State ex rel. C.Z. v. State

• Decision Date: 12 March 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20200227-CA,20200227-CA
• Citation: 484 P.3d 431
• Parties: STATE of Utah, IN the INTEREST OF C.Z., a Person Under Eighteen Years of Age. M.Z., Appellant, v. State of Utah, Appellee.
• Court: Utah Court of Appeals

484 P.3d 431

STATE of Utah, IN the INTEREST OF C.Z., a Person Under Eighteen Years of Age.

M.Z., Appellant,

v.State of Utah, Appellee.

No. 20200227-CA

Court of Appeals of Utah.

Filed March 12, 2021

Colleen K. Coebergh, Attorney for Appellant

Sean D. Reyes, Carol L.C. Verdoia, and John M. Peterson, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellee

Martha Pierce, Salt Lake City, Guardian ad Litem

Judge Diana Hagen authored this Opinion, in which Judge Gregory K. Orme and Senior Judge Kate Appleby concurred.¹

Opinion

HAGEN, Judge:

¶1 M.Z. (the father) appeals the juvenile court's termination of his parental rights to his son, C.Z. (the child). We conclude that the State proved by clear and convincing evidence that the father had not remedied the circumstances that led to the child's removal and affirm the juvenile court's termination of the father's parental rights.

BACKGROUND

¶2 The child was born in May 2017.² In December 2017, C.Z.’s mother (the mother) was charged with aggravated assault and domestic violence in the presence of a child for stabbing the father in the chest in front of the child. At the time, the mother was already under juvenile court jurisdiction for criminal trespass and habitual truancy. The juvenile court issued a no-contact order between the mother and the father and ordered that the child be assessed as "at risk of removal" from the mother's care.

¶3 Throughout January and February 2018, the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) "worked with the family in devising a safety plan for the child to remain" in the home with the mother. DCFS reported that the mother had several "thinking errors," including her beliefs that she did not need to abide by the no-contact order, did not need therapy, and that there was no harm in smoking marijuana while breastfeeding the child. DCFS also reported that the father and mother had smoked marijuana in the presence of the child on multiple occasions, including one instance where the father was caught smoking in the mother's family's house, resulting in the family's eviction. At the end of February, the mother was ordered "to be held in the Salt Lake Valley Detention Center" for a brief period.

¶4 In March 2018, DCFS again attempted to meet with the mother to establish a safety plan so the child could remain in her custody. The mother missed the meeting, and DCFS received a report that she had been smoking marijuana and had violated the no-contact order by spending the weekend with the father. As a result, the State filed a motion for the child's expedited placement in temporary custody. At the shelter hearing, the juvenile court granted the motion, placing the child in the temporary custody of DCFS. At a follow-up hearing later that month, the court made official findings. In relation to the mother, the court found the child was "neglected" under Utah Code subsection 78A-6-105(41). In relation to the father, the court found the child was "[d]ependent" under Utah Code subsection 78A-6-105(14), meaning that the child was deemed "homeless or without proper care through no fault of the child's parent, guardian, or custodian."

¶5 Two months later, in May of 2018, the court held a disposition hearing to establish permanency goals for the child pursuant to Utah Code section 78A-6-312. The court determined that the child's primary permanency goal would be "first and foremost reunification" with the parents and "the concurrent plan" would be "adoption." The court ordered DCFS to "provide reunification services to the parents consistent with the services identified in the service plan." The court ordered all parties to follow the service plan, which included a requirement that the parents complete domestic violence assessments. After father's counsel raised concerns that the father would "get assessed as a perpetrator rather than a victim," the court ordered that the plan be "amended to have the father participate in a [domestic violence] class as a victim."

¶6 At the first child welfare review hearing in July 2018, the court authorized unsupervised visits for the father, but not for the mother, whose parent-time continued to be supervised. The caseworker noted that the parents still seemed to be spending time together and suggested couples therapy if they hoped to co-parent someday. The court lifted the no-contact order but warned the parents that it was for the purpose of domestic violence therapy only and "that doesn't mean you drop by any time you want." At the next child welfare review hearing, in September 2018, the court found that both parents were "doing really well" and "marching toward reunification."

¶7 The steady progress did not continue, however. At the third child welfare review in December 2018, the court found that the mother was smoking marijuana again, the father was not following through with his therapy and, most alarming, there had been another domestic violence incident in the presence of the child on Thanksgiving Day. The parents, apparently living together again, fought about the child's nap, and the mother hit the father in the face. He responded by pushing her away by the throat. She grabbed him by the hair and tried to prevent him from leaving. Once he got away, the father ran to a nearby school, where the responding police officer found him with a bloody nose and no shoes. The officer cited the mother as "the predominant aggressor" but allowed the father to remain in the home because, the officer later testified, the father "basically wanted to go back because he said his child was a ward of the State, that this was the only time they got to spend time with him." The juvenile court warned both parents this was "a step back" and warned the father in particular about the domestic violence, saying, "You have to go to therapy. ... [Y]ou've got to do all these things" and there is "not a lot of time left." The court informed both parents that, if it was not safe for the child to return home by the time of the final permanency hearing, the court would have no choice but to "terminate services" toward reunification and instead move toward adoption, and "[n]obody wants to go down that road."

¶8 The final child welfare review hearing was sixty days later, in February 2019. Report of the parents’ progress was still mixed. The State expressed ongoing concerns about the father's ability to "hold boundaries with Mom and keep kiddo safe." The DCFS caseworker also reported that the father's attendance at therapy had not been consistent, although father's counsel complained that the father still had not received enough of the type of specialized domestic violence therapy he needed as a victim. The court informed the parents that if the permanency hearing were that day, it could not return the child to them. The court warned the father, in particular, that if reunification of the child with the mother was not going to be possible, the father had better start giving "full effort" and decide, "Is this what you want?"

¶9 At the permanency hearing on March 19, 2019, the court found that "return to the home would be contrary to the welfare of the child at [that] time." But, the court did find, by a preponderance of the evidence that there had been substantial compliance, reunification was probable within ninety days, and an extension would be in the best interest of the child. The court warned the parents that the report in ninety days had "better be a great report."

¶10 At the continued permanency hearing on May 30, 2019, the DCFS caseworker reported that the father "had been fully engaged" and wanted reunification to continue, but the mother had "reached the point that she believe[d] that she's not in the child's best interest" and was ready to relinquish her parental rights voluntarily. The caseworker also expressed concern that the parents were apparently living together even though the father reported moving out of the mother's residence several months earlier. The guardian ad litem reported that she did not feel it was safe to return the child to either parent that day. She had particular concern about the father's "relationship with the mother." The court gave the father one more extension, but with the following warning:

[T]here's continued domestic violence .... [E]ven if [the father] is the victim, he was stabbed the first time and he went back into that relationship with his child, and then there's been another domestic violence incident, and they're still together .... He is supposed to be in treatment, and he hasn't gone

....

....

Dad, you have to get in treatment. I mean that's the bottom line. I don't need any more excuses. You have to be in treatment. You keep going back to a toxic relationship, and if you're going to do that, then whatever her baggage is is your baggage. That's the way the law works.

¶11 At that final permanency hearing in August 2019, the court found that returning the child to the father would create a substantial risk of detriment to the child's physical or emotional well-being. The court explained, "[T]he law is pretty firm and ... at this point I can't give another extension, and it's not safe today to send the child home. So under the law, ... I have to terminate reunification services, I have to change the goal to adoption."

¶12 The State filed a petition for termination of parental rights, and the court set the matter for trial. In the interim, the mother voluntarily relinquished her parental rights.

¶13 At trial in January 2020, the State presented evidence of the father's continued unhealthy relationship with the mother. The father's therapist, provided by DCFS, testified that the father had "symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder

" as a result of "having been attacked by" the mother. Nevertheless, the father testified that the mother had accompanied him on the last few visits with the child, after she voluntarily relinquished her parental rights. The foster parent, who dropped off the child for visits with the father, testified that...