In re D. C. S.

899 S.E.2d 834

In the INTEREST OF D. C. S. et al., children.

A23A1492

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

March 15, 2024

Joseph Remington East, for Appellant.

Christopher Michael Carr, Shalen S. Nelson, Atlanta, James A. Chamberlin Jr., Brunswick, Emily Allen Harris, for Appellee.

Pipkin, Judge.

We granted the Mother’s application for discretionary appeal to review her claim that the evidence was insufficient to support the juvenile court’s order terminating her parental rights to her children D. C. S. and E. A. S. As more fully set forth below, we now affirm.

The record shows that D. C. S. was born September 5, 2014, and E. A. S. was born May 30, 2019. The children, both males, were removed from the Mother’s custody in March 2021 after reports of physical abuse and neglect, which included hitting D. C. S. in the face and making his nose bleed and leaving E. A. S. in a playpen all day while she slept after working at night. The local Department of Family and Children Services ("DFCS") filed a dependency action in juvenile court, and, following a hearing, the juvenile court entered an adjudication of dependency on April 9, 2021. DFCS was granted temporary custody of the children, and when no suitable relatives could be found, the children were placed in foster care with non-relatives.

The juvenile court held a hearing on April 14, 2021 on the continued dependency of the children and the implementation of a reunification case plan for the Mother. The juvenile court entered an order of disposition on May 6, 2021, approving a concurrent reunification and adoption plan. Pursuant to the case plan, the Mother was required to complete a number of goals, including that she maintain clean and stable housing; remain drug and alcohol free as demonstrated by six consecutive months of negative drug screens; complete parenting classes; complete a psychological evaluation and follow any recommendations resulting from the evaluation, which might include various types of counseling or therapy; complete anger management counseling; maintain regular employment; support the children as required by law; maintain regular visitation with the children; and maintain contact with DFCS.

Although the Mother made some progress on completing her case plan, she was unable to regain custody of the children, and they continued to live in foster care. In November 2022, DFCS filed a Petition for Termination of Parental rights against the Mother and putative fathers of the children, neither of whom had previous contact with the children. A hearing was held on the petition on February 21, 2023. Following the hearing, the juvenile court terminated the parental rights of the Mother and the putative fathers, and the Mother filed an application for discretionary appeal.¹ We granted the Mother’s application, and this appeal followed.

[1–3] 1. The Mother’s sole contention on appeal is that the evidence was insufficient to support the termination of her parental rights. We start with our standard of review.

On appeal from an order terminating parental rights, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the juvenile court’s judgment in order to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found by clear and convincing evidence that the natural parent’s rights to custody have been lost. We neither weigh evidence nor determine witness credibility, but defer to the juvenile court’s findings of fact and affirm unless the appellate standard is not met.

In the Interest of E. M., 347 Ga. App. 351, 354 (2), 819 S.E.2d 505 (2018). However, "this deferential standard of review is tempered by the fact that there is no judicial determination which has more drastic significance than that of permanently severing a natural parent-child relationship. It must be scrutinized deliberately and exercised most cautiously." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) In the Interest of D. M., 339 Ga. App. 46, 46, 793 S.E.2d 422 (2016).

(a) Factual Background. Viewed in the appropriate light, the evidence shows the following. The Mother has three children – the two children at issue here and an older male child, M. R. S., who was born in April 2011, while the Mother was married to Franklin Shelley. Franklin testified that the Mother and he married in 2010 and at that time they were living in Washington State where he was stationed with the Navy. He said they continued to live in Washington State after M. R. S. was born in 2011, but in January 2013, he was transferred to Kings Bay, Georgia. He said the Mother and M. R. S. remained in Washington State until July 2013, when he received a call that the Mother had been arrested and that M. R. S. had been taken into protective custody. Franklin testified that he traveled to Washington State and brought M. R. S. back with him and that M. R. S. never lived with his Mother again after Franklin brought him back to Georgia. Franklin and the Mother divorced in June 2014, and he was granted full legal and physical custody of M. R. S. Franklin also testified that the Mother was held in contempt several times for failure to pay court-ordered child support, and that, when he married Eileen Shelley in September 2016, the Mother’s parental rights to M. R. S. were terminated so Eileen could adopt the child.

Before her divorce from Franklin was final, the Mother became pregnant by another man with D. C. S. The Mother testified that she suffered from postpartum depression after the birth and that she was working two jobs, so she placed D. C. S. in the care of her sister for several months. The Mother testified that D. C. S. also lived with a babysitter and the sitter’s husband for a period of time in 2015 and 2016;² she said she could not remember how she found this babysitter or how long she had known the couple before she left D. C. S. in their care.

Eileen Shelley testified that she and Franklin would sometimes help the Mother out by babysitting D. C. S. but that they lost contact with the Mother and D. C. S. in early 2016. Eileen said that sometime later that year, they were contacted by Linda and Ash- ley Reeves,³ who said that D, C. S. was living with them, and that they were hoping to reestablish a relationship with Franklin and Eileen so he could see his half brother, M, R. S.; they also said they were looking for support and someone to lean on if they had questions. Eileen testified that Franklin and she subsequently developed a "great" relationship with the Reeveses and that they frequently got together so that D. C. S. and M. R. S. could play together. This continued until around March 2017, when the Reeveses, who had been granted a temporary guardianship of D. C. S. in June 2016,⁴ asked if Eileen and Franklin could take care of D. C. S. because the Reeveses were moving out of state for a job offer and were unsure if they could take D. C. S. across state lines.

D. C. S. came to live with Eileen and Franklin in March or April 2017, and he stayed with them until October 2019. Eileen said that at first, it was a very positive situation where D. C. S. was fully integrated into the family, which included a new baby as well as M. R. S. The record shows the Mother did visit with D. C. S., but did so on an infrequent basis. And Eileen testified that, during those visits, the Mother sometimes became confrontational, which Eileen said she was not equipped to handle, especially when Franklin was deployed and she had three children to care for by herself. Both Franklin and Eileen testified that the Mother never contributed toward D. C. S.’s support and that she never paid the arrearage for her court-ordered child support for M. R. S.

Eileen testified that in the spring of 2019, D. C. S. became "quite irritable, quite argumentative." She said that she did not find this extremely concerning at first but, by the fall, he also had become aggressive and violent on occasion to both her and the other children, and he would scream so much at bedtime that the other children could not sleep. She said that Franklin was deployed during this time so she reached out to the Reeveses for help, and they agreed to take D. C. S. to Florida to live with them. D. C. S. moved to Florida to live with the Reeveses in October 2019, but he also became violent and aggressive with them, and, when they could not get assistance dealing with his behaviors from the school and or other authorities, they contacted the Mother and made arrangements for her to come get him. In October 2020, the guardianship was terminated by consent, and D. C. S. returned to live with the Mother.

The Mother acknowledged that she did not pay any support for D. C. S. to either the babysitters or her ex-husband during the four year period he was living with either the Reeveses or her ex-husband; she further acknowledged that she had not kept in touch with D. C. S. – or had even known where he was – while he was with the Reeveses in Florida.⁵ The Mother said that when D. C. S. came to live with her in October 2020, she and E. A. S., who was approximately 16 months old, were living at the babysitter's house where she was renting a room; prior to that, she and E. A. S. had lived in a hotel. She also said that after he came to live with them, D. C. S. became aggressive and threatening toward her and E. A. S. and that he went into the hospital for several days because of his behavior and was placed on various medications.

In March 2021, DFCS received a report that the Mother, who worked nights and slept during the day, was, among other things, leaving E. A. S. in a wet diaper for long periods of time, leaving him in his playpen to cry while she slept during the day, leaving physical marks on D. C. S. from disciplining him, and had, on one occasion, given him a bloody nose; the Mother was also abusing prescribed Adderall or trading it for other drugs.⁶ After initially being placed with "fictive kin"– the babysitter with whom she was living – for a short period, the children went to live at the foster...