Opinion
23A-JT-2916
04-26-2024
In re the Involuntary Termination of the Parent-Child Relationship of B.R. (Minor Child) and C.C. (Mother), Appellant-Respondent v. Indiana Department of Child Services, Appellee-Petitioner
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT Brandon E. Murphy Cannon Bruns & Murphy Muncie, Indiana ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Theodore E. Rokita Indiana Attorney General Katherine A. Cornelius Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana
Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this Memorandum Decision is not binding precedent for any court and may be cited only for persuasive value or to establish res judicata, collateral estoppel, or law of the case.
Appeal from the Jay Circuit Court The Honorable Brian D. Hutchison, Judge Trial Court Cause No. 38C01-2309-JT-13
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT
Brandon E. Murphy Cannon Bruns & Murphy Muncie, Indiana
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Theodore E. Rokita Indiana Attorney General
Katherine A. Cornelius Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana
MEMORANDUM DECISION
CRONE, JUDGE
Case Summary
[¶1] C.C. (Mother) appeals the involuntary termination of her parental rights to her minor child, B.R. (Child). We affirm.
Facts and Procedural History
[¶2] In March 2019, Child was born to Mother and N.R. (Father). On March 24, 2022, late in the evening, law enforcement was called to Mother's home. Upon arrival, responders found five-year-old Brother, one of Mother's five children, unresponsive on the bathroom floor. Brother was deceased. The Department of Child Services (DCS) was contacted regarding Mother's four other children: D.C. (male, approximately six months old), Child (male, three years old), M.C. (female, eight years old, hereafter, Sister), and Chl.C. (female, nine years old).
[¶3] The following day, an autopsy revealed that Brother had suffered from severe malnutrition, a healed skull fracture, healed subdural hematomas, sexual battery, numerous contusions on his body, and numerous attempts at asphyxiation causing bruising and cuts around his face and inside his lips. During the three months leading up to his death, Brother lived with Mother. A DCS assessment of Child included a medical exam that revealed signs of possible sexual abuse of Child. In addition, Sister stated that Mother physically abused Child and would withhold food from Child as a form of punishment. DCS filed a petition alleging that Child was a child in need of services (CHINS) due to the parents' inability to care for him, an act or omission that seriously endangered his physical or mental health, and his living in the same household as an adult charged with certain offenses.
[¶4] Not long thereafter, Mother was charged with Brother's murder and with molesting one of Child's siblings. She was incarcerated. Father stipulated that Child was a CHINS. DCS amended its CHINS petition accordingly. Appealed Order at 4. In May 2022, the trial court adjudicated Child to be a CHINS. In a dispositional order, the trial court ordered Mother and Father to participate in various services, with reunification as the original goal. Mother remained incarcerated.
[¶5] Child was placed in foster care, where he spoke of domestic violence, abuse, and neglect. One of his foster parents provided a mixed report. She stated that although Child was settling in well and getting into a routine, he was physically and verbally aggressive with her, with the other children in her home, and even with stuffed toys. In addition to witnessing horrific domestic violence in Mother's home, Child endured separate trauma when he suffered a serious burn in one of the foster placements. Child described Mother as a person who strangled Brother. Unsurprisingly, Child has emotion dysregulation, is quick to anger, cries easily during transitions, and participates in therapy. In March 2023, Child's placement was changed to foster care with the Massey family.
[¶6] In July 2023, after Father had made some progress with court-ordered services and after he had unsupervised parenting time with Child, DCS requested that Father be allowed a trial home visit. On July 20, 2023, a jury convicted Mother of both murdering and neglecting Brother. In light of Mother's conviction, DCS filed a motion asking the trial court to find that no reasonable efforts to reunify Child with Mother would be required.
[¶7] Several significant events occurred in August 2023. At the conclusion of a sentencing hearing, Mother was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Citing Mother's conviction of Brother's murder, the trial court issued an order agreeing that reasonable efforts to reunify Child with Mother would not be required. In a separate order denying DCS's request that Father have home visits, the trial court found that Father lacked a bond with Child, was in Mother's home two days before Brother's death, "should have gotten help for" Brother, did not have a good grasp of whether Child required medical care, and "committed numerous acts of domestic violence against [M]other during their relationship and many of those acts of domestic violence were committed in front of" Child. Ex. Vol. at 111-12. The trial court further found that the family case manager disagreed with the prospect of Father having home visits, that Child's foster mother submitted photos of injuries (similar to Brother's) that Child suffered during unsupervised visits with Father, and that Child often did not wish to attend unsupervised visits with Father. The suspicious injuries stopped when Child's unsupervised visits with Father ceased. The trial court amended Child's permanency plan to include a concurrent plan of adoption. DCS's plan was for Child to be adopted by the Masseys, the foster family with whom he had been placed since March 2023. Father consented to Child's adoption.
[¶8] In September 2023, DCS filed a petition to terminate the parent-child relationship between Child and Mother and Father. A few days after a late November 2023 evidentiary hearing on the matter, the trial court issued its eleven-page order granting DCS's termination petition. Mother appeals.
Father does not participate in this appeal. Appealed Order at 1, 7.
Discussion and Decision
[¶9] Mother challenges the termination order. "The purpose of terminating parental rights is not to punish the parents but, instead, to protect their children. Thus, although parental rights are of a constitutional dimension, the law provides for the termination of these rights when the parents are unable or unwilling to meet their parental responsibilities." In re A.P., 882 N.E.2d 799, 805 (Ind.Ct.App. 2008) (citation omitted). "[T]ermination is intended as a last resort, available only when all other reasonable efforts have failed." Id. A petition for the involuntary termination of parental rights must allege in pertinent part:
(B) that one (1) of the following is true:
(i) There is a reasonable probability that the conditions that resulted in the child's removal or the reasons for placement outside the home of the parents will not be remedied.
(ii) There is a reasonable probability that the continuation of the parent-child relationship poses a threat to the wellbeing of the child.
(iii) The child has, on two (2) separate occasions, been adjudicated a child in need of services; (C) that termination is in the best interests of the child; and (D) that there is a satisfactory plan for the care and treatment of the child.
Ind. Code § 31-35-2-4(b)(2). DCS must prove that termination is appropriate by a showing of clear and convincing evidence. In re V.A., 51 N.E.3d 1140, 1144 (Ind. 2016). If the trial court finds that the allegations in a petition are true, the court shall terminate the parent-child relationship. Ind. Code § 31-35-2-8(a).
[¶10] "We have long had a highly deferential standard of review in cases involving the termination of parental rights." C.A. v. Ind. Dep't of Child Servs., 15 N.E.3d 85, 92 (Ind.Ct.App. 2014).
We neither reweigh evidence nor assess witness credibility. We consider only the evidence and reasonable inferences favorable to the trial court's judgment. Where the trial court enters findings of fact and conclusions thereon, we apply a two-tiered standard of review: we first determine whether the evidence supports the findings and then determine whether the findings support the judgment. In deference to the trial court's unique position to assess the evidence, we will set aside a judgment terminating a parent-child relationship only if it is clearly erroneous.Id. at 92-93 (citations omitted). "A judgment is clearly erroneous if the findings do not support the trial court's conclusions or the conclusions do not support the judgment." In re R.J., 829 N.E.2d 1032, 1035 (Ind.Ct.App. 2005). Unchallenged findings stand as proven. In re De.B., 144 N.E.3d 763, 772 (Ind.Ct.App. 2020).
[¶11] In seeking reversal of the termination of her parental rights, Mother challenges just one of the trial court's conclusions. She asserts that DCS did not meet its burden of proof as to Indiana Code Section 31-35-2-4(b)(2)(D). Specifically, Mother argues that DCS did not show by clear and convincing evidence that there was a satisfactory plan for the care and treatment of Child. Mother describes the evidentiary record as "extraordinarily sparse" regarding DCS's adoption plan. Appellant's Br. at 4, 13. Mother states that there was no mention of an adoption filing having been made, and she points out that the placement had existed for only eight months by the time of the termination hearing. She notes a lack of discussion regarding Child's interactions or bond with his foster family. In sum, she contends that the trial court clearly erred in concluding that adoption was a satisfactory plan for Child, and she urges us to reverse the trial court and "restore the parent-child relationship accordingly." Id. at 15.
Our legislature made significant changes to Indiana Code Section 31-35-2-4 in 2024. DCS filed its termination petition in 2023, under the prior version of the statute. That said, the element challenged by Mother in this case exists in both the old and new versions of the statute.
[¶12] At the outset, we note that the termination statute does not require a trial court to find that DCS's plan is in the child's best interests but instead requires a "satisfactory" plan. In re A.S., 17 N.E.3d 994, 1007 (Ind.Ct.App. 2014), trans. denied.
Indiana courts have traditionally held that for a plan to be "'satisfactory,'" for the purposes of the termination statute, it "'need not be detailed, so long as it offers a general sense of the direction in which the child will be going after the parent-child relationship is terminated.'" Lang v. Starke Cnty. Office of Family and Children, 861 N.E.2d 366, 375 (Ind.Ct.App. 2007), trans. denied. A DCS plan is satisfactory if the plan is to attempt to find suitable parents to adopt the children. Id. In other words, there need not be a guarantee that a suitable adoption will take place, only that DCS will attempt to find a suitable adoptive parent. See id. Accordingly, a plan is not unsatisfactory if DCS has not identified a specific family to adopt the children. Id. Part of the reason for this is that it is within the authority of the adoption court, not the termination court, to determine whether an adoptive placement is appropriate. See In re D.J., 755 N.E.2d 679, 685 (Ind.Ct.App. 2001), trans. denied. In In re D.J., we noted, in response to a mother's concerns about a foster family's adoption of her children following the termination of her rights, that "[I]f the foster family desires to adopt the children, the home will have to be approved as an appropriate and suitable environment for the children." Id.Id. Moreover, we have previously held that a plan is satisfactory, even if the plan is for the children to have separate adoptive homes. A.J. v. Marion Cnty. Off. of Fam. & Child., 881 N.E.2d 706, 719 (Ind.Ct.App. 2008), trans. denied.
[¶13] We disagree with Mother's characterization of the evidence as sparse. At the termination hearing, the trial court heard testimony from the DCS case manager, Mother, and the guardian ad litem, plus admitted documents from Child's CHINS case and Mother's murder trial. Following the hearing, the trial court made the following relevant findings:
13. Since the sibling group had been doing sibling visits, DCS determined it would not be appropriate to move some of the children to Oklahoma and keep some of the siblings here in Indiana.
14. [Child] has also been in therapy with the same therapist for over a year.
15. [Child] is in day care with his younger brother on a daily basis and he regularly meets with his older sisters.
. . . .
20. The DCS plan for [Child] is to be adopted by the family with whom he is currently placed. 21. [Child] is in therapy and is beginning to work through issues related to the death of [Brother].
22. DCS'[s] plan for [Child] is that he be adopted, this plan is satisfactory for [Child's] care and treatment and an adoptive family has been identified.
23. [Child's] GAL is supportive of the plan of termination of parental rights and believes it is in [Child's] best interests to be adopted.
26. [Child] has made great progress since being placed with his foster parents, the Massey family.
27. [Child] sees his siblings on a regular basis and sees his younger brother on a daily basis.
28. The trauma of his life with [M]other, the loss of [Brother] and his life in foster care has been harder on [Child] than on his siblings thus far and his behaviors make it difficult for him to be placed in the same home with them; he seems to do better in a home where his foster parents' attention can be focused on him, at least at the present time.
Appealed Order at 8-9.
[¶14] As the above unchallenged findings demonstrate, DCS's plan went above and beyond offering a general sense of the direction in which Child would go after termination. DCS provided its reasoning for recommending adoption, outlined its efforts to explore appropriate relative adoption options, and explained why the Masseys could be a suitable adoptive family for Child. Contrary to Mother's assertions, an adoption filing need not have been made. DCS did not, and was not required to, guarantee that the Masseys would adopt Child. Moreover, no magic number of months in placement is required. As for Mother's questioning of the bond between the Masseys and Child, Mother's own testimony belies her concern. See Tr. Vol. 2 at 14 ("I appreciate everything [the Masseys] have done for my kid and I do feel like they really love him").
[¶15] Mother also expressed her desire that her remaining four children be adopted together. DCS considered this possibility but concluded that, of the siblings, Child seemed to have been most negatively affected by the various traumas he had endured. Thus, DCS viewed his best hope for healing to be adoption in a home by himself with caregivers who could focus on him yet also permit him to have frequent interactions with his siblings. Those considerations, among others, led DCS to the Masseys. DCS's plan of adoption was more than a satisfactory plan for Child's care and treatment. It was exhaustive, well thought out, and tailored to Child's experience and circumstances. Accordingly, Mother has not demonstrated that the trial court's conclusion that "[t]here is a satisfactory plan for the care and treatment of [Child], that being adoption" is clearly erroneous. Appealed Order at 10. We will not reverse the termination order.
In any event, DCS's identification of a possible adoptive family is not the final word on Child's adoptive home. We reiterate that "it is within the authority of the adoption court, not the termination court, to determine whether an adoptive placement is appropriate." A.S., 17 N.E.3d at 1007.
[¶16] Affirmed.
Bailey, J., and Pyle, J., concur.