Court Opinion

ID: 9895567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-07 19:03:38.140249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:31.943429
License: Public Domain

Filed 11/7/23 In re E.P. CA2/8
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                      DIVISION EIGHT

In re E.P. et al., Persons Coming                               B323643; B328498
Under the Juvenile Court Law.
______________________________                                  Los Angeles County
LOS ANGELES COUNTY                                              Super. Ct. No. 22CCJP02052A-C
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN
AND FAMILY SERVICES,

         Plaintiff and Respondent,

         v.

H.P.,

         Defendant and Appellant.

      APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles
County, Lisa A. Brackelmanns, Commissioner Presiding.
Affirmed.
       Robert McLaughlin, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
       Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Kim Nemoy,
Assistant County Counsel, and Navid Nakhjavani, Principal
Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
                       ____________________
       A juvenile court ordered three children to be removed from
their father. At a review hearing, the court denied the father’s
request to return them to his custody. The father separately
appealed the removal order (case No. B323643) and the denial of
his custody request (case No. B328498). On our own motion, we
consolidate the appeals for the purpose of decision. We affirm.
       Undesignated statutory citations are to the Welfare and
Institutions Code.
                                  I
       The Los Angeles Department of Children and Family
Services (the Department) filed a section 300 petition alleging the
father’s three children were at substantial risk of serious physical
harm and sexual abuse because the father sexually abused an
unrelated child in May 2022.
       The three children are the father’s daughter and his two
sons. The daughter was seven and the sons were six and four
years old when the Department filed the petition. The children’s
mother is not a party to this appeal. She and the father broke up
in 2020. The mother placed the children in foster care around
that time and the children have not seen her since.
       The father gained sole legal and physical custody of the
children beginning in December 2021. The family lived in a
homeless shelter until approximately May 2022, when they
moved into a home.

                                 2
       The sexual abuse involved a six-year-old girl, N.H., who
was a friend of the two older children. One day in May 2022,
N.H., her mother, her two sisters, the father, and the father’s
three children were at the father’s new home. N.H.’s mother left
to get groceries. When she returned, N.H. was behaving
strangely. N.H. also acted differently in the following days.
Although N.H. usually liked going to school, she did not want to
go.
       N.H. later told her mother that the father had kissed her
vagina.
       Police interviewed N.H., who said the father grabbed her
and pulled her into the bathroom. She said the father pulled
down her pants and underwear and kissed her vaginal area.
N.H. circled that area on an anatomical drawing. N.H. had a
bruise on her arm.
       Police arrested the father and he was released two days
later.
       The father denied the allegations. His children said he did
not abuse them and they felt safe with him.
       On May 27, 2022, the court ordered the children to be
detained from the father.
       In August 2022, a detective told the Department that the
father’s case was still under review, but the District Attorney
likely would reject it due to insufficient evidence. Although N.H.
consistently said the father had sexually abused her, the
detective said N.H. had added some “bizarre details” and had a
hard time keeping a concrete timeline of what happened. The
detective “stated that she believes that something did happen to
[N.H.] but at this time, it is hard to discern what occurred due to
the various details [N.H.] has provided.”

                                 3
       At an adjudication and disposition hearing on September 7,
2022, N.H. testified. She said she was at the father’s house and
he kissed her “where I go pee.”
       The court credited N.H.: “I think it was consistent and
clear that something bad happened to [N.H.] when she was at the
[father’s] home where [the father] kissed her in the vagina area.”
       The court noted that other evidence corroborated N.H.’s
testimony. N.H. told her mother and the police that the father
had kissed her vagina. N.H.’s strange and different behavior
after the incident was also probative. Her bruise was consistent
with the father pulling her into the bathroom.
       The court sustained allegations about the father’s sexual
abuse of N.H.
       Counsel for the children asked the court to remove the
children from the father. The court found by clear and convincing
evidence that it was reasonable and necessary to remove the
children. It ordered a case plan for the father that included
individual counseling to address case issues and sexual abuse
counseling for perpetrators.
       The children were in nonrelative foster placements and
then were placed with their paternal aunt beginning in October
2022.
       The father enrolled in individual counseling and sexual
offenders group therapy on January 4, 2023. He began individual
counseling on January 13, 2023 and as of mid-February, he had
attended about three sessions. His therapist said they were still
“building rapport.”
       The father attended four sessions of sexual offenders group
therapy, but he did not participate unless prompted and stated
he did not belong in the group and had done nothing wrong. The

                                4
father told the Department he was not learning anything in this
therapy.
       The father consistently visited the children.
       The father continued to deny wrongdoing and said he was
falsely accused.
       At a review hearing on March 20, 2023, the court found by
a preponderance of the evidence that returning the children to
the father’s custody would create a substantial risk of detriment
to them. It found the father’s progress in his case plan was not
substantial.
       The father appealed the court’s September 2022 disposition
findings and orders to remove the children and the court’s March
2023 review findings and orders to keep the children placed
outside the father’s custody. He concedes the jurisdictional
findings and orders “may have been justified” and he does not
contest them.
                                  II
       The court’s findings and orders were proper.
       To remove children from parental custody, the court must
make one of five findings by clear and convincing evidence.
(§ 361, subd. (c).) One ground is substantial danger to the
children’s physical health, safety, protection, or physical or
emotional well-being if they return home, and there are no
reasonable means to protect them without removing them.
(Ibid.)
       At a review hearing, the juvenile court may keep children
out of their parents’ custody if the court finds, by a
preponderance of the evidence, that returning the children would
create a substantial risk of detriment to their safety, protection,
or physical or emotional well-being. (§ 366.21, subd. (e)(1).) In

                                 5
making this detriment determination, the court must consider
parents’ efforts or progress, or both, and the extent to which they
availed themselves of services. (Ibid.)
       We follow the substantial evidence standard of review. (In
re R.T. (2017) 3 Cal.5th 622, 633.) When considering the removal
order, we account for the clear and convincing burden of proof.
We must determine whether the record, viewed as a whole,
contains substantial evidence from which a reasonable trier of
fact could have made the finding of high probability demanded by
this clear and convincing standard of proof. (See Conservatorship
of O.B. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 989, 1005, 1009, 1011.)
       Substantial evidence supported the September 2022
removal findings and order. Some risks that carry a low degree
of probability can still be substantial because the magnitude of
the harm is potentially great. (In re I.J. (2013) 56 Cal.4th 766,
778.) Based on the father’s sexual assault of N.H., there was
substantial danger to the children’s physical health and safety if
they returned home, and there were no reasonable means to
protect them without removal. There was substantial evidence,
including N.H.’s testimony, to support the court’s belief the
sexual abuse allegations were true. Although the conduct with
N.H. was a single incident, it was serious and aberrant. (See id.
at p. 776.)
       The father’s sexual abuse of N.H. put his children at risk.
His children are similarly situated to N.H. in some respects.
They are the same age or close in age to N.H. and the father
would have opportunities to be alone with them in his home. The
children denied sexual abuse from the father, but that does not
mean they are not at risk of abuse. The children had been alone
in the father’s care for just six months when he sexually abused

                                 6
N.H. The conduct happened within the new family home. Given
the magnitude of the potential harm of sexual abuse, there was
substantial evidence of a substantial risk of harm if the children
were returned home.
       Substantial evidence also supported the court’s March 2023
findings and order. Although the court in September 2022
ordered the father to engage in individual counseling and sexual
abuse counseling, the father did not enroll until four months
later. The father had attended only a handful of sessions by the
time of the review hearing. The father said he was not learning
anything in sexual abuse counseling. The court properly found
his progress was not substantial. The concerns that justified
removal remained. Returning the children to the father would
create a substantial risk of detriment to their safety and
protection.
                          DISPOSITION
       The orders are affirmed.

                                          WILEY, J.

We concur:

             STRATTON, P. J.

             GRIMES, J.

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