Clark v. Wyo. Dep't of Family Servs. (In re Termination of Parental Rights to GGMC)

• Decision Date: 15 April 2020
• Docket Number: S-19-0181
• Citation: 2020 WY 50
• Parties: IN THE MATTER OF THE TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS TO: GGMC and CSC, minor children, JEREMY MICHAEL CLARK, Appellant (Respondent), v. STATE OF WYOMING, DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY SERVICES, Appellee (Petitioner).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

2020 WY 50

IN THE MATTER OF THE TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS TO:

GGMC and CSC, minor children,JEREMY MICHAEL CLARK, Appellant (Respondent), v. STATE OF WYOMING, DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY SERVICES, Appellee (Petitioner).

S-19-0181

SUPREME COURT, STATE OF WYOMING

APRIL TERM, A.D. 2020

April 15, 2020

Appeal from the District Court of Laramie County

The Honorable Steven K. Sharpe, Judge

Representing Appellant:

Timothy C. Kingston, Law Office of Tim Kingston, LLC, Foley, Alabama. Argument by Mr. Kingston.

Representing Appellee:

Bridget L. Hill, Attorney General; Misha Westby, Deputy Attorney General; Jill E. Kucera, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Allison E. Connell, Assistant Attorney General. Argument by Ms. Connell.

Guardians ad Litem:

Dan S. Wilde, Deputy State Public Defender, Joseph R. Belcher, Chief Trial and Appellate Counsel, and Hope M. Mead, Guardian ad Litem, Wyoming Guardian ad Litem Program.

Before DAVIS, C.J., and FOX, KAUTZ, BOOMGAARDEN, and GRAY, JJ.

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in Pacific Reporter Third. Readers are requested to notify the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Building, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82002, of any typographical or other formal errors so that correction may be made before final publication in the permanent volume.

FOX, Justice.

[¶1] A jury concluded that clear and convincing evidence supported termination of Mr. Clark's parental rights to two of his children, C.C. and G.C. Finding it in the children's best interests, the district court entered an order terminating his rights. Mr. Clark appeals, arguing that the district court erred in admitting evidence relating to C.C. and G.C.'s mother and half siblings and, without that evidence, that there was insufficient evidence to terminate his parental rights under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 14-2-309 (LexisNexis 2019). We affirm.

ISSUES

[¶2] We reframe the issues:

1. Was evidence concerning C.C. and G.C.'s half siblings admissible?

2. Was the evidence sufficient for the jury to conclude that Mr. Clark's parental rights could be terminated under Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 14-2-309(a)(iii) or (a)(v)?

FACTS

[¶3] Jeremy Clark and Kristen Saenz have three children together. Two of their children, C.C. and G.C., are the subjects of this action. On February 11, 2016, Officer Bonnee Bristow took days-old C.C. into protective custody because she tested positive for methamphetamine shortly after her birth. Her test results indicated that Ms. Saenz had been using methamphetamine while pregnant.

[¶4] Later that day, Officer Bristow performed a welfare check on Ms. Saenz's other children. She determined that three of Ms. Saenz's children from a previous relationship (the D.M. children) were staying with their father and stepmother. She located G.C. and Mr. Clark at the home Mr. Clark shared with Ms. Saenz. She noticed that G.C. "had a lot of hair" that "was down below his ears."

[¶5] About a week later, hair follicle samples were collected from the D.M. children, who had been living with Ms. Saenz and Mr. Clark shortly before going to visit their father. It was not possible to collect a sample from G.C. because someone had shaved his head. After the D.M. children's results came back positive for methamphetamine, Officer Bristow took them and G.C. into protective custody. Mr. Clark claimed he had not known that Ms. Saenz was using drugs.

[¶6] After the D.M. children, C.C., and G.C. were taken into protective custody, the Department of Family Services (the Department) developed a case plan to rehabilitate and reunify the Clark-Saenz family, including all five children. Mr. Clark participated in developing the case plan, his case worker went through it with him "word by word" to make sure he understood it, and Mr. Clark signed it. The plan required Mr. Clark to "be a sober caregiver, to address mental health concerns, be financially stable, abide by the law, to ensure that the children had their medical [and] daily needs met," and to attend "parenting education." It identified steps for Mr. Clark to take in order to meet these goals, including: weekly random drug testing; providing the Department with documentation that the children were current on medical checkups and immunizations; completion of substance abuse and mental health evaluations and compliance with recommendations made in those evaluations; completion of an anger management program; completion of a parenting education program; development of a financial stability plan; and demonstration of appropriate parenting skills during visitation with the children. The Department arranged supervised visits for Mr. Clark and transported C.C., G.C., and the D.M. children to the visits as needed; referred Mr. Clark to a drug testing center and paid for his drug tests; made referrals to Peak Wellness for parenting classes and mental health and substance abuse evaluations; and conducted multidisciplinary team meetings to discuss Mr. Clark and the children's progress under the case plan.

[¶7] Initially, Mr. Clark was "fairly consistent" in complying with the plan. He attended supervised visits with the children, submitted to two drug tests with negative results, and completed substance abuse and mental health evaluations. However, in November 2016 the Department informed Mr. Clark that he would have to provide negative drug tests before every supervised visit because there were "concerns that maybe he was attending the visits while under the influence of something." Shortly afterwards, Mr. Clark stopped attending supervised visits and fell out of contact with the Department. He stopped attending drug tests, and he failed to complete any of the treatment recommended in his substance abuse and mental health evaluations. The Department continued to make visitation and drug testing available and attempted to notify Mr. Clark about scheduled multidisciplinary team meetings and court hearings. Mr. Clark did not attend any of these.

[¶8] The juvenile court held a permanency hearing in April 2017, and the Department recommended that the permanency plan be changed to adoption, "[g]iven the children's age, their need for permanency, and the lack of progress on the case plan to resolve the initial safety concerns." The court took the Department's recommendation under advisement, and the Department continued attempting to contact Mr. Clark and to make services available to him. In July 2017, the juvenile court relieved the Department of further reunification efforts with Mr. Clark.

[¶9] In November 2017, Mr. Clark contacted the Department and asked "what he needed to do in order to get the children back." The Department informed him that it hadbeen relieved of reunification efforts, so it could no longer pay for drug testing, but that it "was happy to help him find services and take documentation of anything he wanted to provide[.]" In 2018, Mr. Clark completed a parenting education course and provided the Department documentation of several negative drug test results.

[¶10] In June 2018, the Department filed a petition for termination of Mr. Clark's parental rights in district court. Before trial, Mr. Clark filed a motion in limine that sought to exclude cumulative and irrelevant evidence. Specifically, Mr. Clark sought to exclude evidence concerning a prior juvenile court action involving the D.M. children and Ms. Saenz, and other evidence related to Ms. Saenz's substance abuse and her neglect of the D.M. children. Mr. Clark asserted that this evidence was cumulative and irrelevant because Ms. Saenz was not a party to the termination proceeding and because he was not a biological parent to the D.M. children. The district court reserved ruling on the challenged evidence, stating that those matters would have to be addressed as they arose at trial.

[¶11] At trial, the State presented evidence of the previous juvenile court action involving Ms. Saenz and the D.M. children. Although that matter did not concern C.C. or G.C. and Mr. Clark was not a party, he was involved because of his relationship with Ms. Saenz and the D.M. children. Jennifer Dockter, a former Department social services worker, testified that she met Mr. Clark while working the D.M. children's case because he had been living with Ms. Saenz and the D.M. children. Mr. Clark was present during most home visits, and was there at the time of an incident in which one of the toddler-age children was found "unsupervised, walking around the neighborhood, and had been missing for . . . over an hour." Ms. Dockter testified that there had been four or five other incidents involving "supervision issues" during that time that resulted in law enforcement contacts and police reports. She also testified that the Department investigated allegations that Mr. Clark had spanked one of the D.M. children, leaving marks. The Department recommended that Mr. Clark get a substance abuse evaluation because it had received reports about him being arrested with drug paraphernalia and was concerned about him "continually being around [Ms. Saenz]" and her children. In October 2013, the juvenile court ordered that the D.M. children have no contact with Mr. Clark. Eventually, however, Ms. Saenz regained custody of the D.M. children, and their contact with Mr. Clark resumed.

[¶12] Tasha Marshall, the kindergarten teacher to two of the D.M. children during the 2015 to 2016 school year, also testified. Mr. Clark lived with Ms. Saenz and the D.M. children during that period. Ms. Marshall testified that the D.M. children "were frequently late to school," "would come without being fed breakfast," and were often sleepy to the degree that the "littlest boy would fall asleep in class." She testified that the D.M. children had various "behavior issues," that they were "wearing the same clothes sometimes," and that she could "tell that they weren't clean." She noticed that thechildren began to improve when they were removed from Ms. Saenz and Mr. Clark's home after C.C. was born.

[¶13] The...