In re R.C.P., No. M2003-01143-COA-R3-PT (TN 7/13/2004)
| Decision Date | 13 July 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. M2003-01143-COA-R3-PT.,M2003-01143-COA-R3-PT. |
| Parties | In re: R.C.P. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Appeal from the Juvenile Court for Coffee County, No. 313-02J, Timothy R. Brock, Judge.
Judgment of the Juvenile Court Affirmed.
Christina B. Jackson, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for the appellant, M.A.F.
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter, and Douglas Earl Dimond, Assistant Attorney General, for the appellee, Tennessee Department of Children's Services.
William C. Koch, Jr., P.J., M.S., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Patricia J. Cottrell, J., Joined. William B. Cain, J., filed a separate concurring opinion.
This appeal involves the termination of a mother's parental rights with regard to her ten-year-old daughter. The Department of Children's Services obtained custody of the child after discovering that she had been sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend. Approximately three months later, the Department and the child's guardian ad litem filed separate petitions in the Juvenile Court for Coffee County to terminate the mother's parental rights based on abandonment under Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-1-113(g)(1) (Supp. 2003) and severe child abuse under Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-1-113(g)(4). Following a bench trial, the juvenile court determined that the Department and guardian ad litem had failed to present clear and convincing evidence of abandonment but concluded that the mother had committed severe child abuse by knowingly failing to protect her daughter from her boyfriend. The mother has perfected this appeal. We have determined that the record contains clear and convincing evidence supporting the juvenile court's conclusion that the mother knowingly failed to protect her child from her boyfriend's sexual abuse and that terminating the mother's parental rights is in the child's best interests.
M.A.F. gave birth to her daughter, R.C.P., on December 26, 1993. She was barely eighteen years old and was married to L.B.P. M.A.F.'s relationship with L.B.P., which was apparently abusive, ended in 1999 when L.B.P. died. M.A.F. and her daughter moved to McMinnville to live with M.A.F.'s parents. She obtained a two-year college degree and found a job as a laboratory technician at an area hospital.
Sometime in 1999, M.A.F. renewed her acquaintance with B.J. whom she had met casually several years earlier through a mutual friend. B.J. operated an automobile repair garage and hunting supply store in Manchester. In April 2000, after dating B.J. for approximately one year, M.A.F. and R.C.P. moved into his residence which was part of his garage and hunting supply store. This decision soon proved to be a hellish mistake. Both M.A.F. and R.C.P. paid the price for the next two years.
Within weeks after M.A.F. and R.C.P. moved in with B.J., he proved himself to be a violent, physical abuser and sexual predator. It also became apparent that he was a binge drinker and that he was becoming increasingly addicted to methamphetamine. He severely beat M.A.F. on a regular basis. On these occasions, M.A.F. would tell R.C.P. to leave the room, but B.J. forced the little girl to remain in the room to watch him beat her mother.
B.J. never physically abused R.C.P., but he did far worse while M.A.F. was at work. On at least four occasions, B.J. had oral sex with R.C.P. and also tried to have sexual intercourse with her. He videotaped at least one of these episodes and on another occasion used an Internet camera to broadcast his activities to his brother and his brother's girlfriend. He also forced R.C.P. to dress up in her mother's clothes and strip for him and forced her to watch pornographic videos with him, including a video he had made of her mother. B.J.'s sexual predations were not limited to R.C.P. He also had oral sex with E.C., one of R.C.P.'s female playmates. Neither R.C.P. nor E.C. told M.A.F. what B.J. had done to them.
B.J. also involved M.A.F. in his sexual depravity. She obtained pornographic videos for him. Many of these videos described the actors as "barely legal." On one occasion, she agreed to have sex with another man while B.J. videotaped them. On two other occasions, B.J. arranged for M.A.F. to have oral sex with C.J.O., an 11-year-old boy who lived nearby. B.J. videotaped the first episode, and during the second episode, M.A.F. engaged in sexual acts with B.J. and C.J.O. simultaneously.
In late 2001 and early 2002, B.J. began to use methamphetamine more and more. He gave the drug to M.A.F. before their two sexual episodes with C.J.O. Eventually, he began manufacturing the drug in his garage. It was at this point that M.A.F. tried to break free from B.J. In March 2002, she used her tax refund to rent a house in Monteagle, and she and R.C.P. moved out of B.J.'s garage in Manchester. Two weeks later, M.A.F. and R.C.P. returned to B.J. after he told her that he was suffering from an adverse reaction to chemotherapy for colon cancer.
By this time, M.A.F.'s parents and several of her co-workers had become aware of the physical abuse she was receiving from B.J., and they urged her to leave him. M.A.F. agreed that she should end the relationship but insisted that she needed to do it in her own way to avoid repercussions from B.J. In May 2002, M.A.F. was hospitalized for several days following a savage beating with a hammer. Again, a hospital social worker and others urged her to escape from the abusive situation.
On June 24, 2002, E.C. and C.J.O. informed local authorities of the sexual abuse committed by B.J. Representatives of the Coffee County Sheriff's Department and the Department of Children's Services interviewed the children the following day. During these interviews, C.J.O. told the authorities that B.J. had forced M.A.F. to have sex with him and that B.J. had also forced him to have sexual contact with E.C. Armed with this information, the authorities obtained a search warrant for B.J.'s garage and living quarters. When they executed the search warrant, they found R.C.P. and B.J. at home. M.A.F. was at work. B.J. was taken into custody but later released.
The Coffee County Juvenile Court placed R.C.P. in the custody of the Department, and on June 26, 2002, the Department placed her in the first of two foster homes. R.C.P. was placed in her second foster home on July 2, 2002, where she has remained ever since. On the same day, the juvenile court appointed Frank Van Cleave, an attorney practicing in Tullahoma, to serve as R.C.P.'s guardian ad litem.
When questioned at the sheriff's office on the afternoon her daughter was taken into custody, M.A.F. expressed surprise when she learned what B.J. had done to R.C.P. She insisted that R.C.P. had never complained to her about B.J. and that she would never have believed that B.J. would physically or sexually abuse her daughter. Following additional interviews with R.C.P., the authorities charged B.J. with five counts of child rape and M.A.F. with two counts of child rape. B.J. disappeared shortly thereafter. M.A.F. moved back to McMinnville to be closer to her parents and soon discovered she was pregnant. She also changed her employment to another hospital.
On July 18, 2002, the Department prepared an initial permanency plan for R.C.P. The alternative goals for the plan were either to return R.C.P. to M.A.F. or to place her for adoption. The plan noted that M.A.F. had telephoned the Department frequently about R.C.P. and that M.A.F. had adequate housing and reliable transportation. It also imposed several obligations on M.A.F., including: (1) participating in counseling to enable her to "become knowledgeable about child sex abuse" and "to help her accept her paramour's role in the sexual molestation of her child," (2) participating in education "to become knowledgeable about the extreme and sometimes harmful behaviors displayed by victims of sex abuse," (3) enrolling in and completing a sex offender treatment program "if the . . . allegations against her are founded," (4) participating in counseling designed for victims of domestic violence, (5) obtaining a mental status evaluation, and (6) furnishing her home and assuring that it is free from safety and health hazards. The Department also informed M.A.F. that it expected her to complete these tasks by January 2003.
Thereafter, M.A.F.'s parents sought permission to intervene to obtain custody of R.C.P. On August 15, 2002, the juvenile court conducted a hearing on their request as well as the Department's petition for temporary custody. The court denied the grandparents' motion to intervene but granted them supervised visitation with their granddaughter. The court also determined that R.C.P. was dependent and neglected and placed her in the temporary custody of the Department. In its September 23, 2002 order embodying its decision, the court stated that "[M.A.F.] . . . did agree to a finding of severe abuse pursuant to T.C.A. §37-1-102 in that [B.J.] . . . did sexually abuse . . . [R.C.P.]; and [M.A.F.] . . . does not make any admissions of guilt."
On August 26, 2002, the juvenile court terminated M.A.F.'s supervised visitation with R.C.P. after a case worker decided that M.A.F. had not adequately corrected what she believed to be R.C.P.'s sexually suggestive behavior during a visitation. The court vacated this order one month later and determined that R.C.P.'s visitation would be supervised by the guardian ad litem rather than by the Department.
On September 3, 2002, the child's guardian ad litem filed a petition seeking to terminate M.A.F.'s parental rights because R.C.P. had been "subject to severe child abuse" or alternatively because M.A.F. was "an unfit parent, and that substantial harm will result to her child if the parental rights are not terminated."1 On September 24, 2002, the Department followed suit by filing its petition to terminate M.A.F.'s parental rights on the grounds...
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