1 Filed 5/2/17 In re K.J. CA4/2 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO In re K.J. et al., Persons Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. RIVERSIDE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SOCIAL SERVICES, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. R.J., Defendant and Appellant. E066639 (Super.Ct.No. SWJ1400775) OPINION APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Timothy F. Freer, Judge. Affirmed. Jacob I. Olson, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Gregory P. Priamos, County Counsel, James E. Brown, Guy B. Pittman and Carole Nunes Fong, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent. 2 Defendant and appellant R.J. (Father) is the father of K.J., who was two-and-a-half years old on the date of the challenged order. Father appeals from the juvenile court’s order declining to return K.J. to him on family maintenance at the 18-month review hearing held on July 26, 2016. We affirm. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY On September 22, 2014, law enforcement and the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) responded to the home of K.J.’s mother (Mother) after receiving reports of domestic violence. K.J. was 10 months old. In the home also were K.J.’s two half siblings, ages two-and-a-half and four-and-a-half.1 Mother was under the influence of methamphetamine. Mother admitted to using methamphetamine on a daily basis while she cared for her three children. Mother’s live-in boyfriend had hit her in the face and choked her earlier in the day, in full view of the children. Mother stated K.J.’s Father was incarcerated as the result of a domestic violence incident that took place in February 2014. The social worker took the children into custody. Mother was arrested for child endangerment and being under the influence. On September 24, 2014, DPSS filed a petition under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300. 2 Allegations against Father included that he had an extensive violent criminal history dating back to 2005, with convictions related to domestic violence, 1 Father is not the father of K.J.’s half siblings. Only K.J. is the subject of this appeal. 2 Section references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated. 3 criminal threats, dissuading a witness, battery, assault with a deadly weapon and drug possession, and he was currently incarcerated thereby placing K.J. at risk of abuse and neglect (§ 300, subd. (b)), and that Father’s current incarceration left him unable to provide K.J. with care and support (§ 300, subd. (g)). A first amended petition filed December 10, 2014, contained the same allegations. At the detention hearing held September 25, 2014, the court ordered the children detained. The court found Father to be K.J.’s presumed father. The jurisdiction and disposition hearing was held on December 10, 2014. The court took jurisdiction of K.J., granted Father reunification services, and authorized Father to have visits with K.J. once he was released from prison in “a month or two.” The children were placed together in a foster care home. Father was released from prison on February 16, 2015. He moved in with Mother and obtained full-time employment. Father reported he was taking medication for epilepsy and had been diagnosed with ADHD, for which he was not being treated. Father made multiple telephone calls and left voicemails for the father of one of K.J.’s half siblings. The other father called Father’s social worker and asked to have Father stop calling, as he would call at all hours and rant about the other father not getting back his son. The social worker listened to three voicemails that confirmed this report. On May 22, 2015, Father and Mother met with the social worker and a supervisor about the progress of the case. Father became very upset when asked about the telephone calls and stated he had made only two calls. Father demanded to hear the voicemails and became combative, so that the supervisor had to intervene to get Father to calm down. Father and 4 Mother both denied that they had engaged in domestic violence previously. Father stated he was convicted in February 2014 and spent a year in jail only because he had pled guilty; if he had gone to trial the charges would have been “thrown out.” The six-month review hearing was held on July 14, 2015. The court continued K.J. a dependent of the court and ordered Father to undergo a psychological evaluation. In September of 2015, K.J. was moved to the home of a maternal aunt and uncle in Reno. She was doing well there and enjoying Skype visits with Father and Mother. The uncle reported that Father was always appropriate in his visits with K.J. Father eventually took part in a psychological evaluation. The doctor recommended caution in proceeding with reunification, describing Father as having low empathy for others, being impulsive, irritable and aggressive, and unlikely to change or be amendable to treatment. The social worker described receiving complaints about Father’s unstable, angry behaviors from other social workers, clerical staff, the previous foster parents, both fathers of Mother’s other children, and the receptionist at another psychologist’s office, and found those complaints to be consistent with Father’s behavior toward the social worker. The supervising social worker advised her not to meet with Father alone because of his threatening, angry and intimidating behavior. In late November 2015, Mother gave birth to another child (C.J.) with Father. The parents did not inform the social worker, moved to another address, and refused to cooperate when contacted by DPSS. Father told a social worker that he would “flip the fuck out” on any law enforcement officer who would come to his home to take the new baby. “If you guys are going to take my kid away from me, I’ll do what I have to do, I’ll 5 go back to prison if necessary.” Although Mother took C.J. out of state for a short time, the child was eventually detained and placed in foster care. The maternal aunt and uncle reported difficulties in arranging the usual Skype calls between the parents and K.J. after December 25, 2015. By January 25, 2016, they described Father as having “completely gone out of control.” Father was getting into verbal confrontations with the maternal family, harassing the foster mother at work, texting her and calling the home repeatedly and at all hours. They were attempting to get a restraining order against Father. The aunt warned the social worker that Father would “go off the deep end” if they closed his dependency case. Father told the social worker he planned to move to North Carolina for a job and that “I am washing my hands of this case.” Father moved to North Carolina in early March 2016. Father’s angry and threatening interactions with others continued via long distance. On May 5, 2016, the maternal aunt who was caring for K.J. told the social worker that Father had been calling police to conduct welfare checks on K.J. on a weekly basis. More concerning, Father told the aunt that he was saving his money to pay a former jail inmate $5,000 to kill the aunt. As a result, the aunt did not feel comfortable having K.J. in her care and thought she would be better off in a confidential foster home. On May 10, 2016, Father called the social worker 15 minutes before a scheduled Skype visit with C.J. Father was very angry about not getting in-person visits and became progressively angrier. The social worker attempted to calm him down and stated she needed to arrange for the Skype visit. Father raised his voice further, refused to calm down, and called the social worker a vulgar name. The social worker did not believe 6 C.J., a six-month-old child, would benefit from a Skype visit while Father was so angry and hostile, so she hung up the phone. Father called back and called the receptionist a vulgar name. Father was angry with Mother, so he posted explicit photos of her on Facebook, including her telephone number, and sent them to DPSS. On a Skype visit with C.J. on May 17, 2016, father became frustrated and called the facilitating social worker vulgar names, which resulted in the visit being terminated. The continued 12-month review hearing was held on May 24, 2016. The court placed K.J. with Mother on family maintenance. The court on its own motion suspended Father’s visitation, stating, “for the . . . emotional and physical safety of [K.J. and C.J.], that it’s destructive right now, and that there’s absolutely no benefit for father to have any visits right now in the state that he’s in.” The 18-month review hearing was held on July 26, 2016. The court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the return of K.J. to Father would create a substantial risk of detriment to her safety, protection and physical well-being. The court terminated Father’s reunification services and ordered ongoing family maintenance services for Mother. This appeal followed.3 3 Father also filed a notice of appeal from the court’s order at this hearing granting the DPSS petition under section 388 to reduce Father’s visits with C.J. to once a month. Father did not address the reduction of visits with C.J. in his opening or reply briefs. Therefore, we do not address these issues. 7 DISCUSSION Father argues insufficient evidence supports the court’s finding that returning K.J. to Father’s custody could create a substantial risk of detriment, and that she should have been returned to him on family maintenance. Section 366.22, subdivision (a), provides in relevant part: “[T]he court shall order the return of the child to the physical custody of his or her parent or legal guardian unless the court finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the return of the child to his or her parent or legal guardian would create a substantial risk of detriment to the safety, protection, or physical or emotional well-being of the child. The social worker shall have the burden of establishing that detriment. . . . The failure of the parent or legal guardian to participate regularly and make substantive progress in court-ordered treatment programs shall be prima facie evidence that return would be detrimental. In making its determination, the court shall review and consider the social worker’s report and recommendations and . . . the efforts or progress, or both, demonstrated by the parent.” “Appellate justices review a respondent court’s decision after a section 366.22 ruling as follows: ‘Evidence sufficient to support the court’s finding “must be ‘reasonable in nature, credible, and of solid value; it must actually be “substantial” proof of the essentials which the law requires in a particular case.’ ” [Citation.] “Where, as here, a discretionary power is inherently or by express statute vested in the trial judge, his or her exercise of that wide discretion must not be disturbed on appeal except on a showing that the court exercised its discretion in an arbitrary, capricious or patently absurd manner that resulted in a manifest miscarriage of justice. [Citations.]” 8 [Citations.]’ [Citations.] In the presence of substantial evidence, appellate justices are without the power to reweigh conflicting evidence and alter a dependency court determination.” (Constance K. v. Superior Court (1998) 61 Cal.App.4th 689, 705.) In this case, substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s ruling that returning K.J. to Father’s care would create a substantial risk of detriment to K.J.’s safety, protection, or physical or emotional well-being. Although the court had ordered Father to participate in domestic abuse and anger management services, his extreme and continued inability to control his anger showed that he had not benefited from these services and this placed K.J. at substantial risk should she be returned to his care. The record is rife with instances of Father cursing at and threatening the various people with whom he came into contact, to the extent that the social workers on more than one occasion deemed it detrimental for Father to interact with C.J. by Skype. The author of the psychological evaluation deemed Father unlikely to benefit from services to the extent he would be able to care for his children, and Father’s subsequent behavior validated that prediction. Father never demonstrated insight or new skills to assist him in providing K.J. with a safe and stable home and family life. His failure to successfully participate in services placed K.J. at risk of physical and emotional harm. Based on the above, we find that substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s finding that the return of K.J. to father’s custody would create a substantial risk of detriment to her. 9 DISPOSITION The court’s orders are affirmed. NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS RAMIREZ P. J. We concur: MILLER J. FIELDS J.