In re Yvette E.
Filed 1/9/13 In re Yvette E. CA5
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
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 This opinion has not been certified for
publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115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
FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
In re YVETTE
E., et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.
FRESNO COUNTY
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
MICHELLE E.,
Defendant and Appellant.
F064944
(Super. Ct. No. 12CEJ300006-1)
THE COURT
APPEAL
from orders of the Superior Court of
County. Timothy A. Kams, Judge.
Caitlin
U. Christian, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and
Appellant.
Kevin
Briggs, County Counsel, and William G. Smith, Deputy County Counsel, for
Plaintiff and Respondent.
-ooOoo-
Michelle
E. (mother) appeals from the jurisdictional findings and consequent
dispositional orders that removed her 13-year-old daughter Y.E., 12-year-old
son R.E., and three-year-old son Et. E. (collectively the children) from her
legal and physical custody. Mother
contends the juvenile court erred in finding jurisdiction over the children
pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivision (b).
findings and orders.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Mother,
the children, and their presumed father, Ruben E. (father), came to the
attention of the Fresno County Department
of Social Services (Department) after mother and father were arrested on
various charges following a January 5, 2012, shoplifting incident. On that date, Ralph Cuevas, a loss prevention
officer at a Hanford Wal-Mart, noticed that father and his 16-year-old stepson
Er. P., both of whom Cuevas recognized from a previous theft incident, had a
prepaid phone in their shopping cart.
Cuevas saw father cut the package open with a pocket knife and give the
hard plastic phone cover to Er., which Er. discarded on a shelf. Father concealed the phone, the phone charger
and the instructions, and the two walked out of the store without paying for
the phone, which was valued at $35.
Cuevas called Hanford Police Department Officer Frank Ghiglia to report
the theft. Cuevas approached father
outside the store, but father and Er. ran to a tan-colored car, got in, and
drove away. Father was driving the car,
Er. was in the front passenger seat, and mother and the children were in the
rear seat.
Ghiglia located
the car and followed it. The driver of
the car made an erratic lane change without using a turn signal. Father continued to look back at Ghiglia in
the driver’s side mirror. Father made
another lane change and closely followed the vehicle in front of him, keeping
only about a half a car length between them.
Ghiglia estimated they were traveling at approximately 70 miles per
hour. The car continued to make erratic
movements in the lane. When the car came
to an abrupt stop, three doors opened.
Ghiglia got out of his patrol car.
Knowing the driver was a fleeing felon and fearing the occupants were
trying to run from the car, Ghiglia drew his weapon and ordered them to
stop. Father looked back towards Ghiglia
and cursed and yelled at him for pointing a gun at him. Ghiglia ordered everyone to get back into the
car and close the doors. Father started
throwing objects out of the driver’s side of the car. Other officers arrived to assist. All of the occupants except the children were
handcuffed and placed in the back of patrol vehicles.
Ghiglia
saw a large claw hammer wedged between the driver’s seat and driver’s
door. Two black colored folding knives
protruded from between the center console and the front passenger seat. A cell phone was found wedged between the
rear passenger seats, while the battery, charger and instructions were found in
the passenger side door panel. Cuevas,
who came to the scene, identified the items as being from the discarded
packaging he found at the Wal-Mart.
Cuevas positively identified father and the front passenger, Er., as the
suspects he saw stealing from the store.
Cuevas also identified mother as having been with father, Er. and the
children at the Wal-Mart, and stated the entire family previously had been
caught stealing and fled from him when he was working temporarily at the Selma
Wal-Mart.
Ghiglia
spoke separately with Er., mother and father, after reading them their
from the store. Mother said she did not
know what took place at the Wal-Mart, as she was just sitting with her children
in the parking lot, and she did not understand why their car was stopped. She said that when Ghiglia’s patrol car was
behind their vehicle, father panicked and handed her the cell phone, which she
wedged in the seat. She tried to hide
the phone because she did not want father to get into trouble.
Father,
mother and Er. were arrested. Ghiglia
contacted Child Protective Services (CPS) to report the incident and placed a
protective hold on the children. While
waiting for CPS to arrive, Ghiglia continued to search the car for illegal
items and found 19 gift cards from various stores inside father’s wallet.
The
social worker who responded to the referral interviewed mother and father
separately at the jail. Mother did not
know why father went into the Wal-Mart and father did not know why he was
incarcerated. He claimed he had
vandalized the Wal-Mart, because he was upset with them for not accepting a
return. The social worker also
interviewed Er., who first claimed he did not know where father went while
inside the store, but later admitted he and father were walking around the
store together. He claimed they were
just looking around and left the store without purchasing anything. Er. did not know why they were pulled over.
The
social worker spoke with R. and Y. about the incident, but they did not really
know what happened. They said father and
Er. were inside the Wal-Mart about 20 minutes.
They denied that either father or Er. brought a new item into the
car. They were scared when the police
were chasing them, when the police told them to get out of the car, and when
the Department took them from their parents.
They said that they usually did not go into stores with father and would
stay in the car with mother while father shopped. The children were detained and placed with
their paternal grandmother.
The
Department filed a petition, which was amended twice. The operative petition alleged that the
children came within the provision of section 300, subdivision (b), as they had
suffered, or there was a substantial risk they would suffer, serious physical
harm or illness as a result of the failure or inability of mother and father to
adequately supervise or protect them.
The petition alleged in count b-1 that mother failed to provide adequate
care and supervision for her children on January 5, 2012, in that (1) she
was present in a vehicle father was driving when he put the children in harm’s
way by driving in a reckless manner, failing to yield to a police traffic stop,
and leading police on a high speed chase, (2) she admitted to police that she
aided father by concealing the stolen cell phone in the vehicle to avoid his
arrest, (3) when father drove in a reckless manner, it was to avoid being
arrested for crimes he allegedly committed before the police chase, and (4)
father was arrested for burglary, conspiracy, child endangerment, contributing
to the delinquency of a minor, being under the influence of a controlled
substance, and possession of burglary tools.
The petition alleged in count b-2 that father put the children in harm’s
way with his reckless driving, failing to yield to a police traffic stop, and
leading police on a high speed chase to avoid being arrested.
A
contested jurisdictional hearing was
held. Cuevas testified that when he saw
father walking past him in the Hanford Wal-Mart on the day of the incident, he
recognized father as someone he had dealt with in the Selma Wal-Mart a few
months before. Father had some
merchandise, including a prepaid cell phone package, on the top part of the
shopping cart, which was being pushed by a teenage boy. Father ripped the cell phone package open by
using an object with which he was making a cutting motion and handed parts of
the packaging to the teenager, who placed the parts on a shelf. Father put the phone in his right, front
pocket; he and the teenager left the shopping cart in another part of the
store, and they walked quickly toward the exit.
Cuevas saw the rest of the phone’s empty packaging in the abandoned
cart.
Cuevas
tried to get father’s attention as he and the teenager walked into the parking
lot, but father did not turn around and kept on walking quickly away. The two got into a four door sedan parked in
the lot; Cuevas got a partial license plate number. Father got into the driver’s side, while the
teenager got in on the passenger side.
Cuevas could not see if anyone else was in the car because it had tinted
windows and he was not close enough to see inside.
Cuevas
called Officer Ghiglia twice, once when Cuevas was inside the store and again
when Cuevas was outside. After father’s
car left the parking lot, Cuevas saw a police car follow the car. About 10 to 15 minutes later, Ghiglia
contacted Cuevas and asked him to come to a location in Lemoore. When he got there, Cuevas recognized father
and the teenage boy. He also recognized
mother based on a prior incident that happened in Selma. Ghiglia asked Cuevas to go into the car and
identify the items that had been taken.
Cuevas found the phone’s charger and instructions inside the passenger
side door panel where the teenage boy had been sitting, and the phone wedged in
between the seats in the rear passenger back seat.
Cuevas
testified about the previous contact he had with the family at the Selma
Wal-Mart sometime before September 2011.
Cuevas was on duty when he noticed father, mother, the teenage boy, and
the children, in a toy aisle. The
children were playing around in the aisle.
Cuevas saw father place two to three items that looked like toys in
mother’s purse, which was sitting in the bottom basket of the shopping cart, as
mother watched. The purse was a “good
size purse, like a tote.†The items fit
inside the purse so they could not be seen.
After concealing the items, the family left the aisle, headed toward the
front of the store and purchased some merchandise they had in the shopping
cart. Cuevas did not see them purchase
any of the items that were placed in the purse.
Once the family stepped outside the exit doors, Cuevas approached
mother, identified himself, and asked her if she had paid for the items in her
purse. Mother said she did not know what
he was talking about and kept walking.
The family got into their car, which was the same one he saw on January
5, 2012, and drove out of the parking lot at a higher speed than most cars in
the parking lot. Cuevas contacted the
Selma police department.
The
Department submitted on Cuevas’s testimony, the detention and jurisdiction
reports, along with the various attachments and exhibits that were introduced,
which included photographs of the stolen cell phone and the CLETS report for
the parents.
Mother’s
attorney called Ghiglia as a witness.
Ghiglia started heading toward the Hanford Wal-Mart after receiving a
call from Cuevas, who told him the entire family previously had been caught
stealing and fled from him at the Selma Wal-Mart. When Cuevas called a second time, Ghiglia was
a block away from the store. Ghiglia saw
a vehicle that matched the description Cuevas gave, a four-door sedan, getting
onto the freeway. Ghiglia activated his
emergency lights and siren so he could maneuver safely through an intersection,
but turned them off once he was on the freeway.
A few miles later, he saw the car and followed it, staying two seconds
behind. Since Ghiglia had a student
Explorer in the car with him, he did not pursue the car or pull it over. Instead, he followed the car and waited for
other units to make a traffic stop. The
cars were not going at a high speed.
The two cars
traveled three to four miles before father got off the freeway. During that time, Ghiglia saw father looking
back at him through the driver’s side mirror.
Ghiglia treated father as a fleeing felon because he was told father had
burglarized the Wal-Mart; he did not know anything about father’s criminal
record at that time. Ghiglia saw
silhouettes of the other occupants through the tinted back window, but he could
not tell how many there were, or their ages or sex. Ghiglia saw the car randomly making “small
jerking movements†as he was following it.
The car’s driver, however, was following the rules of the road. Given the time it took Ghiglia to catch up to
the car and the speed he traveled to do so, he believed father’s car had
exceeded the speed limit before he caught up to it. At times, father left less than a two second
gap between himself and the truck in front of him, which Ghiglia considered
dangerous.
Father’s
car exited the freeway. Ghiglia called
for backup. When he saw that the car was
going to stop in front of a house, he activated his emergency lights. As the car stopped abruptly, three of the
car’s doors opened and father got out.
Concerned that the occupants might flee into the house, Ghiglia exited
the patrol car, pulled out his weapon, and pointed it at father. Ghiglia ordered him to get back in the car,
and ordered the car’s occupants to shut the doors and stay inside. Father was very aggressive and hostile; he
was cursing and not complying with commands.
Ghiglia would not have drawn his weapon if everyone had stayed inside
the car.
Once
the occupants complied, Ghiglia ordered them out one at a time. Ten to 15 seconds after making the stop,
backup units from the Lemoore and Hanford police departments, as well as the
sheriff’s department, arrived; there were a total of five or six officers. Mother had been sitting in the car’s rear
right seat; the children also had been sitting in the rear seat. After Ghiglia told mother the stolen phone
was found wedged where she was seated, she said she did not know how the phone
got there. When Ghiglia told her it would
be physically impossible for father to reach back and wedge the phone in the
seats, mother said she would be truthful and admitted that at some point after
Ghiglia pulled up behind them on the freeway, father said they were going to
arrest him and passed her the phone, which she tried to hide. Mother could not tell him why the family had
gone to the Wal-Mart or what they intended to purchase there, and claimed that
father did not tell her why they were there.
She said she stayed in the car with the children. Ghiglia had the car impounded because father
was driving on a suspended license.
The
children were frightened and upset. At
one point, 12-year-old R. was crying; Ghiglia asked 13-year-old Y. to try to
console him. Father was not trying to
console the children. Ghiglia believed
father was under the influence of a controlled substance, as he exhibited
extreme agitation, sweating, rapid speech, rapid eye flutter and rapid
pulse. Father was arrested for being
under the influence, burglary, conspiracy, child cruelty or endangerment,
contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and possession of burglary
tools. The child cruelty or endangerment
charge was based on father’s actions at the traffic stop, which caused Ghiglia
to draw his weapon for his own safety, and because small children were
unbuckled in the back seat. While
Ghiglia was not able to see if the children were buckled in, it would be
mathematically impossible for all of them to have seat belts on since the back
seat had three seat belts and there were four people sitting there. Therefore, Ghiglia concluded the seat belts
could not have been used properly. A
child seat was in the back seat, which Ghiglia believed was fastened in with
one of the car’s seat belts. Ghiglia
discovered 19 gift cards in father’s wallet, which he testified could be
obtained by returning stolen property and getting cash back in the form of a
gift or debit card. Ghiglia saw the
family leaving the court’s parking lot after the morning court session; father,
whose license was suspended, was driving the car, which looked similar to the
car in the January 5 incident. Social
worker Micah Curtis, who had been assigned to the case three weeks before the
hearing, also testified. He agreed that,
based on Officer Ghiglia’s testimony, father did yield to the police traffic
stop and did not lead the police officer on a high speed chase. In Curtis’s opinion, involving children in
felony criminal activity is not appropriate care.
Mother and
father had each completed an Addiction Severity Index (ASI) assessment. During the assessment, mother reported that
she had been charged with shoplifting/vandalism three times, which resulted in
convictions, and she had been incarcerated three months in her life. Father told his assessor that he has an anger
problem when he feels threatened, takes medical marijuana and has used cannabis
for four years and cocaine for 13 years, and that he has a valid driver’s
license. The assessor reported that
father was very evasive when answering questions regarding substance abuse and
appeared to minimize such abuse. Father
said he had been charged with shoplifting/vandalism once, drug charges twice,
weapons offenses twice, burglary and larceny once, and assault once, but
claimed none of these resulted in convictions.
Father said he had been incarcerated 60 months in his life. Father denied stealing anything from the
Wal-Mart and thought the police over-exaggerated things by following him and
arresting him and Er. in the presence of mother and the children. The assessor recommended father complete an
intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment program and that father
participate in a domestic violence assessment due to his quick temper.
Curtis had
reviewed the CLETS reports for mother and father. Father’s report showed the following
convictions: (1) 2001 – the sale of marijuana/hash and driving without a
license; (2) 2002 – possession of marijuana for sale; (3) 2003 – evading a
police officer and disregarding safety; (4) 2006 – assault with a firearm on a
person, possession of a controlled substance while armed, and a prison
enhancement, for which father was sentenced to five years, eight months in
prison; and (5) 2011 – giving false information to a peace officer and hit and
run/death or injury.
After hearing
argument, the juvenile court issued its ruling.
The court rejected the “suggestion†in the second amended petition that
a high speed chase occurred on January 5, 2012, but found the parents did
not protect the children adequately and placed the children at risk of serious
harm through their actions. The court considered
all of the evidence in support of the petition, which included: mother’s
criminal history, which is replete with multiple theft convictions; the theft
offense at the Selma Wal-Mart involving both parents in the children’s
presence, which alerted Cuevas to father’s and Er.’s activities in the Hanford
Wal-Mart; even though there was not a high speed chase, there was reckless
driving which included speeding and following another vehicle very closely
within a two second count on the highway; father’s actions once he stopped the
car compounded the reckless driving and caused the officer to draw his gun; and
the traffic stop was not routine, but was a high risk felony traffic stop which
caused weapons to be drawn and placed the children in grave danger. The court found the parents engaged in a
pattern of conduct with the children present which certainly called for police
action and endangered their safety and well being. Accordingly, the court found jurisdiction
under section 300, subdivision (b), and found both counts of the second amended
petition true.
The Department
subsequently recommended the children remain placed with their paternal
grandmother, and mother and father be given family reunification services. At the dispositional hearing, the juvenile
court found the children were described under section 300, subdivision (b),
made them dependents, ordered their removal from mother’s and father’s custody,
and gave mother and father reunification services.
Mother
contends insufficient evidence exists
to support the juvenile court’s findings that the children are dependents of
the court pursuant to section 300, subdivision (b) (failure to protect).
Standard of Review
“When the
sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding or order is challenged on
appeal . . . , the reviewing court must determine if there is any substantial
evidence – that is, evidence which is reasonable, credible and of solid value –
to support the conclusion of the trier of fact.
[Citations.] In making this
determination, we recognize that all conflicts are to be resolved in favor of
the prevailing party and that issues of fact and credibility are questions for
the trier of fact. [Citations.] The reviewing court may not reweigh the
evidence when assessing the sufficiency of the evidence.†(In re
Jasmine C. (1999) 70 Cal.App.4th 71, 75.)
“If there is any substantial evidence, contradicted or uncontradicted,
which will support the judgment, we must affirm.†(In re
Tracy Z. (1987) 195 Cal.App.3d 107, 113.)
“At a
jurisdictional hearing, the juvenile court ‘“shall first consider . . . whether the minor is a person described
by Section 300, and for this purpose, any matter or information relevant and
material to the circumstances or acts which are alleged to bring him or her
within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court is admissible and may be received
in evidence. However, proof by a
preponderance of evidence, legally admissible in the trial of civil cases must
be adduced to support a finding that the minor is a person described by Section
300.â€â€™ [Citation.] [¶]
‘While evidence of past conduct may be probative of current conditions,
the question under section 300 is whether circumstances at the time of the
hearing subject the minor to the defined risk of harm.’ [Citation.]
Thus previous acts of neglect, standing alone, do not establish a
substantial risk of harm; there must be some reason beyond mere speculation to
believe they will reoccur.†(
552, 564-565 (Ricardo L.).)
The Section 300, Subdivision (b) Finding
The juvenile
court found jurisdiction under section 300, subdivision (b). As relevant here, that subdivision provides a
minor comes within the juvenile court’s jurisdiction if: “The child has suffered, or there is a
substantial risk that the child will suffer, serious physical harm or illness,
as a result of the failure or inability of her or her parent . . . to
adequately supervise or protect the child, . . .†As this court has explained, “[t]he statutory
definition consists of three elements:
(1) neglectful conduct by the parent of one of the specific forms; (2)
causation; and (3) ‘serious physical harm or illness’ to the child, or a
‘substantial risk’ of such harm of illness.â€
(Ricardo L.,
that there was a substantial risk the children would suffer serious physical
harm or illness because (1) father may have sped and closely followed
another car, and (2) the parents stole.
She asserts there was insufficient evidence to support the finding that
father drove in a reckless manner, argues speeding is an insufficient basis for
dependency jurisdiction, and argues that while stealing may constitute a lapse
of judgment, it “does not generally pose a substantial risk the children will
suffer serious physical harm.â€
Where a petition
is sustained based on several allegations, each allegation need not
independently support jurisdiction; the court can take jurisdiction on evidence
of a “pattern of behavior†resulting in a substantial risk of harm to the
children. (In re Kristin H. (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1635, 1650.) Here, considering the allegations that the
children were put in harm’s way when father drove in a reckless manner with the
children in the vehicle to avoid arrest, mother concealed the stolen cellular
phone in the vehicle to help father avoid arrest, and father and mother were
both arrested on a variety of charges, including child endangerment, we find
substantial record evidence to support the juvenile court’s conclusion that the
parents’ pattern of conduct endangered the children’s safety and well being,
placing them at substantial risk of physical harm. (See In
re Cheryl E. (1984) 161 Cal.App.3d 587, 600 [we consider all the
allegations in the petition in context and as a whole in reviewing the juvenile
court’s findings].)
This pattern is
exemplified by mother’s criminal history, which included multiple shoplifting
convictions, the theft at the Selma Wal-Mart in which both mother and father
participated in the children’s presence, the theft at the Hanford Wal-Mart, and
the 19 gift cards that suggest father engaged in other shoplifting
incidents. These incidents show a
pattern of criminal behavior that placed the children at risk of serious
physical harm, as evidenced by father’s behavior following the theft of the
cellular phone – he sped away from the scene with the children in the back
seat, drove in an erratic manner while Ghiglia followed him in the patrol car,
and, when Ghiglia drew his weapon as father got out of the car, father became
belligerent. The totality of father’s
behavior placed the children in grave danger.
Contrary to mother’s assertions, the risk of physical harm was not based
solely on father’s reckless driving or solely on his or mother’s thefts, but
rather on the sequence of events, which culminated in father’s and mother’s
arrests, and together endangered the children.
Mother
characterizes the theft and ensuing traffic stop as a “lapse in judgment,†and
asserts there is no evidence to show that, even if the traffic stop placed the
children at risk of harm, that event was likely to reoccur. She argues jurisdiction improperly was based
on this isolated instance of past conduct which cannot be used to establish a
risk of future abuse, citing In re J.N. (2010) 181 Cal.App.4th 1010 (J.N.)
and In re B.T. (2011) 193 Cal.App.4th 685 (B.T.), in which the
appellate courts reversed the juvenile court’s jurisdictional findings. Both
cases are clearly distinguishable.
In J.N., the children were injured
when their intoxicated parents were involved in an automobile accident. (J.N., supra, 181 Cal.App.4th at pp.
1014–1015.) The appellate court reversed
the juvenile court’s assertion of jurisdiction because there was no evidence
that the parents otherwise abused or neglected their children, nor was there a
finding that the parents had an ongoing substance abuse problem. In addition, the parents recognized their
harmful conduct and were remorseful. (Id.
at pp. 1022, 1026.)
In B.T., the juvenile court found the
child was at risk of sexual abuse and neglect because the child was the product
of a sexual relationship between the mother, who was an adult, and her
neighbor’s son, who was a minor. (B.T.,
supra, 193 Cal.App.4th at p. 687.)
Apart from the mother’s poor judgment in having sexual relations with a
minor, the mother in B.T. had an exemplary track record of childrearing,
had no prior criminal record, there was no evidence of any past abuse of her
other children, and there was no evidence that her lapses in judgment would
continue. (Id. at pp. 687,
692–693.) The Court of Appeal reversed
because there was no evidence the child had been injured, and mother’s unlawful
sexual relationship with a minor did not constitute evidence that she would
sexually abuse the child. (Id. at
pp. 694–696.)
In contrast to these cases, here the record
contains substantial evidence that, at the time of the jurisdictional hearing
and as a result of mother’s and father’s failure to adequately supervise and
protect the children, the children were at risk of serious physical harm. While juvenile court jurisdiction may not be
justified by isolated instances of neglect or abuse (see J.N., supra, 181
Cal.App.4th at p. 1025), we disagree that jurisdiction in this case was based
on an isolated incident. The parents had
a history of committing thefts while the children were in their custody. As shown by the sequence of events that
occurred on January 5, 2012, engaging in such behavior can place the children
at serious risk of physical harm should police pursue them or store security
personnel intervene. The juvenile court
reasonably could find, without speculation, that the children could again be
placed in harm’s way given mother’s and father’s criminal histories and their
willingness to involve the children in their criminal conduct.
Mother asserts
it was a series of misinterpretations on Ghiglia’s part that ultimately led him
to draw his weapon and the response was unreasonable given that father stole
only a $35 cell phone. She reasons that,
even if she and father stole again, it is unlikely a high risk traffic stop
would ensue since the responding officer would have to engage in a “series of
misinterpretations†that would cause the officer to believe the situation posed
a significant threat. The juvenile
court, however, specifically found that it was father’s actions that caused
Ghiglia to draw his weapon. This finding
is supported by the evidence. Accordingly,
mother’s argument essentially asks us to reweigh the evidence, which we cannot
do. (In
re Walter E. (1992) 13 Cal.App.4th 125, 139-140.) Moreover, it is not necessary that the exact
same harm can occur, but only that the children are at risk of the same type of
harm. (In re Savannah M. (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 1387, 1393-1394 (
with the children present can subject them to potential harm from bystanders,
police, or security personnel. It is
this type of harm that the juvenile court reasonably could find was likely to
reoccur.
The ultimate
test is whether it is reasonable for the juvenile court to make the ruling in
question in light of the whole record. (
pp. 1393-1394.) Even if the evidence is
not overwhelming, given the deference that must be accorded to a juvenile
court’s factual findings, there was substantial evidence to support the
jurisdictional finding of a substantial risk of serious harm pursuant to
section 300, subdivision (b). (
155, 169.)
DISPOSITION
The
jurisdictional findings and dispositional orders are affirmed.
Detjen, J.
references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.
