See, e.g., In re R.C. (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th 930, 941-942

                                  11
[“‘[c]hildren can be “put in a position of physical danger from
[spousal] violence”’”].)
        Kevin contends the children were no longer at risk if they
lived with him because there was evidence Yasmeen had moved
out of the family home by the time of the disposition hearing.
Kevin’s extreme disregard for the children’s safety and his violent
actions, however, made it likely the children would remain at risk
of harm in his care even if he and Yasmeen were no longer living
together, particularly since Kevin denied the extent of the
violence to which the children were exposed. (See In re A.F.,
supra, 3 Cal.App.5th at p. 293 [“‘[d]enial is a factor often relevant
to determining whether persons are likely to modify their
behavior in the future without court supervision’”]; In re
Esmeralda B. (1992) 11 Cal.App.4th 1036, 1044 [same]; see also
In re Gabriel K. (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 188, 197 [“[o]ne cannot
correct a problem one fails to acknowledge”].)
        Kevin also contends the removal orders should be reversed
because he and Yasmeen had voluntarily enrolled and/or
participated in parenting services and the Department identified
family strengths, including that the children were bonded to their
parents. Kevin’s argument invites us to reweigh the evidence, a
task outside the proper scope of appellate review. (See, e.g., In re
I.J., supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 773 [“‘“[w]e do not reweigh the
evidence”’”]; see also People v. Gomez (2018) 6 Cal.5th 243, 309
[“‘[i]n deciding the sufficiency of the evidence, a reviewing court
resolves neither credibility issues nor evidentiary conflicts’”].)

                                 12
                        DISPOSITION
      Yasmeen’s appeal is dismissed as moot. The juvenile
court’s February 15, 2023 disposition orders are affirmed.

                                    PERLUSS, P. J.

     We concur:

           FEUER, J.

           MARTINEZ, J.

                               13