Court Opinion

ID: 9369091
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-07 20:12:19.172537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:12.819905
License: Public Domain

FILED
                                                                                 February 7, 2023
                              STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA
                                                                                  EDYTHE NASH GAISER, CLERK
                                                                                  SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS
                            SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS                                   OF WEST VIRGINIA

In re K.C.

No. 22-0423 (Mason County 20-JA-35)

                               MEMORANDUM DECISION

       Petitioner Mother A.S. 1 appeals the Circuit Court of Mason County’s April 4, 2022, order
terminating her parental rights to K.C. 2 Upon our review, we determine that oral argument is
unnecessary and that a memorandum decision affirming the circuit court’s order is appropriate.
See W. Va. R. App. P. 21.

        In the June of 2020 petition, the DHHR alleged that the parents abused illicit substances;
lacked adequate food, working utilities, and appropriate housing; and left firearms and weapons
within reach of then-five-year-old K.C. As a result of the drugs found and the conditions of the
home, the parents were each criminally charged with possession with the intent to deliver a
controlled substance and child neglect creating risk of injury. After adjudicating the parents as
abusing parents, the court granted them numerous improvement periods while they served their
criminal sentences: the father’s probation and petitioner’s home incarceration. The court returned
physical custody of the child to the parents in November of 2021 while they completed the
remaining week of their improvement periods. However, in December of 2021, the guardian filed
a motion to revoke petitioner’s improvement period after petitioner tested positive for
methamphetamine. At a hearing on the guardian’s motion in January of 2022, petitioner voluntarily
relinquished her custodial rights only to the child. The court ordered that petitioner could have
only supervised contact with the child at the discretion of the father and that she could not live
with the father and the child, including no overnight stays. The court granted the father full legal
and physical custody of the child and dismissed the petition by its initial dispositional order entered
on February 16, 2022.

       1
        Petitioner appears by counsel Rebecca Stollar Johnson. The West Virginia Department of
Health and Human Resources (“DHHR”) appears by counsel Attorney General Patrick Morrisey
and Assistant Attorney General Andrew T. Waight. Tanya Hunt Handley appears as the child’s
guardian ad litem.
       2
       We use initials where necessary to protect the identities of those involved in this case. See
W. Va. R. App. P. 40(e).

                                                  1
        In February of 2022, the guardian requested the immediate removal of the child from the
father’s custody and filed a motion to modify the final dispositional in order to terminate the
parents’ parental rights. According to the guardian, the father recently admitted to his probation
officer that he had abused drugs and allowed petitioner to live in the home in violation of the
court’s visitation terms.

         The circuit court held a hearing on the guardian’s motions in March of 2022. The father’s
probation officer testified that when he conducted a home visit of the father’s camper, he saw the
child and petitioner outside without the required supervision. He stated that when he questioned
the father about drug use, the father admitted obtaining drugs from his brother. The father also told
the probation officer that he, K.C., and petitioner were moving to another trailer nearby.
Additionally, another officer testified that, according to GPS monitoring, petitioner served nearly
all thirty days of home incarceration at the father’s camper. The Mason County Day Report Center
Director testified that the father admitted to methamphetamine use two weeks prior to the March
of 2022 hearing. The DHHR worker stated that when she removed the child., K.C. stated that she,
petitioner, and the father were living in the camper. The father testified that he had relapsed but
that he and petitioner planned to eventually live together as a family unit. Regarding the probation
officer’s testimony, the father testified that he did not know that K.C. was outside with petitioner
when the probation officer performed the home visit. The paternal aunt testified that she also lived
in the trailer community and that she kept the child most weekends to allow the parents time to be
alone together. Petitioner testified that she never had unsupervised visits with the child and that
the probation officer saw her walking toward her separate trailer fifteen feet away from the child.

       After reviewing the evidence, the court found that after nearly two years of improvement
periods and services, including drug rehabilitation, the parents had demonstrated an inadequate
capacity to solve the conditions of abuse and neglect on their own or with help. The court
concluded that it was in K.C.’s best interest to terminate the parents’ parental rights. By order
entered on April 4, 2022, the circuit court modified its prior disposition and terminated petitioner’s
parental rights to the child. Petitioner now appeals that order. 3

        On appeal from a final order in an abuse and neglect proceeding, this Court reviews the
circuit court’s findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo. Syl. Pt. 1, In re
Cecil T., 228 W. Va. 89, 717 S.E.2d 873 (2011). Petitioner first argues that the circuit court erred
in finding sufficient evidence that she violated the terms of her post-termination visitation and that
such violation warranted a modification of the earlier final dispositional order. We find that
petitioner is entitled to no relief. West Virginia Code § 49-4-606(a) provides, in part:

       Upon motion of a child . . . alleging a change of circumstances requiring a different
       disposition, the court shall conduct a hearing . . . and may modify a dispositional
       order if the court finds by clear and convincing evidence a material change of
       circumstances and that the modification is in the child’s best interests.

       3
         By the same order, the court also terminated the father’s parental rights. The permanency
plan for the child is adoption in a foster placement.
                                                  2
The Court finds no error in the circuit court’s determination that a material change in circumstances
warranted modification of its prior dispositional order and that such modification was in the child’s
best interest. Here, the parents continued to violate the court’s prior dispositional order by allowing
petitioner to have unsupervised contact with K.C. Contrary to petitioner’s claim, there was ample
credible evidence to prove that she violated the visitation terms, including the testimony of the
father’s probation officer, petitioner’s home incarceration officer, the DHHR worker, and the
father, during which he admitted that he did not see or hear the child while she was alone with
petitioner outside of his camper. Although the parents generally denied that petitioner had
unsupervised visits with the child, the circuit court did not find their testimony credible. We decline
to disturb its credibility determinations. See Michael D.C. v. Wanda L.C., 201 W. Va. 381, 388,
497 S.E.2d 531, 538 (1997) (“A reviewing court cannot assess witness credibility through a record.
The trier of fact is uniquely situated to make such determinations and this Court is not in a position
to, and will not, second guess such determinations.”). The credible evidence presented during the
hearing justified the court’s finding that petitioner’s violations of the court’s prior dispositional
order constituted a material change of circumstances warranting a modification of the prior final
dispositional order. Accordingly, we find that the circuit court committed no error.

        Next, regarding petitioner’s argument that the termination of her parental rights was
improper, we find no error. Petitioner asserts that, despite the termination of the father’s parental
rights, “permanency was achievable with the prior relinquishment of [her] custodial rights”
because the child was available for permanent guardianship. See W. Va. R. of Proc. for Child
Abuse and Neglect Proc. 3(n). However, petitioner fails to challenge the circuit court’s finding
that she demonstrated an inadequate capacity to solve the conditions of abuse and neglect on her
own or with help—meaning that there was “no reasonable likelihood that [the] conditions of
neglect or abuse can be substantially corrected.” See W. Va. Code § 49-4-604(d). As such,
petitioner was not entitled to a less restrictive alternative disposition to the termination of her
parental rights. See Syl. Pt. 5, In re Kristin Y., 227 W. Va. 558, 712 S.E.2d 55 (2011) (holding that
“[t]ermination of parental rights . . . may be employed without the use of intervening less restrictive
alternatives when it is found that there is no reasonable likelihood . . . that the conditions of neglect
or abuse can be substantially corrected”). Accordingly, we find no error in the circuit court’s
termination of petitioner’s parental rights.

       For the foregoing reasons, we find no error in the decision of the circuit court, and its April
4, 2022, order is hereby affirmed.

                                                                                              Affirmed.

ISSUED: February 7, 2023

CONCURRED IN BY:

Chief Justice Elizabeth D. Walker
Justice Tim Armstead
Justice John A. Hutchison
Justice William R. Wooton
Justice C. Haley Bunn

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