In re S.I.L.
| Decision Date | 27 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | 83171-2-I |
| Parties | In the Matter of the Dependency of: S.I.L., A Minor Child. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Washington |
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
K.P the father of 14-year-old S.I.L., appeals the trial court's finding that S.I.L. is dependent under RCW 13.34.030(6)(c). He contends insufficient evidence supports the trial court's factual findings. The father also argues the trial court abused its discretion by ordering him to submit to a psychosexual evaluation without expressly excluding polygraph and penile plethysmograph (PPG) tests and that ordering such tests violates his substantive due process rights.
We conclude there is sufficient evidence to support the challenged findings, and those findings support the conclusion that S.I.L. is dependent under RCW 13.34.030(6)(c). We decline to reach the issue of whether the trial court abused its discretion in ordering K.P. to undergo a polygraph or PPG test or violated K.P.'s due process rights in ordering him to do so because the trial court did not actually order K.P. to undergo either test. We affirm.
In January 2021, the Department of Children, Youth and Families (the Department) received three separate intake reports regarding then 13-year-old S.I.L., who resided with her mother, A.L. Leanne King, the Child Protective Services (CPS) social worker who investigated the reports, discovered that A.L. was experiencing a serious mental health episode involving delusional thoughts and hallucinations. A.L believed someone was after her and had gotten inside her mattress; A.L. began to beat and slash the mattress to find the person hiding inside and asked S.I.L. to help her. A.L fled the house with SIL, and, while driving away, A.L. began driving erratically because she believed that the intruder was now on top of the car's roof and she needed to knock the person off. Eventually, A.L. drove herself and her daughter to the home of A.L.'s father. A.L. was transported to St. Joseph Hospital for treatment and involuntarily detained for 120 hours.
When King learned of A.L.'s 2021 mental health detention, she contacted the grandfather and learned S.I.L. was at his home where S.I.L. remained while CPS attempted to engage A.L. in services. A.L. continued to exhibit delusional thoughts after being discharged from the hospital and, after the effort to engage A.L. in services proved unsuccessful, King determined she needed to remove S.I.L. from A.L.'s care. When King contacted S.I.L.'s father, K.P., he informed King that he was not in a position to parent S.I.L., that he had lost his job and was looking for employment, and that he believed S.I.L. was safe in the care of her maternal grandfather. K.P. told King that he had not seen S.I.L. in years and had stopped trying to see her because he did not want to deal with A.L. Because the father did not want to parent S.I.L., CPS began to prepare the paperwork to file a dependency petition and to obtain court approval for placement with her grandfather.
The Department filed the dependency petition on February 11, 2021. It obtained an order authorizing the Department to take S.I.L. into its custody that same day. The parents did not contest shelter care and agreed that, at that point, S.I.L. had no parent available to provide supervision and care for the child. They also stipulated to placement with the maternal grandfather. The court authorized the parents to have a minimum of two hours of supervised visitation with S.I.L., two times each week and also approved "liberal phone visits between mother/father and child" subject to the "child's willingness to participate." The court appointed a guardian ad litem (GAL) for S.I.L., and, at the teen's request, also appointed counsel to represent her.
On March 30, 2021, the father answered the petition, asserting he was capable of adequately caring for S.I.L. The trial court scheduled a fact-finding hearing on the issue of dependency as to the father, which it conducted on July 27, 28, 29, and August 3, 2021. The mother did not participate in this hearing, although her attorney appeared via Zoom.
At this hearing, the trial court heard testimony that the mother had a long history of mental illness. In 2012, A.L. had reported, without evidence, that her and K.P.'s son, then in his early teens, had raped S.I.L. A.L. began verbally abusing the boy. This incident led the Department to remove him from A.L.'s care and to initiate a dependency petition for the protection of A.L.'s son, who was suicidal as a result of his mother's belief that he had raped his younger sister and his mother's refusal to allow him to remain in her home.
At that point, CPS contacted K.P. to tell him that the Department had removed the son from A.L.'s custody due to A.L.'s mental state. The Department supported K.P. in filing a parenting plan for the son. The son lived with K.P. for a few months and then went to live with his maternal grandfather, with K.P.'s consent. He remained in his grandfather's care until he reached the age of 18. When the son went to live with his grandfather, the Department dismissed its dependency petition.
K.P. has had an ongoing awareness of A.L.'s mental health issues, both because of the Department advising him of her condition and his involvement in their fifteen-year, on-again-off-again relationship. He reported that while they never married or lived together, up until 2010, he was often at her home after work to help her with the two children. For the first three years of S.I.L.'s life, K.P. testified that he took an active role in helping to raise his daughter. He stopped interacting with A.L., however, because she became violent with him, threw things at him, and began to demand that he pay money to see his children. When he refused, K.P. testified that A.L. took S.I.L. and his son to live in a different county. For approximately a decade, K.P. had no contact with S.I.L., with the exception of a single visit when she was ten years old. S.I.L. told King that she would not recognize her father if she passed him on the street.
The Department also learned that K.P. had a fairly extensive criminal history. In 1995, he was convicted of negligent driving. In 1998, he was convicted of fourth degree assault and first degree negligent driving. In 2001, he pleaded guilty to indecent exposure and residential burglary. K.P. testified that the 2001 convictions arose out of an incident involving A.L. when he entered A.L.'s apartment without her knowledge in an attempt to have sexual relations with her. The court, as a part of this conviction, entered a domestic violence protection order for the protection of A.L. K.P. was sentenced to nine months in jail for indecent exposure and 75 days in jail for the burglary conviction.
In 2008, K.P. was convicted of criminal trespass, and in 2010 he was convicted again of fourth degree assault and second degree unlawful possession of a firearm.
In 2014, K.P., who was then married, was convicted of domestic violence voyeurism for taking a naked photo of his 18-year-old stepdaughter while she slept, a photograph which was backed up on Google. K.P. claimed at the dependency hearing that the purpose of the photo was not for sexual reasons, but rather to blackmail his stepdaughter into getting a job and to teach her a lesson. He was sentenced to 5 months in jail and 12 months of community custody. While in community custody, he was ordered not to consume any alcohol. The court entered a sexual assault protection order for the benefit of his victim, prohibiting him from having any contact with her until January 2018.
As part of the 2014 conviction, K.P. was also ordered to register as a sex offender, to submit to a sexual deviancy evaluation and comply with any treatment recommendations, and to submit to a sexual history and "periodic polygraphs and/or plethysmograph assessments" as directed by the Department of Corrections. The 2014 judgment and sentence also required K.P. to obtain a mental health and a chemical dependency evaluation. K.P. had no recollection of ever undergoing a mental health evaluation and was not sure he was required to complete a chemical dependency evaluation. K.P. testified that he completed a "sexual evaluation," that it took about two hours, and that at the end, the evaluator told him "I passed and I don't need any more counseling for that." It was unclear if this evaluation was actually a sexual deviancy, mental health, or substance abuse evaluation. Neither the Department nor K.P.'s attorney was able to verify what evaluations K.P. underwent before the contested dependency hearing.
In 2016, K.P. was convicted for driving under the influence. He was placed on five years of probation.
In 2021, at the dependency hearing for S.I.L., Department social worker Joshua Sharon testified that before S.I.L. went to live with her grandfather, she had experienced suicidal ideation and depression and had begun experimenting with vaping, alcohol, and cannabis. S.I.L. was reserved, closed off, not doing well in school, and not engaged in extracurricular activities. Sharon attributed her mental health and academic difficulties in part to her feeling unsafe living with a mother experiencing hallucinations. With the stability and predictability S.I.L. gained with her grandfather, however, she became more conversant, got involved in volleyball at school, began to improve academically, and began to engage with a math tutor set up by her grandfather. She is no longer verbalizing suicidality and has not experimented with substances since entering her grandfather's care. Sharon expressed concerns that moving S.I.L. into her father's care would jeopardize S.I.L.'s progress because she had no bond with K.P. and had expressed...
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