People ex rel. T.W.
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals No. 21CA1331 |
| Decision Date | 28 July 2022 |
| Citation | 519 P.3d 1071,2022 COA 88 M |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner, IN the INTEREST OF T.W., a Child, and Concerning A.M.E., Appellant, and G.U., Appellee. |
| Court | Colorado Court of Appeals |
Josi McCauley, Guardian Ad Litem
The Law Office of Michael Kovaka, Michael Kovaka, Littleton, Colorado, for Appellant
Bergner Law Office, Stephanie Bergner, Leif Ericson, Carbondale, Colorado, for Appellee
Opinion by JUDGE SCHUTZ
¶ 1 In this dependency and neglect proceeding, A.M.E. (mother) appeals the juvenile court's judgment allocating parental responsibilities for her child, T.W., to G.U. (father). To resolve mother's appeal, we must decide whether a juvenile court may permanently allocate parental responsibilities when the parties are proceeding under a deferred adjudication. Because we conclude a juvenile court lacks the legal authority to enter such an order when the child has not been adjudicated dependent or neglected, we vacate the judgment.
¶ 2 In June 2020, the Morgan County Department of Human Services initiated a dependency and neglect proceeding based on concerns that the then-ten-year-old child was being mistreated while in the care of mother and her husband. The child's father, who lives in California, had not seen the child in approximately eight years at the time the case was filed.
¶ 3 The juvenile court placed the child in the care of his maternal cousins. The child's younger half-siblings remained in the custody of mother and husband. In September 2020, the court accepted the parties’ stipulation continuing the child's adjudication and entered an order deferring the issue of whether the child should be adjudicated dependent or neglected for six months under section 19-3-505(5), C.R.S. 2021. The court also adopted treatment plans for each parent.
¶ 4 In the stipulation, the parties set forth their understanding of how the case would proceed. It provided:
For purposes of this Continued Adjudication only, and no other purpose, [mother and father] knowingly and voluntarily admit the child is a dependent or neglected child because he was in an injurious environment. Respondents also admit the jurisdictional allegations of the Petition. This is a no fault admission and continued adjudication as to ... mother ....
Based upon this limited admission, the parties agreed the court had continuing jurisdiction to enter temporary placement orders for the child. But they also expressly agreed that the child was not being adjudicated dependent or neglected with respect to either parent. Instead, they agreed that any trial related to whether the child should be adjudicated dependent or neglected would be continued—or deferred—for six months.
¶ 5 In February 2021, father filed a motion seeking an allocation of parental responsibilities (APR) for the child to him. Mother filed a written objection to father's APR motion, asserting that father was not an appropriate placement because he had minimal physical contact and no emotional bond with the child. Mother requested the child be placed with her. Soon after, the Department filed a motion asking the court to adopt its recommended permanency plan, adjudicate the child dependent or neglected, and grant an APR to father.
¶ 6 The court adopted the Department's proposed permanency plan, which set the permanent goal as placement of the child with father in California but with temporary placement remaining with the child's cousins while a relationship was established between the child and father. The court did not address the Department's request for an adjudicatory order. Instead, without objection from the parties, it continued the deferred adjudication for another six months. It also set a hearing on father's request for an APR.
¶ 7 The juvenile court held an evidentiary hearing on father's APR motion in June 2021. The court then temporarily placed the child in father's custody and authorized video visits with mother. After a review hearing a couple of months later, the court entered an APR order that kept the child in father's custody, authorized parenting time for mother, and awarded decision-making authority between the parents. The court then certified the APR order into a separate domestic relations case and closed the dependency and neglect case.
¶ 8 Mother contends the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to grant the APR because it had not adjudicated the child dependent or neglected. We conclude the court had continuing subject matter jurisdiction over the parties and the case but did not have the legal authority to enter a permanent APR order for the child. We therefore vacate the juvenile court's order allocating parental responsibilities for the child.
¶ 9 Dependency and neglect cases spring from foundational human bonds. There is no relationship more integral to a society than that of the family. And central to that institution is the relationship between parents and their children. The Supreme Court has observed that "the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children ... is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court." Troxel v. Granville , 530 U.S. 57, 65, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000). Thus, in the first instance, it is parents, and not the State, who have the privilege and responsibility of raising their children.
¶ 10 Though parents’ liberty interests in raising their children are firmly protected by the Constitution, the parents’ rights are not unlimited. With rights come responsibilities. And one of the essential responsibilities that accompanies the privilege of parenting is the obligation to provide children with a safe and nurturing home free of neglect and abuse. If a parent fails to fulfill that responsibility, they are deemed "unfit" to autonomously make decisions for their children. While the parent remains unfit, the State has a vested interest in protecting the subject children, and may intervene in the parent-child relationship to protect them. People in Interest of N.G. , 2012 COA 131, ¶ 30, 303 P.3d 1207.
¶ 11 These legal principles accommodate the tension between parents’ right to freely parent their children and the government's corresponding obligation, as parens patriae ,1 to ensure that children grow and develop in a safe and nurturing environment. So how is this delicate, but essential, balance implemented?
¶ 12 In Colorado, the answer to that question starts with article 3 of the Children's Code, which provides the legal authorization for dependency and neglect cases. People in Interest of J.W. v. C.O. , 2017 CO 105, ¶ 26, 406 P.3d 853. To invoke the court's jurisdiction, the petition must allege facts establishing that the child is dependent or neglected under section 19-3-502, C.R.S. 2021. C.O. , ¶ 26. The Children's Code also grants the juvenile court the authority to enter immediate emergency temporary orders to protect the health and welfare of the child, including the possibility of removing the child from the existing home if continuing the child's current care and custody "would present a danger to that child's life or health in the reasonably foreseeable future." § 19-3-405(2)(a), C.R.S. 2021.
¶ 13 These extraordinary powers are necessary to protect children who are at risk of immediate harm because of their environment. But they also represent an extraordinary intrusion into the fabric of the family, including the parents’ constitutionally grounded right to raise their children as they deem appropriate.
¶ 14 Recognizing the need to balance these rights, the Children's Code requires the State to promptly provide parents with notice and an opportunity to be heard by the juvenile court concerning the issues presented in a petition. §§ 19-3-202, 19-3-503, C.R.S. 2021; People in Interest of S.N. v. S.N. , 2014 CO 64, ¶ 9, 329 P.3d 276.
¶ 15 After being advised of their legal rights, the parents must decide whether they wish to contest or admit the allegations of the petition. If the parents decide to waive their right to an adjudicatory trial and admit the allegations, then a formal adjudication of the child as dependent or neglected may be entered. § 19-3-505(1), (7)(a) ; C.R.J.P. 4.2(b) ; see also N.G. , ¶¶ 19-20. If either parent contests the petition, the matter must be set for an adjudicatory trial, either to a judge or jury. At trial, the judge or jury decides if the State has sustained its burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, the allegations in the petition. If the fact finder concludes the State has met its burden, then a formal order enters adjudicating the child dependent or neglected. If the fact finder concludes the State has not met its burden, then the court must dismiss the case.
¶ 16 Thus, at the adjudicatory phase a child is generally adjudicated dependent or neglected, or the case is closed. But given the extraordinary consequences associated with an adjudication, coupled with the varied circumstances in which these cases arise, the Children's Code affords a third option. Section 19-3-505(5) provides as follows:
After making a finding as provided by paragraph (a) of subsection (7) of this section but before making an adjudication, the court may continue the hearing from time to time, allowing the child to remain in his own home or in the temporary custody of another person or agency subject to such conditions of conduct and of visitation or supervision by a juvenile probation officer as the court may prescribe ....
Section 19-3-505(7)(a), in turn, provides:
When the court finds that the allegations of the petition are supported by a preponderance of the evidence, except when the case is continued as provided in the introductory portion to subsection (5) of this section, the court shall sustain the petition and shall make an order of...
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