In re FB, 92217.

• Decision Date: 06 May 1999
• Docket Number: No. 92217.,92217.
• Citation: 1999 OK CIV APP 96,990 P.2d 309
• Parties: In the Matter of: F.B., P.B., C.B., W.B., B.B., and V.B., deprived juveniles, Esther Bales, Appellant, v. State of Oklahoma, ex rel. Department of Human Services, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma

990 P.2d 309

1999 OK CIV APP 96

In the Matter of: F.B., P.B., C.B., W.B., B.B., and V.B., deprived juveniles,

Esther Bales, Appellant, v. State of Oklahoma, ex rel. Department of Human Services, Appellee.

No. 92217.

Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, Division 1.

May 6, 1999.

Rehearing Denied June 3, 1999.

Certiorari Denied September 30, 1999.

Michael C. Trewitt, Ponca City, Oklahoma, For Appellant,

Elizabeth Carroll Hocker, Assistant District Attorney, Newkirk, Oklahoma, For Appellee.

Released for Publication by Order of the Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, Division No. 1. ADAMS, Judge:

¶ 1 Appellant (Mother) seeks reversal of a trial court order, entered upon a jury verdict, which terminated her parental rights to the six children who are the subject of this action. Mother contends the trial court erred in admitting evidence of a child molestation conviction by a friend of Mother which occurred after the children were removed from her home by the Department of Human Services (DHS) pursuant to a trial court order. Mother also claims the termination order is not supported by sufficient evidence. Although the children were represented by counsel in the trial court and notice of this appeal and copies of the briefs appear to have been mailed to their attorney, no brief on their behalf has been filed in this appeal.

¶ 2 The children were adjudicated deprived based upon a petition which alleged that

[Mother] has failed to protect these children from an alleged child molester. [Mother] has been told on two (2) separate occassions [sic] to not allow her children to be around this man. She has failed to do this by allowing the children to stay in his home several times. The children slept in the same bed with him. She has also allowed him to buy these children school supplies and clothes.

The adjudication order makes no specific findings concerning the basis for the deprived finding. In the disposition order, the trial court adopted a "treatment plan" which included several requirements. The only portions of the "treatment plan" which make any reference to protection of the children from sexual abuse required Mother to "seek individual counseling to address issues of child protection, sexual abuse, the role of the mother in the family, proper supervision of children and any other areas that the counselor deems necessary."

¶ 3 Approximately eighteen months later, the trial court adopted "Amended Termination Guidelines." Those guidelines refer to sexual abuse prevention only by requiring Mother to "attend counseling from a qualified therapist, regarding child sexual abuse with emphasis on learning about the effects and strategies for prevention." Six months later State filed its termination motion alleging only as grounds that Mother had failed to correct the conditions that led to the deprived finding.

¶ 4 During the jury trial, State produced evidence that Mother had not fully complied with various aspects of both court ordered "service plans." Mother herself testified that she had stopped the counseling because she thought it was not productive. In response to a question concerning whether she was aware that her friend, Mr. S., had been convicted of child molestation, Mother replied that she had learned of it on the day of trial, in essence confirming that Mr. S had been convicted. Although Mother's counsel had urged in a pre-trial motion that evidence of the conviction be excluded, no contemporaneous objection was made to this question, and it is not even challenged in this appeal.

¶ 5 Rather, Mother argues in this appeal that the trial court erred in admitting certified copies of the judgment and sentence by which Mr. S was convicted. According to Mother, because the conviction occurred after the children were removed from her custody, the evidence was not relevant to the issue presented, i.e. whether Mother knew Mr. S was a danger to her children when she allowed them to stay with him and be around him. We need not determine whether the trial court erred in admitting this evidence because the same essential information, i.e. Mr. S was a convicted child molester, was revealed to the jury by Mother's earlier testimony. Because other evidence of the same tenor was admitted without objection by Mother, any error in the admission of the judgment and sentence was harmless. Gaskins v. State, 1967 OK 49, 425 P.2d 979...