M.K. v. Marion Cnty. Dep't of Child Servs. (In re J.K.)
| Citation | 30 N.E.3d 695 |
| Decision Date | 12 May 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 49S02–1505–JC–260.,49S02–1505–JC–260. |
| Parties | In the Matter of J.K., a Child in Need of Services. M.K., Appellant, v. Marion County Department of Child Services and Child Advocates, Inc., Appellees. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Indiana |
Jill M. Acklin, McGrath, LLC, Carmel, IN, Attorney for Appellant.
Gregory F. Zoeller, Attorney General of Indiana, Robert J. Henke, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellees.
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02–1312–JC–1008
Every Child in Need of Services (CHINS) proceeding has the potential to interfere with parents' rights in the upbringing of their children—and so the parents' due process rights, including the right to an unbiased and uncoercive forum, are paramount. But the judicial conduct in this case deprived Father of those rights. After making several derogatory remarks over the course of two hearings about the parties and the nature of their dispute, the trial court pressured Father to waive his right to a fact-finding hearing and instead admit that his daughter was a CHINS. Though Father did not object to the trial court's statements, their combined effect was sufficiently coercive to constitute fundamental error. We therefore reverse the CHINS adjudication.
Seventeen-year-old J.K. and her mother C.K. (Mother) lived with J.K.'s maternal grandmother G.C. (Grandmother) and uncle. Appellant M.K. (Father) is J.K.'s father and was still married to Mother. However, they had long been separated, and their divorce was pending with child-custody issues remaining unresolved.
In May 2013, the Marion County Department of Child Services (DCS) initiated CHINS proceedings over J.K., alleging that J.K. had finished her work shift at 9:00 p.m. and arrived at home to find that Grandmother had locked her out for coming home too late. Further, when DCS contacted Mother, she told them she was tired of J.K. and said, “I will sign the bitch over to you.” DCS also alleged that Father refused to talk to them while he was at work or to take time off to do so.
When the fact-finding hearing began, Mother admitted that J.K. was in need of services. But Father denied that claim, stating that he intended to seek either custody of J.K. through the divorce or placement through the CHINS case and that he did not believe J.K. would be in need of services if she were in his care. From the first few minutes of the hearing, the court expressed impatience—responding to the parties' discussion of the potential overlap between custody in the divorce and placement in the CHINS case by commenting, “My hair hurts.”
Minutes after that, Father proposed placement in his home as “possibly ... a solution” to that overlap. But Mother objected (and J.K. confirmed) that Father had prevented J.K. from contacting Mother during previous times J.K. had stayed with him. When Father replied to express willingness to permit communication and establish a parenting-time schedule, the court interjected, When Father's counsel reiterated that he did not admit J.K. was a CHINS, the trial court interrupted, “Then ... call your first witness.” It then went on to call the parties' dispute “ridiculous and retarded,” fault the parties for “stupidity,” and continue the hearing to a new date to order the parties into mediation:
[G]uys this is not what the Court is for. This is not what tax payer's [sic ] services are for. We have people who are writing their names on children with lit cigarettes. That is what the resources of this Court are for and not because you're living with people ... that have too much drama and you're living with somebody else who creates drama for her which then creates drama for her. Shame on you guys for putting her in the middle of this and shame on her grandmother for locking her out. What kind of crazy person locks a kid out on the streets in this world, in this day and age? It's not like she's out running around, she's working for [G]od['s] sake. Now, this is completely ridiculous and retarded. Here's what the Court's order is, I'm ordering you guys to go to mediation with our mediators, not DCS, you two get this figured out where this child is going to be so that her life is not impacted by the stupidity that is going on in both of your lives. All I want to know is where she's going to live and that she is safe and you need to start thinking about her and not you. Give me a date for mediation.
Tr. 8 (emphases added). A moment later, the trial court continued, and asked, “[W]hat the hell are [the parties' divorce attorneys] doing?” And as the parties finalized details of the court-ordered mediation at the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court recommended to J.K. that she should attend the mediation to “[m]ake your parents mind” and further said, “I'll warn [the mediator]” about the case. At that point, the fact-finding hearing was continued pending the outcome of mediation.
The parties reached no agreement in mediation and returned to court in October 2013 for a continuation of the fact-finding hearing. The tone of the previous hearing continued: DCS stated at the outset, “Judge, we have a little bit of an issue with this case,” and the court responded, “Imagine that.” J.K. then proposed to be placed with Father, with Mother to have regularly scheduled parenting time, prompting the trial court to scold the parties, “[D]o you he [ar] the wisdom of your daughter, the seventeen year old that neither of you knuckles head [sic] can get this done, shame on both of you.”
The parties had nearly reached agreement on J.K.'s placement, except for confirming whether J.K. could be bused to her current high school from Father's home in a neighboring school district, since Father's work schedule (and, as revealed at a subsequent hearing, a suspended driver's license) prevented him from taking her to school. At that point, the trial court stated, “I am adjudicating [J.K.] as a child in need of services.” Father objected, leading to another heated colloquy that culminated in Father reversing his previous position and admitting that J.K. was in need of services:
Tr. 27 –28 (emphases added). In accordance with that admission, the court adjudicated J.K. to be a child in need of services. Father appealed, arguing the trial court's comments deprived him of a fair tribunal and coerced his admission that J.K. was in need of services.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that even though the court's statements were blunt, they did not call the judge's impartiality into question or coerce Father, but instead aimed only to emphasize that the CHINS case was the wrong forum for their dissolution-related disputes, and that if Father could not get J.K. to school, then she was in need of services. M.K. v. Marion Cnty. Dep't of Child Servs., No. 49A02–1312–JC–1008, 2014 WL 3857808 (Ind.Ct.App. Aug. 6, 2014), slip op. at 6–7, 9. We disagree, and now grant transfer.
We afford trial judges ample “latitude to run the courtroom and maintain discipline and control of the trial.” Timberlake v. State, 690 N.E.2d 243, 256 (Ind.1997). Particularly in bench trials, courts have considerable discretion to question witnesses sua sponte “to aid in the fact-finding process as long as it is done in an impartial manner.” Taylor v. State, 530 N.E.2d 1185, 1187 (Ind.1988) (quoting Swift v. State, 255 Ind. 337, 341, 264 N.E.2d 317, 320 (1970) ). We even tolerate a “crusty” demeanor towards litigants so long as it is applied even-handedly.
Harrington v. State, 584 N.E.2d 558, 562 (Ind.1992) (quoting Rowe v. State, 539 N.E.2d 474, 477 (Ind.1989) ). Yet judges at all times “must maintain an impartial manner and refrain from acting as an advocate for either party,” Beatty v. State, 567 N.E.2d 1134, 1136 (Ind.1991) —because a “trial before an impartial judge is an essential element of due process,” Everling v. State, 929 N.E.2d 1281, 1287 (Ind.2010) (citing Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868, 876, 129 S.Ct. 2252, 173 L.Ed.2d 1208 (2009) ).
The right to an impartial judge is no less vital in CHINS cases than in any other proceeding. Indeed, we have recognized that when a trial court “makes decisions during a CHINS hearing as to whether the child will become a ward of the State or orders services, this has the potential to interfere with the rights of parents in the upbringing of their children.” In re N.E., 919 N.E.2d 102, 108 (Ind.2010). “It is unequivocal that the termination of a parent-child relationship by the State constitutes the...
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