Richmond Dept. of Soc. Services v. Crawley, Record No. 1220-05-2.

• Decision Date: 31 January 2006
• Docket Number: Record No. 1220-05-2.
• Citation: 47 Va. App. 572,625 S.E.2d 670
• Court: Virginia Court of Appeals
• Parties: RICHMOND DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES v. Ashley CRAWLEY.

625 S.E.2d 670

47 Va. App. 572

RICHMOND DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES v. Ashley CRAWLEY.

Record No. 1220-05-2.

Court of Appeals of Virginia, Richmond.

January 31, 2006.

Kate D. O'Leary; Richard G. White, Jr., Guardian ad litem for the minor children (Sarah M. Denham; Office of the City Attorney, on brief), for appellant.

Robert W. Carll, for appellee.

Present: BENTON and McCLANAHAN JJ., and COLEMAN, S.J.

BENTON, Judge.

The Richmond Department of Social Services appeals the trial judge's denial of its petitions to terminate Ashley Crawley's residual parental rights and to grant the Department the authority to place the children for permanent adoption. The Department contends that it met its burden of proof and that the trial judge's decision was plainly wrong and without evidence to support it. We disagree and affirm the judgment.

I.

On appeal, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to Ashley Crawley, as the prevailing party below. See McGuire v. McGuire, 10 Va.App. 248, 250, 391 S.E.2d 344, 346 (1990). So viewed, the evidence proved Crawley gave birth to a daughter on September 22, 2000, and a son on December 5, 2001. Crawley was last a full-time employee in 2000, the year her daughter was born. In April 2001 before her son was born, Crawley and her husband were living in an apartment. That month, Crawley and her husband separated, and Crawley had to leave the apartment they had been leasing. From that time to August of 2003, Crawley lived in various hotels with her children.

After their separation, Crawley and her husband had an informal agreement that she would care for their children and he could visit with them on weekends. In late 2002, however, Crawley's husband absconded with their children and kept them for three or four months. For a while, Crawley could not find him or the children. After locating her husband, Crawley filed a petition for custody of the children. When Crawley attended the custody hearing, she learned her husband was in jail and the children were in foster care. The Department returned the children to Crawley and filed a petition against Crawley's husband for neglect and abuse.

The Richmond Department of Social Services assigned Linda Muhammed, a caseworker, to assist Crawley and her children in stabilizing their circumstances. On August 6, 2003, Muhammed helped Crawley, who was then homeless, to obtain living accommodations in a hotel. With guidance from Muhammed, Crawley found an apartment that was appropriate for her and the children, but was unable to secure a co-signer as required by the lessor. Muhammed also tried to help Crawley find employment, and she testified Crawley "did very well" in the Department's programs to encourage employment and to maintain financial services. However, in September of 2003, Crawley was hospitalized and underwent surgery for a medical condition.

Prior to hospitalization, Crawley arranged for her cousin to care for the children. While Crawley was in the hospital, her cousin took the children to their paternal grandmother, who later contacted the police and requested them to place the children elsewhere. When the Department informed Crawley of the children's plight, Crawley arranged for the children's sitter to care for them. After caring for the children a short while, the sitter was unable to provide for the children and maintain her work schedule. The Department then filed a petition for custody and transferred the children to foster care in October 2003 because no family member was able to care for them.

While Crawley was in the hospital, Deshanda Artis, a foster care worker, received the case and contacted Crawley. Crawley told Artis she did not know when the hospital would release her and she had no place to live. When Crawley left the hospital, she contacted Artis and asked to see her children. Artis arranged a visit for Crawley with the children and began to help Crawley in her search for housing. Artis also referred Crawley to various programs that the Department required Crawley to complete in order to regain custody of her children, including substance abuse assessment, a parenting class, and an anger management class.

Between October 20 and the following January, Artis had only sporadic contact with Crawley. During this time, Crawley was unemployed and lived in hotels while waiting for housing to become available through the public housing authority and an apartment complex. In the meantime, Crawley had developed a good relationship with the children's foster parent and made arrangements with the parent to regularly visit her children. Crawley, however, missed a meeting she had scheduled with Artis and did not receive the referral information the Department had prepared for the programs she was required to complete. Crawley did not participate in these programs.

Crawley was incarcerated on January 2, 2004, for forging, uttering, and grand larceny. Crawley testified that she received forged checks as payments for completing odd jobs. Initially, she cashed the checks without realizing they were forged but continued to cash the checks after learning of the problem. Crawley testified that she received a fifty-year sentence, which was suspended except for two years and two months incarceration. During her incarceration, Crawley maintained contact with her children. The foster parent arranged three contact visits and one non-contact visit between Crawley and the children. The foster mother also testified that Crawley called the children almost every night and that Crawley has a positive relationship with her children. The foster care worker agreed that Crawley loves her children and testified that Crawley has expressed a desire to have her children returned to her when she is released from jail.

During her incarceration, Crawley finished a twelve-week substance abuse program at the jail. She investigated taking an anger management class and a parenting class, but she learned that the jail only offered these classes to male prisoners. Crawley testified that she does not have any definite plans for how she will obtain employment or secure housing after her release. She described possible avenues, however, by which she may be able to reach those goals. Crawley testified that she recognizes the need to independently provide for her children and herself.

Although the juvenile and domestic relations district court granted the Department's petition to terminate Crawley's parental rights, on appeal to the circuit court the trial judge ruled that terminating Crawley's parental rights was not in the children's best interests. In denying the Department's petitions, the trial judge reasoned as follows:

The Court has to decide whether Ms. Crawley without good cause has been unwilling or unable to remedy substantially the conditions which led to or required continuation of the children's foster care placement. And I think the evidence leads to that conclusion that she has not done it. But we've got to look at the reasons she hasn't done it. She hasn't done it—at least since January of last year—because she's been incarcerated. She doesn't really have a good excuse for not doing it before then. . . .

So I guess in a technical sense, the Department has carried its burden of showing by clear and convincing evidence that Ms. Crawley had not remedied substantially the conditions that led to the children being in foster care. But there's another very important part of this puzzle. . . [a]nd that is whether termination of Ms. Crawley's parental rights [is] in her children's best interests. And I don't think that it is. The fact that she has not really had a full opportunity to do what she needs to do to remedy the situation in the Court's mind makes it not in [the children's] best interest to terminate Ms. Crawley's parental rights.

II.

The Department contends the trial judge's ruling was plainly wrong and without evidence to support it and that the trial judge "substituted [his] personal judgment in place of the law." The Department argues that the evidence mandates a termination of Crawley's parental rights because of unstable housing, Crawley's criminal acts, her history of unemployment, the children's maladaptive behaviors, and a lack of evidence that Crawley will ever be able to properly care for the children. Crawley responds that the trial judge correctly ruled that clear and convincing evidence did not establish that termination was in the children's best interest.

The Supreme Court of Virginia has recognized the need to "respect . . . the natural bond between children and their natural parents." Weaver v. Roanoke Dep't of Human Res., 220 Va. 921, 926, 265 S.E.2d 692, 695 (1980). This is a reflection of a societal and governmental imperative: "The preservation of the family, and in particular the parent-child relationship, is an important goal for not only the parents but also government itself." Id. Because of the importance of the parent-child relationship, the legislature has mandated that a court may terminate parental rights after a child has been placed in foster care by court commitment only if:

the court finds, based upon clear and convincing evidence, that it is in the best interests of the child and that:

1. The parent . . . ha[s], without good cause, failed to maintain continuing contact with and to provide or substantially plan for the future of the child for a period of six months after the child's placement in foster care . . . or

2. The parent . . ., without good cause, ha[s] been unwilling or unable within a reasonable period of time not to exceed twelve months from the date the child was placed in foster care to remedy substantially the conditions which led to or required continuation of the child's foster care placement. . . .

Code § 16.1-283(C).

Under this section of the statute, a trial judge must make two separate inquiries in order to terminate parental rights. The first prong is to determine...