In re Audrey B.
Filed 6/17/13
In re Audrey B. CA3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
California
Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or
relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except
as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This
opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for
purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT
(Sacramento)
----
In re AUDREY B. et al.,
Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.
C072590
(Super. Ct. Nos.
J232634, J232635, J232636)
SACRAMENTO COUNTY
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
S.B.,
Defendant and Appellant.
Appellant
S.B., father of the minors Audrey B., K.B., and Ki.B., appeals from an order of
the juvenile court denying him reunification
services. (Welf. & Inst. Code,
§§ 361.5, subd. (e)(1) (hereafter section 361.5(e)(1)), 395.)
juvenile court’s finding that providing services to him would be detrimental to
the minors. We shall affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On August
23, 2012, the minors were placed into protective custody following referrals
from mandated reporters that mother had sustained second degree burns over her
face and body as a result of injuries inflicted by father, and 12-year-old
Ki.B. reported that her mother’s uncle took her from school, put a knife to her
throat, sexually molested her, and made her strip in front of several men.
Interviewed
by law enforcement that day, Ki.B. said that her mother’s uncle had “been
messing with and raping her for so long.â€
The abuse had been going on for a couple of years and mother knew about
it. Father called the police when he
found out about the assault. Ki.B. also
told the police that her mother’s uncle had been doing the same things to
mother since the child was six or seven years old. According to Ki.B., father has done nothing
wrong and is the only one trying to protect them.
Regarding
the burning incident, Ki.B. said she was alone with father and mother that
night, as her sisters were staying with family members. She was sleeping in the garage with father,
and when they woke up, mother was burned.
She did not know how it happened.
Seven-year-old
K.B. told a social worker that a bully, her mother’s uncle, keeps coming to her
house at night and messing with mother.
Her mother’s uncle is responsible for the scratches on mother’s face as
well as her burns. Every time she comes
home from school her mother has a different bruise or something is wrong with
her face; father tells her that her mother’s uncle came home and beat mother
up. K.B. has never seen her mother’s
uncle hurt her mother, but when she comes home from school her mother looks
different. She has never seen her
mother’s uncle, but he keeps putting knives, guns, and other things in the home
to get father in trouble.
According
to K.B., mother and father argue with each other. She has seen father hit mother about four or
five times. She told the social worker,
“ ‘When mom lies, dad hits her and she tells the truth.’ â€
Three-year-old
Audrey B. presented as very intelligent and was able to answer the social
worker’s questions. Mother and father
fight “ ‘two times, three times, four times. He uses his hands.’ †She has seen mother bleeding and then go to
the hospital. Her mother’s uncle also
came to the house and fought mother, scratching and fighting with his
hands. Asked who burned mother, Audrey
B. replied, “ ‘My dad did it.’ â€
Mother
was interviewed the day after the minors were placed in protective
custody. Ki.B. was not telling the truth
when she said she had been abducted from school. Father made the minors paranoid about their
mother’s uncle.
On August
18, 2012, mother and the minors were asleep on the couch while father slept in
the bedroom. Father awakened and told
mother he had a vision that her uncle was on the edge of the bed. Father kept questioning mother, wanting to
know if she had opened the door for him.
He accused mother of drugging him and she agreed. Father then boiled water and threw it on her
as she came in from the back porch.
Father would not allow mother to call for help; her injuries were
finally discovered and reported by father’s probation officer several days
after the incident. Prior to the
probation officer entering the home, father told the family they had to get the
story straight and say that their mother’s uncle inflicted the
When
questioned by law enforcement, father said that Ki.B. threw the water on mother
as they were arguing about text messages from mother’s uncle. The investigating officer thought that father
had split personalities, manifesting as himself and his wife’s uncle during the
interview.
Mother
told the social worker that she had been with father for 15 years. Things went well after they went through
family maintenance following a domestic violence incident in 2008. Another incident happened in 2011; mother
called law enforcement and father was arrested for violating his
probation. She stayed in the
relationship with father out of fear.
Medical
records revealed that mother sustained burns to her head, face, chest, and
right flank, some of which were second degree burns. She also sustained additional burns,
intracranial hemorrhage, closed head injury/concussion, facial fracture, facial
contusions, rib fracture, collapsed lung, intra-abdominal injury, and
contusions on her extremities. Mother, who tested positive for amphetamines,
said she was repeatedly forced to smoke methamphetamine and crack against her
will.
On August
27, 2012, the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)
filed dependency petitions, alleging jurisdiction based on the parents’ failure
to protect the minors from domestic violence from father against mother. The juvenile court ordered the minors
detained the following day.
The
family had a history of domestic violence.
In July 2008, father stabbed mother with a knife, causing her to be
taken to the hospital. He also
threatened her with a gun in front of the children. The minors were afraid of father because he
hit mother. The allegations were
sustained and the family participated in family maintenance services. Father attended anger management classes, and
was compliant with his probation. The
case was closed in March 2009 after the family met their case plan
objective.
In
September 2011, after accusing mother of lying to him about being with other
men, father put both hands around her neck and pushed her back as well as
kneeing her in the crotch. Father was
subsequently convicted of felony corporal injury to a spouse or
cohabitant. (Pen. Code, § 273.5,
subd. (a).)
The
minors were interviewed again in September 2012, but declined to provide any
additional information regarding the incident.
All three minors requested visits with father during his
incarceration. They did not display any
emotional or behavioral problems.
Following
the recent incident of domestic violence,
father was arrested and charged with two counts of corporal injury to a spouse
or cohabitant and single charges of aggravated mayhem (Pen. Code, § 205)
and torture (id., § 206). According to the DHHS report, bail was set at
$1,000,000 for one charge and no bail for the remaining three charges. He was incarcerated at the Sacramento County
New Main Jail at the time of the jurisdictional/dispositional hearing. No reunification services for father were
available at the jail.
No
witnesses were presented at the October 2012 jurisdictional/dispositional
hearing. Counsel for father and the
minors’ counsel objected to DHHS’s recommendation to bypass services for father
pursuant to section 361.5(e)(1). The
juvenile court sustained the petitions, ordered services for mother and
bypassed services for father under section 361.5(e)(1). In support of its ruling, the juvenile court
found that father probably would be convicted of the charges and serve a
substantial sentence. The juvenile court
also relied on the history of domestic violence, including father’s prior
felony domestic violence conviction stemming from an attack on mother, and
father’s failure to take responsibility for his actions by blaming Ki.B. for
the assault. Finally, the juvenile court
found that the domestic violence led to serious
DISCUSSION
Father
contends the juvenile court erred in bypassing reunification services for him
pursuant to section 361.5(e)(1).
Section
361.5(e)(1) provides, in pertinent part:
“If the parent or guardian is incarcerated, institutionalized, or
detained by the United States
Department of Homeland Security, or has been deported to his or her country of
origin, the court shall order reasonable services unless the court determines,
by clear and convincing evidence, those services would be detrimental to the
child. In determining detriment, the
court shall consider the age of the child, the degree of parent-child bonding,
the length of the sentence, the length and nature of the treatment, the nature
of the crime or illness, the degree of detriment to the child if services are
not offered and, for children 10 years of age or older, the child’s attitude
toward the implementation of family reunification services, the likelihood of
the parent’s discharge from incarceration, . . . within the
reunification time limitations described in subdivision (a), and any other
appropriate factors. . . .
Reunification services are subject to the applicable time limitations
imposed in subdivision (a).â€
We review
a juvenile court’s denial of reunification services for substantial
evidence. (In re Brian M. (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 1398, 1401.) “In juvenile cases, as in other areas of the
law, the power of an appellate court asked to assess the sufficiency of the
evidence begins and ends with a determination as to whether or not there is any
substantial evidence, whether or not contradicted, which will support the
conclusion of the trier of fact. All
conflicts must be resolved in favor of the respondent and all legitimate
inferences indulged in to uphold the verdict, if possible. Where there is more than one inference which
can reasonably be deduced from the facts, the appellate court is without power
to substitute its deductions for those of the trier of fact.†(In re
Katrina C. (1988) 201 Cal.App.3d 540, 547.)
Father
notes the minors lived their entire lives with him. He also attacks the reasoning behind the
juvenile court’s decision. In bypassing
services, the juvenile court said father had not yet been convicted of the
charges, but it “presumes that he will probably be convicted†and therefore
serve “a substantial sentence.†Father
deems the juvenile court’s rationale “speculation†that “was not an appropriate
basis for denying reunification between the children and their father.†Finally, he finds the juvenile court’s
rulings regarding harm to the children to be contradicted by DHHS’s reports
that they had no emotional or behavioral problems.
Father’s
attempts to overturn the juvenile court’s decision by attacking its reasons for
denying services are misplaced. “No rule
of decision is better or more firmly established by authority, nor one resting
upon a sounder basis of reason and propriety, than that a
ruling or decision, itself correct in law, will not be disturbed on appeal
merely because given for a wrong reason.â€
(Davey v. Southern Pacific Co.
(1897) 116 Cal. 325, 329.) This
rule applies equally to dependency cases.
(In re Jonathan B. (1992)
5 Cal.App.4th 873, 876.) So long as
the record contains substantial evidence supporting the denial of services, the
correctness of the juvenile court’s reasons for the denial is irrelevant.
Father
has a history of domestic violence with mother, which includes a felony
domestic violence conviction. He was to
remain incarcerated during the pendency of the criminal charges stemming from
the incident that led to the dependency, and faced a substantial prison term if
convicted.
services; his previous completion of anger
management did not prevent the current incident, and he tried to blame his
eldest daughter for the attack.
Finally,
the juvenile court could reasonably find that father’s behavior placed the
minors in considerable danger. Medical
evidence shows that mother was the victim of repeated, severe attacks. While mother indicated father was the
aggressor, the minors’ accounts were confused, some indicating father was
responsible for at least some of the attacks, with other accounts placing all
or at least some of the blame on their mother’s uncle. However, mother indicated that her uncle was
blameless, and the investigating police officer thought that mother’s uncle was
a manifestation of father’s personality.
The minors’ stories about mother’s uncle, particularly Ki.B.’s claims
regarding molestation, are evidence of significant emotional harm if the purported
incidents were not carried out by this person but were merely a figment of
their or defendant’s imagination or fabrication.
In short,
father is likely to be incarcerated for most or all of the minors’ dependency
in a facility without provisions for reunification services, is unlikely to benefit
from services, and engaged in behavior that at least carried a real risk of
doing serious emotional harm to the minors.
This provided substantial evidence to support a finding that services
for father would be detrimental to the minors.
DISPOSITION
The
orders of the juvenile court denying reunification services to father are
affirmed.
BUTZ , J.
We concur:
BLEASE , Acting P. J.
MAURO , J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1] Undesignated statutory references are to the
Welfare and Institutions Code.
name="_ftn2" title="">[2] The crime of aggravated mayhem is punishable
by life in prison with the possibility of parole (Pen. Code, § 205), as is
torture (id., §§ 206,
206.1).
