In re Interest of R.H.W.

542 S.W.3d 724
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 9, 2018
DocketNO. 14–17–00217–CV
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 542 S.W.3d 724 (In re Interest of R.H.W.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Interest of R.H.W., 542 S.W.3d 724 (Tex. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

Ken Wise, Justice

In this accelerated appeal from a final decree of divorce terminating appellant's parental rights to his four children, appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the predicate grounds *729for termination and the finding that termination is in the children's best interest. Appellant also contends that the trial court abused its discretion by considering hearsay testimony and by refusing to admit appellant's psychological evaluation after appellee allegedly "opened the door." Lastly, appellant contends that the trial court improperly awarded child support to the children's amicus attorney after terminating appellant's parental rights. We modify the judgment and affirm as modified.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The parties to the divorce will be referred to as "Father" and "Mother" for purposes of this opinion. Father and Mother were married in 2004, and they had four children during the marriage: R.H.W. III (R.H.W.), M.H.W., K.H.W., and T.H.W. Father and Mother stopped living together in July 2014, allegedly when all four children made outcries to Mother that they had been sexually abused by Father. Mother filed for divorce in January 2015.

Father, then a doctor pursuing a medical residency, was arrested in January 2016 on four felony sexual-abuse charges. Contemporaneously, the criminal district court in which the cases were pending issued a "no contact" order prohibiting Father from any contact with the children. Father's medical license was suspended, as was his residency.

A trial was held before the court over three days in December 2016. At the time, Father had not yet gone to trial on the criminal offenses.1 The trial court appointed an amicus attorney to assist the court in protecting the best interest of the children.

Mother testified that she was seeking a divorce from Father on the grounds of adultery and cruelty towards her and the children, and that she was also requesting that Father's parental rights be terminated. Mother explained that she decided to seek a divorce in 2014, when she found out that Father sexually abused the children.

Mother first became suspicious in July 2014, when T.H.W., then about three years old, told Mother that Father touched her "right here" while pointing to her vaginal area. Mother confronted Father, but he denied doing anything like that and told her that he only touched the children to wash them during bath time. Mother initially believed Father's explanation.

Later, when the children began to appear afraid of Father and "things were just not feeling right," Mother asked Father what was going on. According to Mother, Father "broke down" and admitted that he would watch pornography and then get the children out of their rooms at night and have them touch one another. Father also would touch them. Father said that he would get erections when their daughter sat on his lap. Father also told Mother that when he did not get what he was looking for from the children, he would come to Mother "as a last resort." Father wrote letters to each of the children in which he apologized to them for letting them down as a father. Father acknowledged "inappropriate touching" and described it as "wrong," "unacceptable," and "illegal." Father also apologized for hurting, bullying, and intimidating the children. In one of the letters, Father stated, "What I have done to you is unacceptable and downright evil." In another, Father stated, "You and your brother and sisters could be taken away, with me being sent to jail." Mother testified that the letters confirmed *730to her that Father sexually abused the children.

Mother testified that she contacted Child Protective Services (CPS) about the abuse and an investigator came to the home to interview her. Additionally, each of the children had forensic interviews at the Children's Assessment Center. After the interviews, Mother stated that she was advised to take the children to a therapist. Mother testified that, since that time, the children have been seeing a therapist regularly.

CPS also referred the cases to the district attorney's office, and criminal charges were subsequently brought against Father. The criminal complaints in evidence alleged the following felony offenses against Father: (1) super-aggravated sexual assault of a child under six years of age for intentionally and knowingly causing the penetration of the anus of M.H.W. with Father's finger; (2) indecency with a child by touching the anus of T.H.W. with the intent to arouse and gratify the sexual desire of Father; (3) indecency with a child by touching the genitals of K.H.W. with the intent to arouse and gratify the sexual desire of Father; and (4) continuous sexual abuse of a child by committing acts of indecency by contact against R.H.W. in 2011 and 2013.

Mother testified that the children were having behavioral problems which she believed resulted from Father's abuse. She also explained that when Father's arrest was publicized in the news, she received calls and messages from people asking about it. Because their last name was uncommon and an internet search of it would reveal the charges against Father, Mother wanted the children to be given new names. Mother stated that the children already had chosen the names they wanted.

Mother stated that she had not allowed Father to have unsupervised visits with the children since he admitted what he had done. Mother believed that Father's inappropriate touching, as described in his letters, placed the children in a dangerous environment. Mother testified that the children were traumatized and scarred by the sexual molestation, and she stated that it would devastate them to remain connected to the man who molested them. Mother believed that Father had endangered the children's physical and emotional well-being by sexually molesting them. In Mother's opinion, it would be in the children's best interest for Father's parental rights to be terminated.

On cross-examination, Mother admitted that she never saw Father sexually abuse any of the children, and she did not suspect abuse until the children made outcries to her in 2014. According to Mother, after Father admitted abusing the children, he repeatedly apologized to her. Mother told him to apologize to the children rather than to her and to put it in writing, and that is when Father brought her the letters he wrote to the children. Mother denied telling Father to write the letters so that she could use them in the divorce proceedings for settlement, and denied telling Father the details to write. Mother acknowledged, however, that she did not give the letters to the children to read, nor did she read them to the children.

The children's therapist, Carol Sepulveda, also testified. Father objected to Sepulveda testifying as an expert, and the trial court sustained the objection because Mother had not designated Sepulveda as an expert witness. Thus, Sepulveda was permitted to testify as a fact witness only.

Over Father's objection, Sepulveda stated that she was seeing the children "because they had been sexually abused." Sepulveda testified that R.H.W., the oldest *731child, told her that Father started sexually molesting him at the age of three, and that Father also had the children molest one another in his presence. R.H.W. said it began when Father was bathing him and would start to fondle him. R.H.W.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
542 S.W.3d 724, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-interest-of-rhw-texapp-2018.