Opinion
24-0003
03-06-2024
IN THE INTEREST OF C.S., Minor Child, C.S., Father, Appellant.
Kevin J. Huyser of Rensink, Pluim, Vogel & Huyser, Orange City, for appellant father. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Mackenzie Moran, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee State. Alexandria Celli Smith of Sandy Law Firm, Spirit Lake, attorney and guardian ad litem for minor child.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for O'Brien County, Jessica Noll, District Associate Judge.
The father appeals termination of his parental rights.
Kevin J. Huyser of Rensink, Pluim, Vogel & Huyser, Orange City, for appellant father.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Mackenzie Moran, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee State.
Alexandria Celli Smith of Sandy Law Firm, Spirit Lake, attorney and guardian ad litem for minor child.
Considered by Tabor, P.J., and Badding and Buller, JJ.
BULLER, JUDGE.
The father appeals termination of his parental rights to his child, C.S. (born January 2022). Because the father's only substantive challenge focuses on reasonable efforts and he did not request additional services before the permanency hearing or termination trial, we affirm.
In February 2022, the father pled guilty to second-degree sexual misconduct and failure to register as a sex offender in Minnesota. Since 1999, the father has been required to register because of an Indiana conviction for a sex offense involving a victim with cerebral palsy. The Minnesota charges also related to sexual abuse of a minor; in the father's words, "it said that I touched [a] thirteen-year-old boy on his butt."
The day after he pled guilty in Minnesota, the father assaulted the mother with one-month-old C.S. nearby. The mother reported the father strangled and threatened her with a knife; the father admitted to biting and threatening her. The State charged the father with harassment, domestic abuse assault-strangulation, and child endangerment. The district court entered a criminal no-contact order protecting the mother and the child from the father, though the order was later dissolved. And the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a founded child-abuse report.
The father was transferred from an Iowa jail to a Minnesota correctional facility in June, where he expected to serve up to five years in prison. The father completed services or programs while incarcerated, including a psychosexual evaluation, mental-health treatment, and domestic-abuse and parenting classes.
The father sought postconviction relief in July based on the lifetime-conditional-release term of his Minnesota sentence. His guilty plea was set aside, but he was arrested the day after release for contacting the mother in violation of his conditions of release. He was jailed awaiting criminal trial in Minnesota.
At the termination trial, the father testified by electronic means and told the court his new Minnesota criminal-trial date was at the end of January 2024. He admitted he could not presently care for C.S. He also explained that, because he had violated the conditions of his release, he had to ask the parole board for permission or complete a domestic-violence class to contact C.S. He had not done either. The father's Iowa charges remained unresolved, though he expected to negotiate a resolution.
An HHS worker testified the father had no in-person contact with C.S. since the month the child was born and had little if any phone contact with C.S. since approximately a year before the termination trial. According to HHS, the father had not sent letters, cards, gifts, or any financial support to the child. Nor had the father meaningfully inquired with HHS or other providers about the child's welfare. Between jail and prison, the father was incarcerated essentially all but a month of the child's lifetime.
Meanwhile, the child was doing well in pre-adoptive foster care. The county attorney, HHS, and the child's guardian ad litem all recommended termination of parental rights.
The juvenile court terminated the father's parental rights under Iowa Code sections 232.116(1)(e) (2023) (failure to maintain significant and meaningful contact) and (h) (the child was adjudicated in need of assistance, has been removed for six of the last twelve months, and cannot safely return home). The court's ruling emphasized that the father had not seen C.S. since the child was one month old, the father remained incarcerated for an indeterminate time (but for at least the foreseeable future), and the father had taken little if any action to parent C.S.
The father appeals, and we review de novo. See In re W.M., 957 N.W.2d 305, 312 (Iowa 2021). He challenges the evidence supporting termination under both section 232.116(1)(e) and (h). We focus on (h), as we need find only one ground to affirm termination. See In re S.R., 600 N.W.2d 63, 64 (Iowa Ct. App. 1999). The sole challenge made by the father on this subsection concerns whether HHS made reasonable efforts toward reunification. See In re C.B., 611 N.W.2d 489, 493 (Iowa 2000) (en banc) ("The State must show reasonable efforts as a part of its ultimate proof the child cannot be safely returned to the care of a parent."). While the State must make reasonable efforts toward reunification, parents must also "object when they claim the nature or extent of services is inadequate." In re L.M., 904 N.W.2d 835, 839-40 (Iowa 2017). Here, the father did not complain about reasonable efforts or request from the court any additional services at the permanency hearing or before the termination trial. As a result, any challenge related to additional services is not preserved for our review. See In re A.A.G., 708 N.W.2d 85, 91 (Iowa Ct. App. 2005).
As to the services HHS did provide, we reject the father's reasonable-efforts challenge. The services HHS must provide incarcerated parents are those reasonable under the circumstances. See In re S.J., 620 N.W.2d 522, 525 (Iowa Ct. App. 2000) (en banc) (also imposing an obligation on HHS to "make a record concerning its consideration" of the reasonableness of services provided based on age, parent-child bond, physical location, limitations of facility, services available, and other relevant circumstances). In our review of the record, we have not found any services the father timely requested and HHS refused to provide. To the extent the father's challenge on appeal generally asserts HHS should have done more to facilitate visits with the child while the father was incarcerated, the father's own testimony established the reason he had no contact with the child was because of restrictions imposed on his incarceration when he committed additional criminal acts and violated his conditions of release less than twenty-four hours after he left prison. It is the father's conduct-not any action or inaction by HHS-that restricted his contact with the child. And as an Iowa agency, HHS is not empowered to modify restrictions imposed in Minnesota. We discern no reversible error as to reasonable efforts.
Last, we find the cursory reference to additional time in the last sentence of the father's petition on appeal is not adequate to raise the issue. See, e.g., In re J.R., No. 22-1470, 2023 WL 2148760, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 22, 2023) ("sprinkled mentions" of an issue are insufficient to invoke appellate review). But even if the issue was adequately raised, we would reject it on the merits because the father already received an extension of time in February 2023 and made no tangible progress. Thus there is no reason to believe the grounds for termination would "no longer exist" after another six-month extension. See Iowa Code § 232.104(2)(b).
AFFIRMED.