Court Opinion

ID: 9666852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:28:53.139033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:33.004844
License: Public Domain

*63AMUNDSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
The record contains a plethora of evidence which shows Mother and Father lack the ability to properly parent A.R.P. DSS set up video equipment to assess Mother and Father’s parenting during an unsupervised visit with A.R.P. at their residence. The DSS worker testified that this video showed good points and bad points regarding parenting ability.
The parents offered this video as an exhibit during the dispositional hearing. Neither the State nor counsel for the child objected to its admission. The trial court rejected the offer of the video for the following reasons:
[T]he ruling to disallow [the video] in evidence is because if we’re going to start showing two hours in the life of the last 25 months, then the better evidence would be six hours or eight hours or, of course, with technology 25 months, and, of course, by the time we watched that then we’d have another 25 months out of the way and it’s too much chance for acting and it’s an inefficient way to present evidence and I don’t find that its probative value is sufficient to make it competent evidence.
Counsel for Appellants: Can I bring it as an offer of proof?
The Court: Well, I’m not going to play it and watch it and then determine whether to let it in or not.
The State then withdrew its consent to the exhibit’s admission and jumped on the court’s bandwagon.
These parents are confronted with termination of their parental rights. This is a very serious decision which will affect them for the remainder of their fives. In an effort to terminate these parents’ rights, DSS presented evidence which covered Mother and Father’s entire fife, starting from birth. The picture portrayed by the State regarding Mother and Father’s parenting ability is bleak to say the least. On the other hand, parents should not be denied the opportunity to present whatever positive evidence they possess when defending against termination of their parental rights.
As pointed out by the majority, “the probative value of the video tape is negligible.” That may be an accurate statement, but it certainly reflects that there is some probative value. Therefore, the exhibit should have been received into evidence. This is another case where the weight of the offered evidence is negligible but no justification existed for not admitting it. State v. Likness, 386 N.W.2d 42 (S.D.1986). Although the trial court erred in excluding this piece of evidence, this exclusion does not amount to prejudicial error. As previously stated, the State had such an abundance of evidence to justify the termination of parental rights that this modicum of good points would not have produced a different result. Larson v. Lock-en, 262 N.W.2d 752 (S.D.1978).