Justia Juvenile Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Supreme Court of Texas
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This case arises from a parental rights termination appeal in Texas. The father had been the primary caregiver for his three children, including one-year-old twins and a three-year-old daughter. However, the father tested positive for methamphetamine and the children were removed by the Department of Family and Protective Services due to the father's drug use and homelessness. Although the father initially complied with a service plan, which included drug testing and treatment, he eventually refused further treatment and missed subsequent drug tests. The trial court terminated the father's parental rights, but the court of appeals reversed the decision, arguing that the Department had failed to prove harm to the children as a direct result of their father's drug use.The Supreme Court of Texas disagreed with the court of appeals' interpretation of "endanger" in the context of illegal drug use. It held that a parent's endangering conduct does not need to be directed at the child or result in actual injury to the child. Instead, endangerment encompasses a larger array of conduct that exposes a child to loss or injury, or jeopardizes the child's physical or emotional well-being. The court argued that the father's pattern of drug use, coupled with his homelessness, employment instability, and almost complete abandonment of his children for the six months preceding the trial, posed a substantial risk to the children's emotional well-being. Therefore, legally sufficient evidence supported the trial court's determination that the father's conduct endangered the children. The case was remanded to the court of appeals for a best-interest determination. View "In re R.R.A." on Justia Law

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The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals reversing the decision of the trial court denying R.R.S.'s motion to withdraw his plea of "true" to allegations that he sexually assaulted his younger brother when he was thirteen years old, holding that a child's legal inability to consent to sex does not render the child legally incapable of committing aggravated sexual assault.Based on R.R.S.'s admissions and plea, the trial court found him delinquent. Before the disposition hearing, R.R.S. unsuccessfully filed a motion to withdraw his plea and requested a new trial. The court of appeals reversed the denial of the motion, ruling that because R.R.S. was not adequately informed when he entered his plea about his potential defense that he could not have committed aggravated sexual assault because he could not legally "consent to sex" the trial court erred in denying the motion. The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals' decision and reinstated the trial court's judgment, holding that the court of appeals erred in holding that R.R.S.'s lack of knowledge of his inability to consent to sex required the trial court to grant his motion to withdraw his plea and for a new trial. View "State v. R.R.S." on Justia Law