Peo in Interest of WW

Colorado Court of Appeals·Decided May 22, 2025·No. 24CA1036·Unpublished

Opinion

24CA1036 Peo in Interest of WW 05-22-2025 COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA1036 Weld County District Court No. 21JV63 Honorable W. Troy Hause, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado, Appellee, In the Interest of W.W. and C.W., Children, and Concerning J.W., Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division III

Opinion by JUDGE SCHOCK

Dunn and Brown, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)

Announced May 22, 2025

William Ressue, County Attorney, Nicole Liley, Assistant County Attorney, Fort Collins, Colorado, for Appellee

Jenna L. Mazzucca, Guardian Ad Litem

Fourth Street Law, LLC, Christopher J. Linas, Castle Rock, Colorado, for Appellant

¶1 In this dependency and neglect proceeding, J.W. (father) appeals the judgment terminating his parent-child legal relationships with W.W. and C.W. (the children). We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 The Larimer County Department of Human Services filed a petition in dependency and neglect regarding then-seven-year-old W.W. and then-six-year-old C.W. based on concerns that father had sexually abused C.W. and physically abused both children.

¶3 Father stipulated to a “no-fault” adjudication of dependency and neglect under section 19-3-102(1)(e), C.R.S. 2024. He also stipulated that the proposed treatment plan was “appropriate and in the best interest of the [c]hildren.” The juvenile court accepted the stipulation, adjudicated the children dependent and neglected, and approved and adopted the stipulated treatment plan.

¶4 The treatment plan provided for two phases. The first phase included as an objective that father “complete [a] psychological evaluation with [a] sexual focus.” This objective elaborated:

[Father] will complete a psychological evaluation with a sexual abuse focus because of reports concerning inappropriate sexual contact between [father] and [C.W.]. The Department has made administrative findings

regarding the alleged sexual abuse and [father]

denies these allegations. The evaluator completing the psychological evaluation will not presume that [father] committed the alleged acts nor is there an expectation that [father] make any admission during the evaluation. The purpose of this evaluation is to determine if there are any behaviors which need to be addressed to safely reunify the children.

The treatment plan required the parties to attempt to agree on an evaluator to conduct the psychological evaluation, but provided that, if they could not agree, the court would select one.

¶5 The first phase of the treatment plan also required father to (1) stay in communication with the Department; (2) attend therapeutic family time with W.W.; and (3) complete a trauma- informed parenting class and apply those techniques with the children. Once the Department received the recommendations of the evaluations required by the first phase of the treatment plan, it was to propose an updated treatment plan as the second phase.

¶6 The parties could not agree on a psychological evaluator, so the court ordered each party to propose up to three evaluators and provide each evaluator’s qualifications, availability, and an affidavit indicating their understanding of the scope of the evaluation.

¶7 The Department proposed Dr. Jessica Bartels,1 and the children’s guardians ad litem (GALs) agreed. In an attached letter, Dr. Bartels confirmed that she could conduct a psychological evaluation with a sexual focus, as she had done many times before, and explained that the assessments used for such an evaluation are case-dependent. Father did not propose any evaluators. Instead, he filed a completed evaluation performed by Dr. Lon Kopit, who had not been agreed on by the parties or approved by the court.

¶8 The juvenile court appointed Dr. Bartels to complete the psychological evaluation. The court noted that father failed to submit any proposed evaluator for the court’s consideration but instead chose his own evaluator. The court ruled that Dr. Bartels’s evaluation could consist of either a peer review of Dr. Kopit’s report or her own evaluation and that father “needs to cooperate with that.” Father’s counsel said the court’s order was “incredibly reasonable” and that father would “absolutely comply” with it.

1 The Department’s notice and the juvenile court’s order spell Dr.

Bartels’s name “Bartles.” But we use the spelling used in Dr. Bartels’s own letter and curriculum vitae attached to the notice.

¶9 Two months later, father moved the court to reconsider its order directing him to submit to psychological testing. Relying on People in Interest of M.W., 2022 COA 72, ¶ 4, which had been issued in the interim, he argued that he could not be required to complete a Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB) psychosexual evaluation because he had not been convicted of a sex offense. Father further asserted that, as an SOMB provider, Dr. Bartels intended to use “at least one psychosexual inventory as part of her evaluation.” He therefore asked the court to reconsider Dr. Bartels’s appointment or, “at a minimum,” to clarify the scope of the evaluation.

¶ 10 The juvenile court denied father’s motion. It noted that father had stipulated to the treatment plan requiring him to undergo a psychological evaluation with a sex abuse focus and that the plan prohibited the evaluator from presuming father’s guilt or seeking an admission. The court further concluded that the treatment plan did not violate M.W. because it did not require father to submit to an SOMB evaluation. The court ordered father to commence the evaluation with Dr. Bartels within seven days.

¶ 11 Father refused to do so. Instead, he completed a second evaluation with Dr. Shawn Wygant, who also had not been agreed to by the parties or approved by the court.

¶ 12 The Department and the GALs moved to terminate father’s parental rights as to both children. The court held a multi-day hearing over the course of seven months and granted the motion. In doing so, the court explained that father had failed to complete a psychological evaluation in compliance with the treatment plan. It also found that the treatment plan had not been successful because father had “not progressed out of phase 1 in over three years” and “exhibits the same problems . . . without adequate improvement.”

II. Statutory Criteria and Standard of Review

¶ 13 A juvenile court may terminate a parent-child legal relationship if it finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that (1) the child was adjudicated dependent and neglected; (2) the parent has not reasonably complied with an appropriate, court-approved treatment plan, or the plan has not been successful; (3) the parent is unfit; and (4) the parent’s conduct or condition is unlikely to change within a reasonable time. § 19-3-604(1)(c), C.R.S. 2024.

¶ 14 Whether a juvenile court properly terminated parental rights is a mixed question of law and fact because it involves the application of the termination statute to evidentiary facts. People in Interest of A.M. v. T.M., 2021 CO 14, ¶ 15. The proper legal standard to be applied and the application of that standard to the particular facts of the case are questions of law that we review de novo. M.A.W. v. People in Interest of A.L.W., 2020 CO 11, ¶ 31. But we will not disturb the juvenile court’s factual findings unless they are “so clearly erroneous as to find no support in the record.” A.M., ¶ 15 (citation omitted). The credibility of the witnesses, the weight of the evidence, and the inferences and conclusions to be drawn from the evidence all lie within the juvenile court’s discretion. Id.

III. Appropriate Treatment Plan

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Peo in Interest of WW, (Colo. Ct. App. 2025).

Peo in Interest of WW (Peo in Interest of WW) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

People Ex Rel. A.G.-G.
899 P.2d 319 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 1995)
People in the Interest of CLS
934 P.2d 851 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 1996)
K.D. v. People
139 P.3d 695 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2006)
People in Interest of MSH
656 P.2d 1294 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 1983)
in Interest of IJO
2019 COA 151 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2019)
M.A.W. v. The People in Interest of A.L.W
2020 CO 11 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2020)
in Interest of A.M
2021 CO 14 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2021)
in Int. of B.H
2021 CO 39 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 2021)
People ex rel. J.M.B.
60 P.3d 790 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2002)
People ex rel. A.M.K.
68 P.3d 563 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2003)
People ex rel. B.C.
122 P.3d 1067 (Colorado Court of Appeals, 2005)