Opinion
No. 1 CA-JV 18-0394
04-30-2019
DECHOAL Q., Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF CHILD SAFETY, B.W., L.W., Appellees.
COUNSEL Maricopa County Legal Defender's Office, Phoenix By Jamie R. Heller Counsel for Appellant Arizona Attorney General's Office, Mesa By Laurie Blevins Counsel for Appellees
NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION. UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE. Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
JD33161
The Honorable Sara J. Agne, Judge
AFFIRMED
COUNSEL Maricopa County Legal Defender's Office, Phoenix
By Jamie R. Heller
Counsel for Appellant Arizona Attorney General's Office, Mesa
By Laurie Blevins
Counsel for Appellees
MEMORANDUM DECISION
Presiding Judge David D. Weinzweig delivered the decision of the Court, in which Judge Kent E. Cattani and Judge James P. Beene joined. WEINZWEIG, Judge:
¶1 Dechoal Q. ("Mother") appeals from the juvenile court's order terminating her parental rights to B.W. and L.W. We affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
¶2 Mother and Byron W. ("Father") are the natural parents of twins, B.W. and L.W., born in August 2016.
¶3 Mother has a long history of abusing drugs, including methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana and mushrooms. She started with marijuana at age 12, and her methamphetamine addiction caused her to drop out of high school. At one point, she used methamphetamine every day for five consecutive years. She has suffered from emotional instability and once tried to commit suicide. She is prone to anxiety, anger and rage. She was charged and convicted at age 19 of felony trafficking in stolen property and failed to complete her two-year probation period because of her drug abuse. Despite frequent stints in drug-treatment programs, Mother has never achieved full sobriety.
¶4 The Department of Child Safety ("DCS") became involved with Mother later in 2016 when she tested positive for methamphetamine while pregnant with the twins. After the twins were born, DCS reported that Mother and Father were "neglecting the children due to substance abuse," and identified the drug abuse and Mother's mental state as safety threats that might "result in serious or severe harm to the children." In DCS's view, the children would remain at risk "until [Mother] is mentally stable."
¶5 DCS allowed the children to remain with the parents under an established safety plan, which required the family to remain at a safety monitor's house. The parents violated the plan by leaving the monitor's house without informing their DCS case manager. DCS thus removed the children on October 20, 2016, and the court later adjudicated the children dependent.
¶6 DCS offered a variety of services to the parents after removal, including residential substance-abuse treatment, which began in late October 2016. Mother had initial success but relapsed in March 2017, twice in April and again in May. She checked in and out of drug-treatment programs from June to September without lasting success, including self-referrals to three different facilities.
¶7 DCS reported that while Mother continued to "struggle[] with her sobriety and treatment," Father, who was engaged in his own substance-abuse treatment, had consistently participated in his program and improved. Father expressed "a desire to hold [Mother] accountable for her sobriety" and said he did not want her inability to maintain sobriety to prevent him from reunifying with the children. Accordingly, DCS modified the reunification plan to require that Father understand the impact of substance abuse on parenting and demonstrate he could "protect his children from substance abuse."
¶8 Meanwhile, Mother was diagnosed with severe amphetamine-type substance-use disorder, severe alcohol-use disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depressive disorder and anxiety disorder. She continued succumbing to angry impulses and even became violent with Father. She admitted she had attacked Father, "choked him" and had "torn up the apartment." DCS thus required that Mother attend domestic-violence offender classes.
¶9 DCS reported its concerns that Father was "co-dependent on [Mother]" and questioned his ability to protect the children from Mother. To eliminate that risk, DCS required Father to understand the impact of Mother's mental illness and substance-abuse issues on parenting and for him to demonstrate he would "protect his children from harmful situations where the children are in the presence of someone experiencing a mental health crisis." DCS also required that Father understand the impact of domestic violence on him and his children and demonstrate he could protect them from unsafe individuals with a propensity for domestic violence.
¶10 Father moved out of the home he shared with Mother in July 2017, and a therapist reported Father was gaining a better understanding of co-dependency and taking steps to ensure he would not reengage in similar relationships in the future. Still, the therapist hesitated to graduate Father from the standard outpatient level of care, fearing his history of co-dependency and Mother's lack of sobriety would interfere with the recovery process and Mother would "sabotage his treatment."
¶11 DCS referred Mother to TERROS for substance-abuse treatment in August 2017, but she refused to participate. She told DCS that she was receiving treatment from another organization, but DCS learned she was not. In September 2017, Mother's parent-aide referral closed out unsuccessfully due to her lack of participation. In her final meeting with the parent aide and DCS case manager, Mother grew angry and eventually stormed out, calling the referral "ridiculous."
¶12 Two months later, Mother reported that she experienced PTSD symptoms when she did not take her prescribed medications, including irritability and anger. Despite this, Mother stopped taking her medications in April 2018, and her "behavior [was] observed as increasingly incoherent and unstable." As for domestic-violence issues, Mother participated only intermittently in classes, and her progress was deemed "slow." A parent aide remained concerned about Mother's "parenting skills, safety from harm, abuse, neglect, mental health, and substance abuse."
¶13 Meanwhile, in January 2018, DCS filed its original motion to terminate parental rights on the grounds of six months' and nine months' time in an out-of-home placement. A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(8)(a), (b). In May 2018, DCS filed an amended motion, adding the ground of fifteen months' time in an out-of-home placement. A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(8)(c).
DCS later withdrew the ground of nine months' time in an out-of-home placement. --------
¶14 Just six days before the termination hearing, DCS reported to the court that Mother was not participating in urinalysis testing or substance-abuse treatment, and opined that she was still abusing methamphetamine. Mother claimed she would check herself into a treatment facility and then be moving to Washington, still maintaining she had no any substance-abuse problem.
¶15 The termination hearing ensued on September 12, 2018. Father appeared. Mother did not. Mother's attorney could not explain her absence and acknowledged Mother knew the hearing date. The court thus proceeded in Mother's absence without objection. After the hearing, the court found DCS had proven the six-months and fifteen-months out-of-home placement grounds as to Mother and that termination of Mother's parental rights was in the children's best interests, noting they were "in a familial, potentially adoptive placement with a maternal aunt." The court denied the motion as to Father, however, noting he "had completed the vast amount of services the Department charged him with completing" and it was unable "to determine whether Father had remedied or failed to remedy [the] instability" that caused the out-of-home placement.
¶16 Mother timely appealed. We have jurisdiction pursuant to A.R.S. §§ 8-235(A), 12-2101(A)(1), and Arizona Rule of Procedure for the Juvenile Court 103(A).
DISCUSSION
¶17 To terminate parental rights, a court must find clear and convincing evidence of at least one statutory ground in A.R.S. § 8-533(B) and that termination is in the child's best interests by a preponderance of the evidence. Jeffrey P. v. Dep't of Child Safety, 239 Ariz. 212, 213, ¶ 5 (App. 2016). Mother does not contest the statutory grounds for severance. She challenges only the court's best-interests finding. We will affirm a severance order unless it is clearly erroneous, and we accept the court's factual findings unless no reasonable evidence supports them. Jesus M. v. Ariz. Dep't of Econ. Sec., 203 Ariz. 278, 280, ¶ 4 (App. 2002).
¶18 But termination is in a child's best interests if the child "would derive an affirmative benefit from termination or incur a detriment by continuing in the relationship," Ariz. Dep't of Econ. Sec. v. Oscar O., 209 Ariz. 332, 334, ¶ 6 (App. 2004), and the superior court separately terminated Mother's parental rights based on its finding that the children would "incur a detriment."
¶19 Reasonable evidence supports the court's finding. Mother does not dispute that she substantially neglected or willfully refused to remedy her methamphetamine addiction, that her substance abuse was "intractable" or that she is incapable of providing proper and effective parental care in the near future. See Britz v. Kinsvater, 87 Ariz. 385, 388 (1960) (appellate court may assume accuracy of findings is conceded when not challenged on appeal). And the record independently demonstrates Mother's drug abuse and mental state posed safety risks that "could result in serious or severe harm to the children." Mother's mental health had worsened by the time of the hearing. She stopped taking her prescribed medications and her "behavior [was] observed as increasingly incoherent and unstable." The case manager noted Mother had begun to deteriorate and displayed increased levels of "irritability and paranoia with the Department, placement and her service providers."
¶20 Mother argues the court erred by finding that termination was in the children's best interest because Father's parental rights remained intact and the children were therefore not likely to be adopted. See Titus S. v. Dep't of Child Safety, 244 Ariz. 365, 371, ¶ 22 (App. 2018) ("[W]hile courts have often referred to a child's 'adoptability' or her 'adoptive placement' in determining best interests, we conclude those findings, to be meaningful, must reflect a finding that adoption is not only possible, but likely.").
CONCLUSION
¶21 We affirm.