S.F. v. Super. Ct.
Filed 1/2/13 S.F. v. Super. Ct. CA5
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits
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FIFTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
S.F.,
Petitioner,
v.
THE
SUPERIOR COURT OF STANISLAUS COUNTY,
Respondent;
STANISLAUS
COUNTY COMMUNITY SERVICES AGENCY,
Real Party in Interest.
F065720
(Super. Ct. Nos. 515849, 515850 & 515851)
O P I N I
O N
THE COURT
ORIGINAL
PROCEEDINGS; petition for
Kimberly
C. Ayers for Petitioner.
No
appearance for Respondent.
John
P. Doering, County Counsel, and Maria E. Ratliff, Deputy County Counsel, for
Real Party in Interest.
-ooOoo-
>
Sandra seeks an
rule 8.452 (rule)) from the juvenile court’s orders issued at a contested
18-month review hearing terminating reunification services and setting a
Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26
youngest children, eight-year-old I.P., six-year-old A.P., and five-year-old
M.P. We deny the petition.
PROCEDURAL AND FACTUAL SUMMARY
Dependency
proceedings were initiated in this case in August 2010. At that time, Sandra and her boyfriend,
Joseph P., were living with Sandra’s four children from prior relationships;
her 16-year-old daughter, A.G., 13-year-old son, F.F., 11-year-old daughter,
M.F., and 7-year-old son, A.F.; as well as her three children with Joseph, then
6- and 3-year-old sons, I.P. and M.P. respectively and their 4-year-old
daughter, A.P.
In August 2010,
the juvenile court detained all seven children pursuant to a dependency
petition filed by the Stanislaus County
Community Services Agency (agency) alleging that Joseph sexually molested
11-year-old M.F. since she was about five or six years of age and that M.F.
told Sandra about the molestation in June or July of 2009. Shortly thereafter, Joseph moved out of the
family home but returned two days later, where he remained. Sandra both admitted and denied being told
about the molestation.
In December
2010, the juvenile court exercised its dependency jurisdiction over A.G., I.P.,
M.P. and A.P. and ordered reunification services for Sandra and Joseph. The juvenile court ordered Sandra to
participate in individual counseling,
sexual abuse counseling, complete medication and mental assessments, comply
with all recommendations, and sign a release of medical information form
allowing the agency to communicate with her healthcare providers. The juvenile court ordered F.F., M.F. and
A.F. into the care of their father, Felix, and granted him sole legal and
physical custody. The agency placed A.G.
in one foster home and I.P., M.P. and A.P. together in another.
Over the next 10
months, Sandra resisted participating in her court-ordered services. She missed individual counseling sessions and
stated she did not need to address issues in counseling. She refused to undergo a medication
assessment, had not begun sexual abuse counseling or provided the agency
authorization to receive medical information.
Joseph was even less compliant.
Consequently, in its report for the 12-month review hearing, the agency
recommended that the juvenile court terminate services for both parents.
In
December 2011, at the 12-month review hearing, the juvenile court terminated
Joseph’s reunification services but continued services for Sandra to the 18-month
review hearing, which the court set for February 2012. The juvenile court also ordered the agency to
prepare an updated case plan. The
following day, the agency filed an updated case plan, which in part required
Sandra to complete a psychotropic medication assessment and follow all
recommendations, complete a sexual abuse counseling program to learn how to
protect the children from sexual abuse, participate in individual counseling to
address the molestation disclosures, sign a waiver for release of medical
information, and apply to be fingerprinted through Live Scan for completion of
a criminal record check.
In
March 2012, the juvenile court relieved Sandra’s court-appointed attorney,
Catherine Hallinan, and appointed Kimberly Ayers as counsel for Sandra.
In
May 2012, the agency filed its report for the 18-month review hearing. It recommended that the juvenile court
terminate services for Sandra and conduct a section 366.26 hearing to implement
a permanent plan of adoption for I.P., M.P. and A.P. The agency also recommended that the juvenile
court retain its jurisdiction over A.G. when she reached the age of majority
that same month.
The agency
further reported that Sandra had weekly supervised visitation with the children
and the visits appeared to go well but the agency did not recommend advancing
to unsupervised visitation. In addition,
the agency reported that Sandra did not accept that Joseph molested M.F.,
blamed everyone else for her problems, and was resistant to treatment. The agency was very concerned that Sandra
would not protect her children from further abuse or neglect.
In June 2012,
Ms. Ayers faxed a witness list and offer of proof to counsel for the 18-month
review hearing. The witness list
included Sandra’s former attorney, Ms. Hallinan, who, according to Ms. Ayers,
would testify regarding the social worker’s communications concerning
reunification services offered, rendered and promised, but not received. In response, Deputy County Counsel Maria
Ratliff filed a motion to exclude Ms. Hallinan’s testimony.
On July 16,
2012, the juvenile court convened the contested 18-month review hearing. That same day, Ms. Ayers filed a motion to
exclude Ms. Ratliff from the proceedings arguing that she had a conflict in
that she represented Felix at the beginning of the case before she joined the
Office of the County Counsel. The
juvenile court denied the motion, allowing Ms. Ratliff to proceed as lead
counsel for the agency.
The 18-month
review hearing was conducted over 12 days and concluded at the end of August
2012. Ms. Ayers argued that the agency
failed to provide Sandra reasonable services and asked the juvenile court to
continue the services. The juvenile
court, however, declined to do so.
Instead, the court found that Sandra was provided reasonable services
and made fair progress. The court
specifically commented on Sandra’s delay in initiating services and her
therapist’s testimony that she had not completed sexual abuse counseling and
still had a lot of work to do. The court
also terminated Sandra’s reunification services and set a section 366.26
hearing. This petition ensued.
DISCUSSION
By her writ
petition, Sandra seeks an order from this court directing the juvenile court to
vacate the section 366.26 hearing and to issue an order continuing
reunification services. In a single
heading, Sandra contends that the juvenile court erred in failing to find a
conflict of interest and in terminating reunification
services because she was making progress in her case plan and completed
most of the case plan objectives. Other
than state the conflict of interest issue, however, Sandra did not make any
argument with respect to it.
Consequently, we deem it to be without foundation and abandoned. (Berger
v. Godden (1985) 163 Cal.App.3d 1113, 1119-1120.)
As far as
Sandra’s contention with respect to her progress, we could also deem it
abandoned because, though she devoted almost two pages discussing it, she did
not frame it as a legal argument or cite any legal authority. Instead, she cited portions of the appellate
record that support her claim. In this
case, we will exercise our discretion to liberally construe the petition (rule
8.452(a)(1)) and address the only means by which the juvenile court could have
continued reunification services for Sandra; that is by finding there was a
substantial probability the children could be returned to her custody after
another period of services.
Substantial Probability of Return
Section 361.5,
subdivision (a)(4) sets forth the time limitations on reunification services as
relevant here:
“[C]ourt-ordered services may be
extended up to a maximum time period not to exceed 24 months after the date the
child was originally removed from physical custody of his or her parent or
guardian if it is shown, at the hearing held pursuant to subdivision (b) of
Section 366.22, that the permanent plan for the child is that he or she will be
returned and safely maintained in the home within the extended time period. The court shall extend the time period only if
it finds that it is in the child’s best interest to have the time period
extended and that there is a substantial probability that the child will be
returned to the physical custody of his or her parent … who is described in
subdivision (b) of Section 366.22 within the extended time period, or that
reasonable services have not been provided to the parent .…â€
Section 366.22, subdivision (b)
(subdivision (b)) describes such a parent as one “who is making significant and
consistent progress in a court-ordered residential substance abuse treatment
program, or a parent recently discharged from incarceration or
institutionalization and making significant and consistent progress in
establishing a safe home for the child’s return .…â€
In the present
case, Sandra is not a parent described in subdivision (b) as she was not
court-ordered to participate in residential substance abuse treatment nor was
she discharged from incarceration or institutionalization during the reunification
period. Consequently, the juvenile court
lacked statutory authority to continue reunification services for Sandra beyond
the 18-month review hearing.
Further, the
juvenile court did not abuse its discretion under section 352, subdivision (a)
in deciding not to continue the 18-month review hearing so as to afford Sandra
additional time to reunify. Subdivision
(a) grants the juvenile court discretion to continue any dependency hearing
beyond the time limit within which the hearing is otherwise required to be
conducted on a showing of good cause as long as a continuance is not contrary
to the minor’s interest. (§ 352,
subd. (a).) In this case, Sandra failed
to show good cause for continuing the hearing.
Instead, what she demonstrated was that despite 18 months of services,
she had not progressed in sexual abuse counseling to the point that she could
protect her children from further abuse or neglect. Thus, we find no abuse of discretion in the
juvenile court’s order terminating Sandra’s reunification services and deny the
petition.
DISPOSITION
The petition for
extraordinary writ is denied. This
opinion is final forthwith as to this court.
and Gomes, J.
further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless
otherwise indicated.
