WAYMOND M. BROWN, Judge.
Savannah Rossie-Fonner appeals from the June 15, 2011 order terminating her parental rights to her son, C.R. (born December 7, 2009). We affirm.
On April 1, 2010, the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) received a report that appellant, while bathing her four-month-old son C.R., heard a voice telling her to drown him. This incident occurred on or about March 16, 2010. The call on April 1, 2010, was made by appellant's physician, Dr. Trehun, after appellant reported the incident during an appointment. It was also reported that appellant had a history of mental illness,
DHS petitioned for emergency custody and a finding of dependency/neglect, and on April 23, 2010, the Pulaski County Circuit Court entered an order finding that there was probable cause for C.R. to remain in DHS custody. The court instructed DHS to develop an appropriate case plan and ordered that appellant and her live-in boyfriend, Chris Fonner, undergo psychological evaluation. The court ordered appellant and her parents (biological mother Jeanne Rossie and adoptive father Paul Rossie) to have supervised visitation at DHS and authorized DHS to proceed with home evaluations on relatives interested in placement. C.R. was placed in foster care with Mr. and Mrs. Rossie.
On May 17 and 18, 2010, Dr. Paul Deyoub performed psychological evaluations on appellant, her parents, her sister, and Chris Fonner. Dr. Deyoub noted that appellant reported a history of seizures and mental illness and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder; had received mental health treatment since the age of five; had been hearing voices all of her life; and had, on several occasions since the sixth grade, stood over family members with a knife while they slept. Appellant also told Dr. Deyoub that she had used drugs as a teenager;
Dr. Deyoub noted in his psychological evaluation report that Chris Fonner was twenty-four years old and was the assistant manager at a Subway sandwich store. Fonner told Dr. Deyoub that he had been with appellant for about a year and that they were living with his mother when the incident causing C.R. to be taken into custody by DHS occurred. Fonner said that when appellant heard the voice telling her to drown C.R., she immediately called her mother for help, and her sister came and got C.R. Mrs. Rossie corroborated this account and told Dr. Deyoub that she and her husband, Paul Rossie, would like to have custody of C.R., that they were taking foster-care classes, and that they hoped that appellant would voluntarily agree to their having permanent guardianship. Paul Rossie told Dr. Deyoub that he adopted appellant when she was two years old.
Dr. Deyoub ruled out postpartum depression and diagnosed appellant with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, cocaine abuse (stated to be in remission), methamphetamine and cannabis abuse; borderline personality disorder; and seizure disorder. He stated in his report that one of appellant's problems was intense hostility; she was "bizarre and disturbed" and "very unpredictable"; she scored very high for the Paranoid scale and also had elevated Antisocial and Psychopathic Deviancy scales; she also had a character disorder and "significant mental illness"; and she had little insight about her parenting issues. He noted in his report that at one point during her Rorschach test, appellant said that she had "a dragon that follows her for protection."
On June 18, 2010, the court entered an order adjudicating C.R. dependent-neglected, quoting extensively from Dr. Deyoub's evaluation report and finding that, although no harm had befallen C.R. as a result of the bathtub incident, appellant "poses a real and substantial risk of serious injury or death to the juvenile due to her mental health issues." The court set the goal of the case as reunification, ordering appellant to follow the recommendations of her psychological evaluation, but stated that the prospects of reunification were not very encouraging and that the most viable option might be permanent relative placement. The court ordered appellant to have supervised visitation.
A review hearing was held on August 31, 2010. The court found that it was contrary to C.R.'s best interest to return him to appellant and that continued custody with DHS was necessary to protect his health and safety. The court kept the goal as reunification and noted that appellant "appears to be making an effort to comply with court orders" but that "it remains to be seen whether progress is being made." The court ordered DHS to arrange a medication assessment for appellant, and a permanency-planning hearing was scheduled for January 25, 2011.
At the permanency-planning hearing, the court changed the goal of the case to concurrent goals of termination of parental rights and reunification, and ordered DHS to arrange for appellant to undergo a second psychological evaluation. The court explained the reasoning behind its ruling:
The court noted that appellant had proposed a safety plan consisting of certain individuals who would be available to care for C.R. if she felt herself to be on the verge of psychosis. But, the court reflected, "these safety plans may not go as planned when psychosis suddenly strikes, and we are talking about a completely defenseless young child.... Having a child in the home can be a stressor, and the mother has not had to deal with such stress." The court noted that appellant's treating therapist "appeared to be in [appellant's] corner," but that "the court still has to weigh the therapist's recommendations in light of what is in the child's best interests." What the court termed a "permanency termination of parental rights and/or permanent custody hearing and/or permanency planning hearing" was scheduled for April 19, 2011.
Dr. George DeRoeck performed a second psychological evaluation of the appellant on March 16, 2011. During the evaluation, appellant told Dr. DeRoeck that she had engaged in self-abuse since the age of five and had been hospitalized at age fourteen for attempted suicide. She also told him that when she got her son back, she wanted to move to Delaware, where her biological father lived.
However, Dr. DeRoeck recommended that appellant receive close monitoring by DHS regarding compliance with medication and counseling services, as well as stress management, counseling, family integrative counseling, and parenting-skills instruction,
On March 18, 2011, DHS filed a petition for termination of parental rights (TPR), and a hearing was held on April 19, 2011. After reviewing all evidence and testimony presented, the court found that DHS had proved by clear and convincing evidence that C.R. was adjudicated dependent-neglected, had continued to be out of appellant's custody for twelve months, and despite a meaningful effort by DHS to rehabilitate appellant and correct the conditions that caused removal, those conditions had not been remedied by appellant.
Termination of parental rights is an extreme remedy and in derogation of the natural rights of the parents.
Cases involving the termination of parental rights are reviewed de novo on appeal.
Our termination statute requires clear and convincing proof that termination is in the child's best interest, plus clear and convincing proof of at least one enumerated ground for termination.
The statutory ground cited by DHS in its petition for TPR was Ark.Code Ann. § 9-27-341(b)(3)(B)(i)(a), which provides for termination when the juvenile has been adjudicated by the court to be dependent-neglected and has continued out of the custody of the parent for twelve months and, despite meaningful effort by the department to rehabilitate the parents and correct the conditions that caused removal, those conditions have not been remedied by the parents.
In this case, there was sufficient evidence to support the circuit court's ruling, and we cannot say that the court's termination of appellant's parental rights was clearly erroneous. The DHS caseworker, Bridget Williams, testified that C.R. was adoptable and that, despite the services provided to the appellant,
Two therapists who had treated appellant testified that they did not think appellant would harm C.R., but the circuit court explained that it did not grant those opinions as much weight because appellant had not had to care for a child for the past year, stating, "To me, that really undercuts the weight to be given their testimony...." The court noted that with regard to the psychologists who evaluated appellant and testified at the TPR hearing, Dr. Deyoub was "more pessimistic" about appellant's prospects of reunification than Dr. DeRoeck, but that Dr. DeRoeck "wasn't just saying we should hand the child back over." Rather, as the court noted, Dr. DeRoeck advocated a detailed safety plan to protect C.R. The court then reiterated that the interest of the child was the paramount concern in every case, and found that in light of that priority, a safety plan would not work in this case for several reasons. First, the court noted that all of appellant's witnesses testified that she was a good parent and did not pose a problem, making it unlikely that any of them would monitor her or enforce the safety plan as vigilantly as was necessary to keep C.R. safe. Second, C.R. was not even two years old yet and would be unable to protect himself or get help if he were in danger.
The circuit court further found that appellant lacked credibility because she testified, contrary to her earlier statements, that the voice she heard instructing her to drown C.R. might have been coming from the radio and not her own mind. The court stated that this sudden change of story demonstrated that appellant was not credible and lacked insight into her mental illnesses. The court was well within its discretion to make these assessments of the witnesses and the weight that should be attributed to their testimony. Our courts have repeatedly stated that there are no cases in which the superior position, ability, and opportunity to view the parties carry as great a weight as those involving minor children, "as a heavier burden is placed on the trial judge to utilize to the fullest extent his or her powers of perception in evaluating the witnesses, their testimony, and the best interest of the children."
The court found that in light of appellant's history of actual violence and threatening behavior, as well as anger and hostility the court saw appellant display during her testimony, there was a clear and continuing risk of harm to C.R. The court considered granting permanent custody to appellant's parents, but found that the alternative would create instability in C.R.'s placement because, based on the hostility and anger the court saw appellant demonstrate and which Dr. Deyoub documented in his psychological evaluation, appellant
The court further found that, in light of the legal requirement to look at permanency planning from the child's perspective,
We cannot say that the circuit court's decision to terminate appellant's parental rights was clearly erroneous under the specific facts and circumstances of this case. The court's TPR order and discussion of its ruling at the TPR hearing demonstrate that the court's focus was appropriately on C.R.'s best interests, and that the court weighed the evidence and testimony presented and considered the factors bearing on its decision. The court assigned greater weight and credibility to some witnesses, such as Dr. Deyoub, and made its own observations about the conduct and personality of appellant, but these things are well within the discretion of the court. We note that the risk posed to the child in this case, should appellant's mental illnesses manifest, was not merely a risk of injury, but of death. The hallucination that gave rise to this case was not an isolated or anomalous event; rather, the evidence was that it was part of appellant's lifelong history of serious mental illness and dangerous or violent behavior, and there was evidence to support a finding that the nature of this illness was permanent and unpredictable and would therefore continue to present a serious risk to C.R.
Affirmed.
VAUGHT, C.J., and GLADWIN, J., agree.