Missouri Department of Social Services, Children's Division v. B.T.W.

422 S.W.3d 381, 2013 WL 6170627, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1416
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 26, 2013
DocketNo. WD 76323
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 422 S.W.3d 381 (Missouri Department of Social Services, Children's Division v. B.T.W.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Missouri Department of Social Services, Children's Division v. B.T.W., 422 S.W.3d 381, 2013 WL 6170627, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1416 (Mo. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

JAMES EDWARD WELSH, Chief Judge.

B.T.W. (Father) appeals the circuit court’s judgment terminating his parental rights to his daughter, T.A.W. (Child). He contends that the Missouri court lacked jurisdiction to determine Child’s custody under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA),1 that he was denied due process, and that the judge who presided over the case was biased against him and failed to follow the statutory dictates. He also contends that the court’s findings of abandonment, neglect, and failure to rectify harmful conditions were not supported by the evidence and that the court erred in finding that termination was in Child’s best interest. We affirm.

[385]*385Background

We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the circuit court’s ruling. In re A.M.S., 272 S.W.3d 305, 307 (Mo.App.2008). The evidence reveals that Child was born on November 23, 2002, in Chicago, Illinois. The child’s natural mother (Mother) and Father were not married when Child was born, but Father is identified as Child’s father on her birth certificate, and he admits that he is her father. Father has resided in Illinois throughout the pen-dency of this case. Mother and Child lived in Illinois until October 2006, when Mother and a family friend (“Aunt”)2 brought Child and two of Mother’s other children to Pettis County, Missouri, to live.3

Mother gave birth to her fifth child soon after arriving in Missouri. Shortly thereafter, the Missouri Department of Family Services, Children’s Division, became involved based on concerns about Mother’s ability to properly care for the baby. The Division provided intensive in-home services to the family. The service providers observed that Mother failed to give the children such basic care as feeding, bathing, dressing, or changing diapers. The providers also reported that Mother repeatedly spanked her two-month-old baby for crying and that she had pointed a toy gun to each of the children’s heads and said, “Pow-you’re dead.”

On December 27, 2006, the in-home services provider notified the Division that she believed that the children “are at imminent risk,” and she requested “immediate intervention.” The Division held a family support team meeting the next day, and Mother admitted that she could not care for the children and said that she wanted Aunt to take them. The Children’s Division petitioned for removal of the children based on an “emergency situation,” and the circuit court issued a protective custody order.

On December 29, the juvenile office filed a “Neglect & Abuse” petition pursuant to section 211.031, RSMo Cum.Supp.2006 (herein referred to as the “juvenile case” or “neglect case”). Father was not named in the petition because Mother had not disclosed his identity. Following a protective custody hearing on the 29th, the circuit court ruled that the protective custody order should remain in effect, and the children were placed in alternative care.

Mother gave Father’s name to the Children’s Division in January 2007. On February 5th, Father called the Division to give them his contact information. Deputy Juvenile Officer Erica Cox called Father on February 6th or 7th. She explained the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (“ICPC”)4 and told him that an adjudication hearing was scheduled for February 22. Father told Cox that he planned to attend the hearing. On February 7th, Cox filed an amended petition. It identified Father by name but did not contain any allegations against him. That same day, Cox sent a summons via certified mail to the address Father gave her. She also sent Father a letter via regular mail. Both advised Father of the hearing date and of his right to an attorney. A return receipt showed that Father received the summons on February 20.

[386]*386At the February 22nd adjudication and disposition hearing, the court heard testimony from Thomas Mefford, a psychologist who had diagnosed Mother as mildly mentally retarded and as having a schizo-typal personality disorder. He opined that Mother would always need help to care for her children regardless of the services offered to her. The court determined that the Division had made reasonable efforts to keep the children in Mother’s home but that the services offered were not adequate to insure proper care. The circuit court found that it had jurisdiction and that Child is in need of care and treatment due to Mother’s mental condition, which renders her unable to provide proper and necessary care, and due to Mother’s spanking of a two-month-old infant as discipline for crying. The circuit court ordered that Child be made a ward of the court with legal custody placed with the Children’s Division for foster care.

Father was not present at the hearing. He did not arrive until shortly after the hearing had concluded due to being pulled over for a traffic stop on the way. Father asked to visit Child that day, and Julie Slocum, a Children’s Division caseworker, arranged and supervised the visit. Father subsequently applied for two home studies under the ICPC, seeking to have Child placed in his custody in Illinois. The State of Illinois conducted both home studies and found in both instances that Father’s home was unsatisfactory and not recommended for Child’s placement. After the second home study was denied, the permanency plan was changed from reunification to termination of parental rights and adoption.

Father first requested an appointed attorney on April 14, 2008. On August 26, 2009, Father’s appointed attorney filed a Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction, pursuant to the UC-CJA, which the circuit court denied. Throughout the juvenile proceedings, Father and his attorney continued to file motions contesting the court’s authority over the case.5

In the meantime, Child and her three siblings had been in foster care with Aunt’s cousin’s family (where their brother was already living) since September 2007. In March 2010, that family’s attorney filed a petition to adopt all five siblings. Mother signed a consent to terminate her parental rights, allowing the children to be adopted. A decree of adoption was entered for Child’s siblings in August 2010. Father was served with a petition in August 2010 requesting adoption of Child. That petition is on hold pending resolution of this case.

On May 7, 2012, the attorney for the Children’s Division filed a petition to terminate Father’s parental rights on grounds of abandonment, neglect, and failure to rectify, pursuant to section 211.447.5, RSMo6 (“the termination case”). Father then sought a third home study, which the circuit court denied. Father thereafter filed several more motions, as well as continuance requests and motions to reschedule the hearing date. Following resolution of those matters, the case proceeded to a termination hearing on January 10 and 11, 2013.

[387]*387At the termination hearing, the court heard testimony from Mother and Father, as well as from Psychologist Mefford, who had counseled Child, Aunt, Child’s foster mother, Caseworker Slocum, and Deputy Juvenile Officer Cox. Father’s fiancée and various other family members also testified. The court denied Father’s request to raise jurisdictional issues that the court had previously ruled upon.

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422 S.W.3d 381, 2013 WL 6170627, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1416, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/missouri-department-of-social-services-childrens-division-v-btw-moctapp-2013.