Opinion
DOCKET NO. A-3918-14T1
02-29-2016
NEW JERSEY DIVISION OF CHILD PROTECTION AND PERMANENCY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. T.A.M., Defendant-Appellant. IN THE MATTER OF THE GUARDIANSHIP OF C.L.S. and M.O.S., Minors.
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for appellant (Mary Potter, Designated Counsel, on the brief). John J. Hoffman, Acting Attorney General, attorney for respondent (Andrea M. Silkowitz, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel and on the brief). Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, Law Guardian, attorney for minors (Karen A. Lodeserto, Designated Counsel, on the brief).
RECORD IMPOUNDED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION Before Judges Sabatino and Accurso. On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, Family Part, Essex County, Docket No. FG-07-103-15. Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for appellant (Mary Potter, Designated Counsel, on the brief). John J. Hoffman, Acting Attorney General, attorney for respondent (Andrea M. Silkowitz, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel and on the brief). Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, Law Guardian, attorney for minors (Karen A. Lodeserto, Designated Counsel, on the brief). PER CURIAM
Defendant T.A.M. appeals from a final judgment terminating her parental rights to her eight-year-old daughter, Melody, and six-year-old son, Charles. She contends the Division of Child Protection and Permanency failed to prove the four prongs of the best interests standard of N.J.S.A. 30:4C-15.1a(1)-(4) by clear and convincing evidence. She also contends that because the Division did not succeed in proving defendant abused or neglected her children in the Title Nine litigation that preceded this guardianship action, it owed "a special obligation" to assist her with services aimed at reunification. The Law Guardian joins with the Division in urging we affirm the judgment. Having considered defendant's arguments in light of the record and controlling law, we affirm the termination of her parental rights.
These names are fictitious to protect the children's identities. --------
The facts are fully set forth in Judge Forrest's very detailed eighty-seven-page opinion, and we have no need to repeat them here. Suffice it to say the family first came to the Division's attention when Melody, then eleven months old, had to be taken to the hospital because she was found sucking on a straw a relative had earlier used to snort heroin. The children were removed from her care four years later after an incident in which she was seen one night at a train station standing with the children with signs saying they were homeless and would sing for money.
The Division provided defendant with a security deposit for one apartment in New Jersey and furniture for another in Georgia, where she moved permanently prior to the filing of this action. Despite those efforts and others to assist defendant in obtaining stable housing, she moved six times in two years. Although she claimed at trial that she had remediated that problem, and was now living in a four bedroom house in Georgia with her new husband and their two children, born after Melody and Charles, she repeatedly failed to comply with orders to allow Georgia officials to assess her home. The judge found her not credible.
Defendant went months and longer without seeing the children, and when she did telephone, she needlessly upset them by telling them that their grandmother, who was caring for them, was evil. Defendant repeatedly tested positive for marijuana and refused services, including interstate efforts aimed at reunification. After agreeing to submit to a drug test at trial, defendant disappeared without taking the test and never came back.
Defendant's mother has cared for both children since 2012. The Division presented expert testimony that the children viewed her as their psychological parent and would suffer significant and enduring harm if they were separated from her. She loves her grandchildren and wants to adopt them. She has rejected kinship legal guardianship. Defendant refused to appear for a bonding evaluation. Experts who were able to evaluate her on behalf of the Division and the Law Guardian recommended against reunification.
Based on his detailed rendition of the facts adduced at trial and his assessments of the credibility of the witnesses who testified, Judge Forrest found the Division established all four prongs of the best interests standard by clear and convincing evidence. He found defendant harmed her children's emotional or psychological well-being by leaving them behind when she moved to Georgia and refusing to visit them despite the Division's many efforts to facilitate contact. He determined defendant's lack of compliance with the requirements of the interstate process, including her refusal to have her home assessed for safety purposes, demonstrated her unwillingness to eliminate the harm by working toward reunification.
Cataloging the many services the Division provided defendant, including those provided after defendant moved out of state, the judge concluded the Division had easily met its obligation to provide her the services she needed to correct the conditions that led to the children's placement. The judge also found the Division had explored, without success, alternatives to termination, including kinship legal guardianship.
Finally, the judge concluded, based on the expert testimony, that termination of defendant's parental rights would not do more harm than good. He relied on the results of the bonding evaluation that their grandmother had become the children's psychological parent and that separating them from her would cause them lasting and significant harm. He determined that Melody and Charles deserved the stability and permanency their mother had been unwilling or unable to provide and that termination of her rights would further that end.
Our review of a trial court's decision to terminate parental rights is limited. N.J. Div. of Youth & Family Servs. v. F.M., 211 N.J. 420, 448-49 (2012). We generally "defer to the factual findings of the trial court because it has the opportunity to make first-hand credibility judgments about the witnesses who appear on the stand; it has a 'feel of the case' that can never be realized by a review of the cold record." N.J. Div. of Youth & Family Servs. v. E.P., 196 N.J. 88, 104 (2008) (quoting N.J. Div. of Youth & Family Servs. v. M.M., 189 N.J. 261, 293 (2007)).
Our review convinces us that Judge Forrest's findings are amply supported by the trial testimony. Defendant never managed to be able to provide these children with a safe and stable home at any point after they were removed from her care in 2012, and she let months go by without any effort to see them. "A parent's withdrawal of that solicitude, nurture, and care for an extended period of time is in itself a harm that endangers the health and development of the child." In re Guardianship of D.M.H., 161 N.J. 365, 379 (1999).
Defendant offers no support for her assertion that the Division owed her more services because she was not found to have abused or neglected her children. The record painstakingly documented by Judge Forrest reveals the Division provided defendant ample services, most of which she rebuffed. It had no obligation to do any more than it did.
We are satisfied that the record supports the judge's findings that defendant refused and failed to complete the services offered and that termination of her parental rights will not do more harm than good. We affirm the judgment substantially for the reasons expressed by Judge Forrest in his thorough and thoughtful written opinion of April 14, 2015.
Affirmed. I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original on file in my office.
CLERK OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION