Porter v. Arkansas Department of Human Services

427 S.W.3d 738, 2013 Ark. App. 299, 2013 WL 1859226, 2013 Ark. App. LEXIS 311
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedMay 1, 2013
DocketNo. CA 13-23
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 427 S.W.3d 738 (Porter v. Arkansas Department of Human Services) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Porter v. Arkansas Department of Human Services, 427 S.W.3d 738, 2013 Ark. App. 299, 2013 WL 1859226, 2013 Ark. App. LEXIS 311 (Ark. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

WAYMOND M. BROWN, Judge.

|!Appellant Angela Porter appeals from an order of the Washington County Circuit Court terminating her parental rights to her son, J.S., born on February 8, 2012.1 Appellant argues that the trial court erred in finding that termination of her parental rights was in J.S.’s best interests. We affirm.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) received a report that appellant admitted to her nurses and doctors in December to using methamphetamine, while she was pregnant with J.S. Both appellant and J.S. tested negative for drags at the time of J.S.’s birth. DHS exercised a seventy-two-hour hold on J.S. on March 6, 2012, after appellant tested positive for both methamphetamine and benzodiazepines. An order for emergency custody |2was entered on March 8, 2012. The court entered an order on March 12, 2012, finding that probable cause existed for J.S. to remain in the custody of DHS. Specifically, the court found that it was contrary to J.S.’s best interest to return him to appellant’s custody due to appellant’s “positive drug screen for methamphetamine, and Benzodiazepines, and because of [appellant’s] lengthy history of meth use & DHS previous involvement with [appellant].” The court also noted that appellant had previously had her parental rights to five other children terminated in prior cases despite being offered numerous services by DHS.

J.S. was adjudicated dependent-neglected in an order entered on May 8, 2012, due to neglect and parental unfitness. The court ordered that appellant not be allowed visitation with J.S. because she tested positive for methamphetamine at her first visit with J.S. on April 4, 2012.2 DHS filed a motion to terminate reunification services with appellant on May 8, 2012. The court entered an order for no reunification services on June 8, 2012, after finding that there was little likelihood that services to appellant would result in successful reunificátion with J.S. because of appellant’s lengthy history with methamphetamine use, which resulted in her rights being terminated as to five of J.S.’s siblings; her drug use while pregnant with J.S.; and her continued use of drugs after J.S. was placed in foster care. The court changed the case goal to termination of appellant’s parental rights in the permanency-planning order filed on June 8, 2012. DHS petitioned to terminate appellant’s parental rights on July 11, |s2012. In the petition, DHS alleged that Porter’s parental rights as to J.S.’s siblings had been involuntarily terminated,3 that appellant was found to have subjected J.S. to aggravated circumstances,4 and that other issues arose subsequent to the filing of the original petition for dependency-neglect, which demonstrated that return of J.S. to Porter was contrary to J.S.’s health, safety, or welfare.5

At the termination hearing, counselor Kathleen Housley testified that she had been Porter’s counselor on and off since 2003. She stated that she began seeing Porter again at the end of April 2012 and had continued to see her every other week. Housley testified that appellant told her that appellant had not use drugs for the entire eleven years, but had in fact had a four-to-five year period of sobriety during that time. Housley opined that Porter had matured over the past nine years due to trauma, loss, and grief that she had experienced; that appellant was more optimistic about her future this time, as proven by appellant obtaining her GED and being enrolled in college courses; that appellant had a greater chance of staying clean this time because she had completed a sixteen-week intensive program at Decision Point, she attended NA regularly, she was part of a group at Ozark Guidance Center, where she also had a psychiatrist, and that she was on medication; and that Porter was capable to parent J.S. or to help Skaggs parent J.S. However, Housley stated that there was always a risk for relapse with substance abuse; that one’s past behavior could determine or predict one’s |4future behavior; that the odds would be against a person to have a lifelong change when they have had a substance-abuse problem for eleven years; that appellant engaged in the same behavior that caused her to lose her other children; and that although she had provided appellant with intensive family services in 2003, appellant still relapsed. She also stated that she believed appellant was bipolar and had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorders (BPD). Housley testified that typical behaviors for BPD were intimacy issues and attachments, which Housley had seen with appellant over the years. However, Housley stated that appellant seemed more stable this time.

Angela Wood, the DHS family-service worker on this case, testified that appellant obtained individual counseling on her own volition after DHS was relieved of providing services; that there had not been a trial placement with appellant because she had just recently, in May 2012, been able to verify that she was trying to remain sober; that appellant continued to use methamphetamine after J.S. entered DHS custody and that his removal was not enough to make her stop using drugs; and that appellant’s drug use led to the termination of her parental rights in four children in 2007, and the termination involving a fifth child in 2009. Wood stated that J.S. had been diagnosed as failure to thrive; that he has hypertonicity, a condition where the muscles in his body are extremely rigid;6 that he has a gastrointestinal disorder; and that he has some sensory overstimulation issues that are being looked into.7 She also said that J.S. attends the Elizabeth Richardson Center daily to assist with all of his delays. |fiWood testified that initially, appellant’s actions would contribute to J.S.’s overstimulation issues, but she started using soothing techniques after she spoke with a specialist. Wood testified to the following without objection:

Angela Porter does not demonstrate an ability to protect J.S. Ms. Porter, especially in the psychological evaluation, she has reported a life marked by instability, chronic methamphetamine use. During the last 11 years when she’s been working with the Department, she has had some stability where she’s been sober. Unfortunately, those periods of st — sober and stability come to a halt. Angela Porter does have a certain type of mental health disorder, as it says in her psychological evaluation, that can lead to a sudden deterioration of her mental health. And at that time, we have seen where Angela will start using metham-phetamines again. My concern is that even though she has been sober for the last five months, that at any time she could start using again, or she could have a serious mental breakdown of sorts that would put J.S. in harm’s way.

Wood opined that J.S. was adoptable and that he had demonstrated good progress in his therapies. Wood acknowledged that appellant had done everything she was ordered to do, including completing parenting classes, going to counseling, and taking assessments and evaluations.

Appellant testified that she was in complete compliance with all court orders. She acknowledged that she previously had her parental rights to five other children terminated; that she had been given every possible service that she could get on two different occasions and that she still relapsed; and that she stopped using drugs on March 4, 2012.

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Related

Norris v. Ark. Dep't of Human Servs.
2018 Ark. App. 571 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2018)

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Bluebook (online)
427 S.W.3d 738, 2013 Ark. App. 299, 2013 WL 1859226, 2013 Ark. App. LEXIS 311, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/porter-v-arkansas-department-of-human-services-arkctapp-2013.