Justia Juvenile Law Opinion Summaries

After determining that Father’s delusions and paranoia put A.G.(age 14) at risk of serious harm, the juvenile court assumed jurisdiction, ordered that A.G. be removed from Father’s custody, and ordered reunification services and a psychological evaluation. At the six-month hearing, the Agency reported that Father had received his case plan several months earlier but had not signed the plan nor engaged in recommended services. Father also resisted psychological evaluation. At the 12-month hearing, the Agency reported that Father had made moderate progress. The court granted an extension, finding that the Agency had provided reasonable services. At the 18-month hearing, the Agency reported that returning A.G. to Father’s custody still presented a substantial risk of detriment to her well-being and recommended a permanency planning hearing. The court found that the Agency had not provided reasonable services between the 12- and 18-month hearings but declined to exercise its discretion to continue the case, noting Father’s uneven progress.The California Supreme Court affirmed. Reasonable reunification services must be offered to qualifying parents for a minimum of six or 12 months, depending on the child’s age, and generally may be extended for up to 18 months. The court was not automatically required to grant a further extension based on its finding that reasonable services were not provided during the 12- to 18-month extension. Once a child has been out of the parent’s custody for 18 months, the law ordinarily requires the court to proceed to set a hearing to determine a permanent plan. View "Michael G. v. Superior Court of Orange County" on Justia Law

Almost 15 months elapsed from the time the juvenile court found Petitioner K.R. incompetent to stand trial and referred him for remediation until the court determined that he had been restored to competency and reinstated the proceedings. K.R. remained in juvenile hall for that entire period. He filed a writ petition arguing that the court lost jurisdiction when it failed to make a final ruling on his competency by the one-year deadline for remediation services and was required to dismiss the case at that point. In the alternative, he argues the court erred by allowing the prosecution to employ its own expert to examine him and asks us to order the juvenile court to strike the expert’s testimony.   The Second Appellate District disagreed and denied the petition. The court held that although section 709 establishes a maximum period of one year of remediation, the juvenile court’s jurisdiction continues for a reasonable period afterward for the court to resolve any dispute still existing at the end of that period over whether the minor has attained competency. Even if this was not the case, section 709 permits a court to keep juveniles accused of certain serious offenses (including several with which K.R. was charged) in secure confinement past the one-year remediation period for conclusion of competency proceedings. The court also found that section 709 does not preclude the parties from seeking the appointment of their own expert(s) after the initial competency hearing. View "K.R. v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law

Father M.M. and mother J.M. pled no contest to a dependency petition regarding their minor children, J. and M. (along with their now-adult sibling Mi.), based on the parents engaging in repeated conflicts in the children’s presence. The juvenile court found jurisdiction over the children pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 3001 and removed them from both parents’ custody, finding that the ongoing conflict caused a substantial risk of harm to the children, including serious mental health issues for J. The court returned the children to mother and father in October 2020 but maintained jurisdiction. In May 2021, the court terminated jurisdiction at a section 364 status review hearing with an exit order granting shared legal custody of J. and M. to mother and father, but sole physical custody to mother. Father appeals from that exit order, arguing that the court erred in terminating jurisdiction and applied the wrong standard to remove the children from his custody.   The Second Appellate District affirmed. The court found no abuse of discretion in the court’s conclusion that awarding sole physical custody to mother was in the children’s best interest, as recommended by DCFS and requested by mother and the children, and where J. stated she was not comfortable visiting or living with father at all. The court’s order was further supported by the evidence that father had failed to comply with on-demand drug testing, failed to meet with the CSW for assessment for months, blamed mother for his relationship issues with J., blamed DCFS and mother for his lack of conjoint counseling, and was frequently absent. View "In re J.M." on Justia Law

In these dependency proceedings, T.M. (Father) appealed from a juvenile court exit order awarding sole physical custody of minors N.M. and S.M. to E.S. (Mother), contending no substantial evidence supported the order.   The Second Appellate District agreed and therefore reversed the order insofar as it grants sole physical custody to Mother. The court explained that here, the juvenile court made no express finding that granting sole physical custody to Mother would be in the children’s best interests. Instead, the court stated, “It’s not appropriate to reward a parent who does nothing in this court, so I’m not going to make it joint legal.” The court thus granted Mother sole custody to avoid rewarding Father, who had refused to participate meaningfully in the case plan. This was an abuse of discretion because an exit order must serve the best interests of the children, not reward or punish one parent or another for failing to comply with the case plan.   The court explained that while it does not condone ignoring the court’s orders, there has been no express finding that these factors impacted the children’s interests, and no grounds appear for an implied finding. Father has never been deemed an offending parent, and no evidence suggested that his drug use, lack of a parenting class, or visitation practices impacted the children in any way. View "In re N.M." on Justia Law

The Bureau filed a dependency petition with respect to L.B., Welfare and Institutions Code 300, due to Mother’s failure to protect L.B. from ongoing domestic violence between Mother and her long-term partner, T.Y., and her inability to provide support for L.B. due to her hospitalization for leukemia and consumption of high doses of pain medication. Mother had a history of arrests and had attempted suicide. Despite many reports to the contrary, Mother denied domestic violence, claimed she had no mental health issues, and denied using nonprescribed drugs. L.B.’s school attendance had been poor. L.B. was detained with Father.At the dispositional hearing, Mother testified about her intervening arrest for assault with a deadly weapon and denied telling a social worker that L.B. had seen domestic violence between her and T.Y. The juvenile court found Mother unable to protect the child from ongoing domestic violence and that Mother presented an ongoing risk to L.B. given her domestic violence history, her propensity to engage in violent acts, and her failure to take any preventative steps to allay the court’s concerns. The court granted sole physical custody of L.B. to Father, joint legal custody to both parents, and supervised visitation for Mother. The court of appeal affirmed. There was substantial evidence that L.B. would otherwise be at substantial risk of serious harm. View "In re L.B." on Justia Law

Mother S.G. appealed after the juvenile court terminated her parental rights to her son. She raised two challenges. First, she faults the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) for failing to exercise due diligence in locating her son’s father (Father). Mother argued this failure to locate Father, which included ignoring information she provided on how to locate him, invalidated the notice the court deemed proper for Father. Second, she contends DCFS did not comply with its initial duty of inquiry under Welfare and Institutions Code section 224.2,1 subdivision (b) when it failed to ask maternal and paternal extended family members about Indian ancestry within the meaning of Section 1903 of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).   The Second Appellate District conditionally reversed the juvenile court’s order terminating parental rights and directed the juvenile court to order DCFS to complete its duty of due diligence to discover the whereabouts of Father and complete its initial inquiry of available maternal and paternal relatives into familial Indian ancestry. The court explained that this dependency proceeding lasted over two years. In that time, DCFS made two attempts to locate Father, and it did so using database search resources only. It made no attempt to inquire about Indian ancestry after obtaining Mother’s denial of such ancestry. The court found that DCFS did not exercise reasonable due diligence in its attempts to locate Father. The court also found that  DCFS erred in determining that ICWA did not apply without inquiring about available family members for whom it had contact information. View "In re Jayden G." on Justia Law

K.V. (Mother) and David V. (Father) appealed the juvenile court’s order terminating their parental rights to daughter M.V. They contend the court erred when it declined to order a supplemental bonding study and did not conduct a proper analysis of the beneficial parent-child relationship exception.   The Second Appellate District reversed the order terminating parental rights and remanded the matter to juvenile court. The court explained that by failing to determine whether M.V. had a substantial, positive attachment to her parents, and by relying on improper factors in assessing detriment, the juvenile court failed to perform the appropriate analysis when determining if the beneficial parental relationship exception applied. View "In re M.V. CA2/" on Justia Law

Appellant V.R. is the mother of now 11-year-old N.R. Mother appealed the juvenile court’s order terminating her parental rights as to N.R. Mother argued that the order is unsupported by clear and convincing evidence of parental unfitness or child detriment. Specifically, she argued that termination cannot be predicated on earlier, unchallenged findings of parental unfitness or child detriment as to N.R. because, after N.R. and her younger half-sister R.L. were removed from mother’s custody, the juvenile court returned R.L. to mother. According to mother, R.L.’s return to mother “rebutted” the earlier findings as a matter of law. If these earlier findings are disregarded, mother continues, no substantial evidence otherwise supports termination of her parental rights as to N.R.   The Second Appellate District affirmed the juvenile court’s order. The court explained that the record reflects manifest differences between N.R.’s and R.L.’s needs and mother’s ability to parent each child. Throughout the proceedings, the juvenile court carefully considered this evidence and the respective risks the children faced in mother’s care. The court, therefore, rejected mother’s argument that R.L.’s return to mother rebutted or otherwise limited the vitality of prior findings of mother’s unfitness to parent N.R. or the detriment to N.R. of remaining in, or being returned to, mother’s custody. Notwithstanding its order returning R.L. to mother’s custody, due process permitted the juvenile court to rely on such findings at the section 366.26 hearing. View "In re N.R." on Justia Law

The Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services filed a petition alleging that the minor had been sexually abused by her father. Mother was not named as an offending parent in the petition. The juvenile court found that the Department failed to prove the sexual abuse allegations against the father but did not dismiss the petition. Instead, the court found that the evidence supported jurisdiction based upon unpleaded allegations of emotional abuse by the mother, a position urged by the minor’s counsel but opposed by the Department. The court subsequently entered a disposition order.The court of appeal reversed. The juvenile court violated the mother’s due process rights when it established jurisdiction based on the conduct of a parent the Department never alleged was an offending parent, and on a factual and legal theory not raised in the Department’s petition. Parents have a due process right to be informed of the nature of the proceedings and the allegations upon which the deprivation of custody is predicated so that they can make an informed decision on whether to appear, prepare, and contest the allegations. View "In re S.V." on Justia Law

In September 2019, the Department filed a dependency petition after taking six-year-old A.H. and her younger half-siblings into emergency protective custody and placing them in foster care. The petition alleged that the children’s mother had allowed A.H. to have unsupervised contact with an older relative suspected of having sexually molested the child. A.H.’s alleged father, J.H., had failed to provide care, support, or supervision for more than a year and it was indicated that his whereabouts were unknown, although the Department did have an address.The court of appeal reversed an order terminating J.H.'s parental rights. From the outset of the dependency proceedings through the jurisdiction and dispositional hearing, the Department’s efforts to locate J.H. and provide him notice requirements fell far short of the statutory requirements and left him in the dark about his parental status, how to assert his parental rights and how to participate in the proceedings. While its efforts may have improved later in the case, the Department never rectified its earlier failures by advising J.H. of his right to request counsel and his need to elevate his status to "presumed parent" to assert his parental rights. The Department violated his right to due process. View "In re A.H." on Justia Law