Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Sherri Sobel, Temporary Judge. (Pursuant to Cal. Const., art. VI, § 21.), Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. CK61836
Christopher R. Booth, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Raymond G. Fortner, Jr., County Counsel, James M. Owens, Assistant County Counsel, and William D. Thetford, Principal Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
VOGEL, Acting P.J.
We affirm the dependency court’s orders terminating a mother’s parental rights over two of her children, Nathan S. and Tania S.
FACTS
A.
The two children who are the subject of these proceedings, Nathan (now 15 years old) and Tania (now 12), are the children of Linda A. and James S. They have a younger half-brother, Chris A. (now 2) who is the child of Linda and Ezequiel A. (Linda’s husband as of 2003). James, Ezequiel, and Chris are not parties to this appeal.
All three children were removed from Linda’s and Ezequiel’s custody by the San Diego County Children’s Services Agency in November 2005. According to the detention report, the children had been subjected to a three-hour violent altercation between Linda and Ezequiel during which both adults were physically abusive toward each other and the children, with Linda threatening to kill Nathan and telling him she had purchased a gun to do just that. Tania (then only 10 years old) was trying to escape through a small bathroom window more than 15 feet off the ground. Linda threw something at Ezequiel while he was holding Chris, and she hit Ezequiel with a metal towel holder. Both adults suffered head trauma so severe that they had to be “life flighted” to the hospital. The investigators described the incident as a crime scene, and one officer said, “The last time I saw this much blood was on a dead body.”
Once in protective custody, Nathan and Tania described the domestic violence they had witnessed throughout their lives, first while Linda was living with James (their biological father), then during Linda’s relationship with Ezequiel. The San Diego County Children’s Services Agency filed dependency petitions on behalf of all three children (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 300), alleging that violence in the family home placed the children at substantial risk of serious physical harm. Nathan and Tania were placed with their paternal grandmother, Haleema S. (and Chris was placed with a maternal relative).
All section references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.
In December 2005, Linda entered a no contest plea (in the San Diego Superior Court) to the allegations in the petitions and the petitions were sustained. Supervised visits for Linda were authorized, and domestic violence and anger management counseling was ordered for her, but Linda’s visitation rights vis-à-vis Nathan and Tania were terminated in February 2006. In March, the San Diego court transferred the case to Los Angeles because Linda had moved here (§ 375), and our dependency court accepted jurisdiction in April. Counsel was appointed for Linda, and the San Diego court’s orders were adopted.
B.
In May 2006, the Department of Children and Family Services reported that Linda and Ezequiel were attending domestic violence and parenting classes, and were participating in individual counseling. According to Linda’s therapist, she wanted to regain custody of Chris but had “resigned herself to the removal of her older children.” At a May hearing, the “no visitation” order remained in effect, but the court offered this encouragement to Linda: “I don’t really think there is anything to say other than [Linda is] sorry and she wishes it were different. I will, however, do the following. [Nathan and Tania] are doing extremely well where they are right now [and] both of the children are in therapy. I’m going to order [the Department] to contact the children’s therapist. Find out if the therapist is willing to have [Linda] in for one session. It’s going to be up to the therapist to make that decision based on the conversations with the children. . . . I’m the one [who] decides the visitation. I understand what San Diego did. I do not have the history of this case like they do so I’m not going to second-guess them but I do want the therapist to take a look at the [May 2006] report and how well mom’s doing currently, and see if that can sway the therapist at least to have her in one time so [Linda] can have a say and [the children] can have theirs.” For these reasons, the court denied Linda’s request for conjoint counseling, at least pending a report from the children’s therapist. In August, the children’s therapist recommended against conjoint counseling.
By November, Linda had attended 45 of 52 domestic violence classes and had consistently attended her individual counseling sessions, all toward her goal of retaining custody of Chris, and having Nathan and Tania remain with their grandmother under a long-term plan other than adoption. James appeared for the first time at a November 6 hearing and told the court he wanted custody of Nathan and Tania, explaining that he had not come forward earlier because he was afraid he would be “murdered” by Linda. The court appointed counsel for James and, at the end of the hearing, found that although Linda had substantially complied with her case plan, her children could not safely be returned to her custody. Reunification services were terminated for Linda, James and Ezequiel and a permanent plan hearing was scheduled -- before which, Linda was to have at least one session alone with the children’s therapist, then one session with the children’s therapist and the children.
C.
In March 2007, the Department reported that Nathan and Tania were doing well in their grandmother’s home and at school, and that it was “highly likely” that the grandmother would adopt the children (and that is what the children wanted). At the same time, the children’s therapist submitted a letter to the court advising that “Nathan and Tania should not be forced to talk to their mother,” and that they should “not participate in conjoint therapy sessions with their mother.” The therapist said Nathan and Tania “do not want to be reunited with their mother [and that f]orcing contact at [that] time would be detrimental to their emotional well being.”
At a March 5 hearing, Linda complained about her court-appointed lawyer and a Marsden hearing was held, during which Linda became “so agitated as to be unable to come back into court. She fired her lawyer and left.” In Linda’s absence, the social worker told the court that Linda had said she would not oppose termination of her parental rights or adoption as to Nathan and Tania, but had also said she might “change her mind.” When the court inquired about Linda’s attempts to talk to Nathan and Tania, the social worker said there had been none and “she was going to respect the children’s wishes and not communicate with them.” The court entered a “no contact” order and set a contested hearing for March 27.
Linda appeared without counsel on March 27. When the court said it would appoint a new lawyer, Linda refused to accept any court-appointed lawyer. A few minutes later, Linda became so disruptive that the court had her escorted out of the courtroom. In Linda’s absence, the court questioned Linda’s ability to advance her own position, noting that among her other rants she had talked about “admiralty court” and other irrelevant matters. The court appointed a guardian ad litem to appear for Linda, and appointed counsel to represent Linda through her guardian, then continued the hearing to April 27.
On April 27, Linda refused to speak to the guardian and “fired” the new lawyer, then left the courthouse. The lawyer’s request for a continuance was denied and, in Linda’s absence, her parental rights over Nathan and Tania were terminated, and the children were freed for adoption. Linda appeals.
The Department’s motion to dismiss Linda’s appeal on the ground that neither she nor her attorney of record signed the notice of appeal is denied. John Reilly, the lawyer appointed by the court to represent Linda through her guardian ad litem, signed the notice, albeit a month after he was relieved by the court. Although rule 8.100 of the California Rules of Court provides that the appellant or “the appellant’s attorney” must sign the notice of appeal, the word “attorney” refers to the appellant’s attorney, “whether or not he appears as such of record or not.” (Estate of Hultin (1947) 29 Cal.2d 825, 832; Edlund v. Los Altos Builders (1951) 106 Cal.App.2d 350, 357.)
Linda contends the order terminating her parental rights must be reversed because the dependency court “persistently failed to enforce, and the Department persistently failed to follow, the court’s order that [Linda], Nathan, and Tania share a single, conjoint therapy session to explore the propriety of parent-child visitation.” She claims she was impermissibly deprived of an opportunity to develop a meaningful relationship that could have prevented adoption. We disagree.
The court twice ordered conjoint counseling but withdrew its orders when the children’s therapist informed the court that it would be detrimental to the children to compel them to meet with the mother who had kept them in a constant state of terror for most of their lives. Moreover, Linda never did anything to suggest that a meeting with her elder children could accomplish anything. She did not object when the San Diego dependency court issued a “no visitation” order. She did not object when that order was adopted by the Los Angeles dependency court. She never filed a section 388 petition to modify the “no visitation” order. To the contrary, she disrupted the court proceedings almost every time she appeared, thus providing us with a record demonstrating her complete and absolute inability to control her outbursts. Given Linda’s past and present behavior, it would have been an abuse of discretion for a court to compel the children to meet with her.
The case Linda relies on, In re Hunter S. (2006) 142 Cal.App.4th 1497, is inapposite, and the rules discussed in that case were never meant to apply to a parent who has threatened to kill her own children (and done her best to actually kill her husband). Because there was never a possibility, let alone a probability, that these children would ever have a relationship with Linda, the rationale of Hunter S. -- that the court should provide the means by which a child can maintain a relationship with a parent even if custody is not presently possible -- has nothing whatsoever to do with this case.
DISPOSITION
The orders are affirmed.
We concur: ROTHSCHILD, J., JACKSON, J.
Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.