IN RE KRISTY

• Decision Date: 08 June 2004
• Docket Number: (AC 24000).
• Citation: 848 A.2d 1276,83 Conn. App. 298
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: IN RE KRISTY A. ET AL.

83 Conn. App. 298

848 A.2d 1276

IN RE KRISTY A. ET AL.¹

(AC 24000).

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued February 26, 2004.

Officially released June 8, 2004.

Dranginis, DiPentima and Stoughton, Js.

Paul Chill, with whom were Alain Lapter and Brynn Rail, certified legal interns, and, on the brief, Kelly Flahive, Monique Rubb, Jennifer Milici, Mark Whitford and Kate Cochrane, certified legal interns, for the appellant (respondent mother).

Stephen G. Vitelli, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, and Susan T. Pearlman, assistant attorney general, for the appellee (petitioner).

David T. Stone, for the minor children.

Opinion

DRANGINIS, J.

The respondent mother appeals from the judgments of the trial court terminating her parental rights in two of her children.² On appeal, she claims that it was improper for the court to conclude (1) that she had failed to achieve personal rehabilitation and (2) that she had no ongoing parent-child relationship with the children. See General Statutes § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) and (D). We affirm the judgments of the trial court.

On November 16 and 26, 2001, the petitioner, the commissioner of the department of children and families, filed petitions to terminate the respondent's parental rights in her daughter, who was born in April, 1996, and in her son, who was born in April, 1999.³ At trial, the respondent and the children were represented by counsel.⁴ The court wrote a lengthy, comprehensive and detailed memorandum of decision, finding the following facts that are relevant to our review of the respondent's claims.⁵

In August, 1998, when she was thirty-seven years old, the respondent was arrested following an episode of domestic violence involving the children's father. Pursuant to her arrest, the respondent was ordered to undergo an evaluation at an addictive services facility. The evaluation revealed that the respondent had been abusing alcohol since she was seventeen years old and that she had participated in a number of programs for alcohol abuse. She also had abused marijuana and cocaine. According to the respondent, she had been arrested on charges of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of liquor on four occasions. She claimed, however, that she had been sober from May, 1992, until January, 1998. The evaluator recommended that the respondent participate in a twelve week program to address her substance abuse. The programmer determined, however, that the respondent lacked the motivation necessary to put sobriety first in her life. The respondent also was advised to seek individual counseling to address issues related to domestic violence and relationship dependency. The court found no evidence that the respondent had participated in counseling for any period of time.

In November, 1998, the respondent, a Massachusetts native, was sentenced to two years incarceration by a Massachusetts court for what was her tenth conviction in the commonwealth for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of liquor. Since August 25, 1981, the respondent had been arrested thirteen times for that offense in Massachusetts and confined on six separate occasions.⁶ In April, 1999, while the respondent was serving her November, 1998 sentence, she gave birth to her son. The respondent was given the opportunity to live with the infant at the correctional facility as long as she attended a substance abuse program. She failed the program soon after she entered it and, as a consequence, her son was placed in foster care when he was a few days old.

While the respondent was serving her sentence, the respondent's husband cared for their daughter. The department of children and families (department) obtained an order of temporary custody for the daughter in April, 1999, because the father was selling illegal substances in the child's presence, failing to place her in a child safety seat when operating his motor vehicle and leaving the child in the care of an alleged cocaine abuser. The daughter, who was almost three years old, was placed in S's foster home, where her brother had been since he was five days old.

In January, 2000, the children were returned to the respondent in Massachusetts where she was living under the terms of her probation. Four days after the children were returned, the respondent was overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for them and asked S, the foster mother, to take them for a few days. Because she was concerned for the children's safety, S drove from Connecticut to Massachusetts to get the children. Between February and July, 2000, the children spent two to three days a week with S, usually during the weekends. The children lived with S for twenty-three days during the month of August, 2000, and had little or no contact with the respondent. While the children were living in the foster home, S's daughter, M, visited them every day and developed a close relationship with them. The respondent later admitted that in August, 2000, she had been using crack cocaine while the children were with S. During this period of time, the respondent was receiving public assistance from the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

On September 3, 2000, the respondent agreed with her husband to commit a robbery. She entered a variety store in Connecticut with a knife and cut and robbed the seventy year old proprietor. She later admitted to having been high on cocaine at the time. She was arrested on a charge of robbery in the first degree and confined under a high bail. As a result, she again asked S to care for the children. The children remained with S until May, 2001, when, pursuant to court order and their parents' consent, they moved to Virginia to live with relatives. The placement in the relatives' home failed after three weeks through no fault of the children. The children returned to Connecticut and have resided with M since that time.⁷

In February, 2001, the respondent was released from pretrial confinement on the robbery charge so that she could participate in an intensive, alternate incarceration center program. She was under the supervision of the office of adult probation and was required to report to the program five days a week, submit to urine testing for drug use, participate in counseling at New Perceptions, an outpatient substance abuse counseling program, and to pursue employment. She also had to wear an electronic monitor. According to the managers of each of the programs, the respondent complied with all of the programs' requirements, and her urine samples tested negative. They noted, however, that the respondent's motivation to do well was the court's mandate. In fact, she minimized her history of drug and alcohol addiction.

According to the director of New Perspectives, the respondent's primary desire was to regain her former lifestyle and to recover the material things that she had lost, such as her home and horses. The respondent intended to seek custody of the children only after she had regained her former lifestyle. The respondent also participated in a women's support group, but her attendance became sporadic as the time for sentencing neared. According to the adult probation officer who monitored her pretrial release, the respondent's program was one of the most structured programs the officer had ever encountered.

With respect to the charge of robbery in the first degree, the respondent negotiated a plea agreement and was sentenced on October 12, 2001, to five years incarceration, suspended after three years, and five years of probation. The respondent was incarcerated at the time of the trial on the termination petitions.

The court found that the children had been adjudicated neglected, had been committed to the custody of the petitioner on April 4, 2001, and that in March, 2002, the commitment had been continued until further order of the court. The petitioner filed petitions to terminate the respondent's parental rights in the children in November, 2001. The trial was held on several days in September and October, 2002. Until the end of the presentation of evidence, the children were in the petitioner's custody, but had visited with the respondent at a correctional facility. After closing arguments at trial, the court ordered that the respondent's monthly visits with the children cease, but that the department facilitate telephone communication between the respondent and the children twice a month.⁸

The court also found by clear and convincing evidence that since the children had been adjudicated neglected, the respondent had failed to achieve such degree of personal rehabilitation as would encourage a belief that within a reasonable time, given the ages and needs for stability and permanency of both children, she could assume a responsible position in their lives. The court also found that the petitioner had proven by clear and convincing evidence that no ongoing parent-child relationship within the meaning of § 17a-112 (j) (3) (D) existed between the two children and the respondent. Further, the court concluded that to allow additional time for the establishment or reestablishment of a positive parent-child relationship would not be in the best interest of either child.

During the dispositional phase of the procedure, the court considered the statutory factors provided in § 17a-112 (k) and concluded that it was in the best interests of the children to terminate the respondent's parental rights. Additional facts will be included where we address the respondent's claims on appeal.

"Our standard of review on appeal from a termination of parental rights is whether the challenged findings are clearly erroneous. . . . The determinations reached by the trial court that the evidence is clear and convincing will be disturbed only if [any challenged] finding is not supported by the evidence and [is], in light of the evidence in the whole record, clearly erroneous." (Internal...