Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
ORIGINAL PROCEEDINGS; petition for extraordinary writ review. George Orndoff, Judge, No. 03JD 0076
T.T., in pro per., for Petitioner.
No appearance for Respondent.
Peter D. Moock, County Counsel and Kyle Sand, Deputy County Counsel, for Real Party in Interest.
OPINION
Before Gomes, A.P.J., Dawson, J., and Kane, J.
Petitioner in pro. per. seeks an extraordinary writ (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.452) to vacate the order of the juvenile court terminating reunification services and setting a Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26 hearing as to her sons T. and F. We will deny the petition.
All further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE AND FACTS
This case arises from a post-permanency planning hearing (§ 366.3) conducted in January 2008 at which the juvenile court set a section 366.26 hearing to consider changing T. and F.’s permanent plan from long-term foster care to adoption. Petitioner attempts to revisit juvenile court findings which are now final.
Dependency proceedings have been ongoing since December 2003 when the juvenile court exercised jurisdiction over then four-year-old T. and four-month-old F. in large part because of petitioner’s drug use. The children were placed in foster care and petitioner was ordered to participate in reunification services. By October 2004, petitioner was sufficiently compliant that the court ordered the children placed with her under a plan of family reunification.
However, in February 2005, the social services department (department) detained the children and filed an amended supplemental petition (§ 387) alleging petitioner failed to comply with her court-ordered case plan requirements, failed to take T. for a mental health assessment, and negligently failed to seek medical care for F., placing him at significant risk of harm. At petitioner’s request, the court set the matter for a combined, contested detention and jurisdictional hearing. However, petitioner failed to appear at the combined hearing in April 2005. Consequently, her attorney submitted on the report filed by the department, which stated as relevant to this petition, that in early February 2005, F. had pneumonia and petitioner delayed seeking treatment for it and that she failed to fill his prescriptions or schedule a follow up visit with the doctor. The court found the allegations true and set the matter for disposition. At the dispositional hearing, also conducted in April 2005, the court denied petitioner further services and set a section 366.26 hearing. Petitioner did not file a writ petition from the court’s setting order.
In March 2006, the juvenile court ordered the children into long-term foster care at the section 366.26 hearing. In May 2007, petitioner filed a petition pursuant to section 388, asking the court to place the children with her under family maintenance. A contested hearing on the matter was conducted in October 2007 after which the court denied the petition. Petitioner appealed from the court’s order denying the section 388 petition. The appeal is currently pending before this court (F054179).
In February 2008, the juvenile court conducted a continued and contested post-permanency plan review hearing on the department’s request to set a section 366.26 hearing to change the children’s permanent plan to adoption. Petitioner attempted to testify to events related to the 2005 jurisdictional hearing on the section 387 petition. Objections to this evidence and testimony were sustained. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court followed the department’s recommendation and set a section 366.26 hearing. This petition ensued.
DISCUSSION
As she did at the February 2008 hearing, petitioner attempts by this writ petition to relitigate the jurisdictional facts contained in the 2005 supplemental petitioner. To that end, she attached medical records for medical care received by both of her sons in 2004 and 2005 along with a written statement rebutting allegations she abused her children. In that the attached documents were not before the juvenile court, we cannot review them. (In re Zeth S. (2003) 31 Cal.4th 396, 405.) More importantly, because petitioner failed to appeal from the juvenile court’s 2005 jurisdictional findings, they are now final and not subject to our review. (Steve J. v. Superior Court (1995) 35 Cal.App.4th 798, 811-812.)
DISPOSITION
The petition for extraordinary writ is denied. This opinion is final forthwith as to this court.