In the Interest of J.S., Minor Child

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: January 9, 2025
• Docket: 24-1542
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-1542 Filed January 9, 2025

IN THE INTEREST OF J.S., Minor Child,

J.S., Father, Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Lynn Poschner, Judge.

A father appeals the termination of parental rights to his child. AFFIRMED.

Cathleen J. Siebrecht of Siebrecht Law Firm, Pleasant Hill, for appellant

father.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Michelle R. Becker, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee State.

Erin E. Romar of Youth Law Center, Des Moines, attorney and guardian ad

litem for minor child.

Considered by Greer, P.J., and Buller and Langholz, JJ. 2

BULLER, Judge.

The father appeals termination of his parental rights to J.S. (born 2019). His

petition on appeal contains one adequately developed claim, concerning denial of

his request for additional time. We agree with the juvenile court that the father did

not carry his burden to prove he could resume custody and care of the child within

six months based on the speculative nature of his parole and placement in a

supervised-living facility, his poor track record of safety and sobriety, and the

child’s need for permanency.

Background Facts and Proceedings. The child came to the attention of

the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) while living with the

mother (whose rights are not at issue in this appeal). To make a long story short,

the family has a lengthy history with HHS, and most recently came to the

department’s attention when an apartment manager saw marijuana and

paraphernalia in the home. The home was also “infested” with mice and roaches.

The child and a sibling were adjudicated in need of assistance.

The father has been incarcerated throughout the entirety of the juvenile

proceedings. His problems with substance abuse and violence date back

twenty-five years. In 2019, a child-abuse report was founded against him for using

methamphetamine in the home and leaving the child’s sibling unattended in a

parking lot. The father has been imprisoned a total of six times, and his criminal

history includes drug charges, violation of protective orders, domestic violence,

non-domestic assault, burglary, theft, interference with official acts, harassment of

a public official or employee, and strangulation. In the father’s words, he had been

convicted of domestic-abuse offenses “quite a few” times, and some of these were 3

directed at the mother. He had completed batterer’s education (now known as the

Iowa Domestic Abuse Program—IDAP) four times and gone on to offend again

each time. At trial, he described engaging with additional programming and

treatment while incarcerated.

HHS and social workers arranged virtual and in-person visits between the

father and the child, but not as often as the father or HHS hoped. The record is

not entirely clear on why, but it seems part of the blame lies with scheduling at the

prison and part with the father using half of his available in-person visit times to

see his girlfriend instead of the child. When visits were scheduled, the father

attended; he also sent the child letters and pictures. But HHS expressed some

concerns that the father’s emotional volatility during visits was not good for the

child and led to negative behaviors.

According to the father, he expected to be released on parole to a

supervised living facility within thirty to forty days after trial. The release program

he was originally seeking to participate in had six months to one year of

programming and would not allow children to live with him. On the third day of

trial, his plan changed allegedly based on financing issues, and he was looking at

a program he could complete “within four to six months and be home, be out of

there.” Under questioning by the child’s guardian ad litem (GAL), the father

admitted that it was in his best interest to delay termination until his parole—not in

the child’s best interest.

The child and sibling were well cared for in a pre-adoptive foster placement,

where they had been for approximately seventeen months as of trial. The child

saw a therapist who informed the court the child needed permanency and had 4

grown attached to the foster family. The HHS worker assigned to the case offered

a similar opinion.

The juvenile court found the father’s stability and sobriety in the community

was unproven and that his “history is not reassuring.” The court found the father

would not be able to take custody of the child within six months:

[The father] has a plan for release, but his plan is not in action yet. He has been accepted into three-quarter house and hopes to be released to parole at the three-quarter house in four to six weeks. He then would live in the three-quarter house for several months. Even if he was immediately released to a facility where children can live with their parents, his history of incarceration and drug use means that he will need to prove his safety and sobriety in the community much longer than six months to safely have custody of the child[ ].

The county attorney, HHS, and the child’s GAL all recommended

termination of parental rights. The court terminated the father’s rights under Iowa

Code section 232.116(1)(f) (2024) and denied his request for additional time. The

father appeals, and we review de novo. See In re W.M., 957 N.W.2d 305, 312

(Iowa 2021). The mother’s rights were also terminated, but she does not appeal.

Additional Time. The only issue substantively briefed by the father on

appeal is his claim that the juvenile court should have granted him additional time.

“[T]he juvenile court may deny termination and give the parent an additional six

months for reunification only if the need for removal ‘will no longer exist at the end

of the additional six-month period.’” In re W.T., 967 N.W.2d 315, 323 (Iowa 2021)

(quoting Iowa Code § 232.104(2)(b)). And the parent bears the burden to make

that showing. Id. at 322–24.

We conclude the father did not carry his burden here. We agree with the

juvenile court that the father’s plan for release was largely speculative, his track 5

record did not bode well for maintaining sobriety or safety in the community, and

he had no realistic plan to safely reunify with the child within six months. Even

taking the father at his best-case scenario, he needed to complete four to six

months of programming before he would be released into the community, and

there is no reasonable prospect the remainder of the additional six months after

that would be sufficient to resume care of the child.

“It is well-settled law that we cannot deprive a child of permanency after the

State has proved a ground for termination . . . by hoping someday a parent will

learn to be a parent and be able to provide a stable home for the child.” In re P.L.,

778 N.W.2d 33, 41 (Iowa 2010). While we hope the father achieves safety and

sobriety, we cannot say he will do so in six months, and the child’s need for

permanency strongly supports termination.

Other Issues. The State flags scattered statements in the father’s petition

on appeal that potentially touch on other issues, arguing the father did not

adequately brief the issues or cite legal authority so as to invoke appellate review.

See Iowa Rs. App. P. 6.201(1)(d), .1401–Form 5; In re K.D., No. 21-0581, 2021

WL 3897419, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Sept. 1, 2021) (discussing these rules). “[A]s

we have held before, ‘sprinkled mentions of an issue’ are insufficient to raise legal

claims for our consideration.” In re K.P., No. 23-1661, 2024 WL 260885, at *3

(Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 24, 2024) (citation omitted). To the extent the father’s petition

on appeal makes passing reference to other claims, these scattered references

are insufficient to invoke appellate review. See Inghram v. Dairyland Mut. Ins.,

215 N.W.2d 239, 240 (Iowa 1974). We also have some doubt as to whether all of

these potential issues were preserved for our review. But in the interest of 6

completeness, we note we have reviewed the entire record and do not disagree

with the juvenile court’s findings on the statutory elements, best interests, or the

permissive exceptions. In other words, even if the issues were adequately briefed

and preserved, we would not reverse termination of the father’s parental rights.

AFFIRMED.