Peo in Interest of SiOG
Peo in Interest of SiOG
Peo in Interest of SiOG
Opinion
21CA0023 Peo in Interest of SiOG 10-21-2021
COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS
Court of Appeals No. 21CA0023
City and County of Denver Juvenile Court No. 19JV894
Honorable D. Brett Woods, Judge
The People of the State of Colorado,
Appellee,
In the Interest of Si.O.G. and S.M.G., Children,
and Concerning M.M.V. and S.O.G.,
Appellants.
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED
Division VII
Opinion by JUDGE NAVARRO
Grove and Pawar, JJ., concur
NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced October 21, 2021
Kristin M. Bronson, City Attorney, Laura Grzetic Eibsen, Assistant City
Attorney, Denver, Colorado, for Appellee
Barry Meinster, Guardian Ad Litem
Patrick R. Henson, Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Chelsea A. Carr,
Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Denver, Colorado, for Appellant M.M.V.
Pamela K. Streng, Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Georgetown,
Colorado, for Appellant S.O.G.
1
¶ 1
In this dependency and neglect proceeding, S.O.G. (father)
appeals the juvenile court’s judgment terminating his parent-child
legal relationship with S.M.G., and M.M.V. (mother) appeals the
juvenile court’s judgment terminating her parent-child legal
relationship with S.M.G. and Si.O.G (the children). The parents
contend that the juvenile court erred by determining that
termination was in the children’s best interests, as opposed to a
less drastic alternative. We disagree and affirm.
I. Background
¶ 2
In May 2019, the Denver Department of Human Services
received a report that S.M.G. tested positive for methamphetamine
at birth. The child was also born premature and required treatment
in a neo-natal care unit. Mother admitted to using
methamphetamine and to having a relapse while pregnant. She
asserted that she relapsed after father shot her in the hand. Father
was arrested on criminal charges related to the shooting and
remained incarcerated throughout the case.
¶ 3
In June 2019, after S.M.G. was discharged from the hospital,
a Department caseworker attempted many home visits to check on
2
the children, without success.1 The Department filed a motion for
temporary protective custody of the children, which the juvenile
court granted.
¶ 4
The Department later filed a petition in dependency and
neglect alleging, among other things, that the children were
homeless, without proper care, or not living with either parent
through no fault of the parents. Father and mother admitted the
allegations, and the court adjudicated the children dependent or
neglected. The court adopted treatment plans for both parents.
¶ 5
The children were placed together in foster care, where they
remained throughout the case. The record indicates that father’s
fiancée asked to be considered a placement for the children in
October 2019, but she did not have stable housing. The
Department approved the paternal grandmother’s home for
placement in January 2020. At that time, however, the paternal
grandmother “said that she was not able to take care of the two
kids.” The Department and guardian ad litem objected to moving
the children to the fiancée or paternal grandmother.
1 Although father’s name appears on Si.O.G.’s birth certificate,
Si.O.G. is not father’s biological child.
3
¶ 6
The court set a contested placement hearing for January
2020, but father agreed to “continue [the] matter until after his
criminal trial [was] completed . . . [in] March.” Mother, via her
counsel, agreed with this plan. By February 2020, the fiancée had
moved in with the paternal grandmother, and the paternal
grandmother told the Department she now wanted to be considered
as a placement for the children. The paternal grandmother started
participating in supervised visitation with the fiancée. Later,
however, the paternal grandmother requested separate visits from
the fiancée.
¶ 7
The record does not indicate that the contested placement
hearing occurred in March. In May, father’s counsel asked that the
hearing be continued to August 2020, stating that “the proposed
placement has not really had an opportunity to get to know the kids
or to really visit them.” The court granted the continuance.
¶ 8
Meanwhile, in June 2020, the Department filed a forthwith
motion to discontinue the children’s visits with the paternal
grandmother and fiancée. The court suspended visits temporarily
and set a contested visitation hearing. After that hearing, the court
concluded that the paternal grandmother and fiancée should be
4
allowed in-person visitation, with a parent-coach present, in
advance of the contested placement hearing.
¶ 9
The contested placement hearing was held in September 2020.
The juvenile court, considering the children’s “medical, physical,
emotional and other specific needs,” denied the request to move the
children. The court also ordered that visitation continue with the
fiancée and paternal grandmother.
¶ 10
Also in September 2020, the Department filed motion to
terminate the parents’ parental rights, alleging that their treatment
plans were not successful. After a hearing, the court granted the
motion.
II. Less Drastic Alternatives
¶ 11
Neither parent disputes that the Department proved each of
the statutory elements for termination of their parental rights. See
19-3-604(1)(c), C.R.S. 2020. Instead, both parents contend that the
juvenile court did not properly consider less drastic alternatives.
¶ 12
Mother asserts that the court erroneously relied on a previous
finding made pursuant to section 19-3-702, C.R.S. 2020, in lieu of
a finding pursuant to section 19-3-604(3). Father asserts that
approved placements existed that “would maintain family ties and
5
foster the child’s culture, heritage, and sibling relationships.” We
perceive no error on the court’s part.
A. Relevant Law and Standard of Review
¶ 13
When considering termination under section 19-3-604(1)(c),
the juvenile court must also consider and eliminate less drastic
alternatives to termination. People in Interest of M.M., 726 P.2d
1108, 1122 (Colo. 1986). This determination is implicit in, and
thus intertwined with, the statutory criteria for termination. People
in Interest of L.M., 2018 COA 57M, ¶ 24. If the juvenile court’s
findings “conform to the statutory criteria for termination and are
adequately supported by evidence in the record, a reviewing court
may reasonably presume that, in the absence of any indication in
the record to the contrary, the [juvenile] court considered and
eliminated less drastic alternatives.” People in Interest of A.M. v.
T.M., 2021 CO 14, ¶ 41.
¶ 14
The court must give primary consideration to the child’s
physical, mental, and emotional conditions and needs. § 19-3-
604(3); A.M., ¶ 20. Thus, the court may consider whether an
ongoing relationship with the parent would be beneficial or
detrimental to the child and the child’s need for permanency when
6
determining whether there is a viable alternative to termination.
L.M., ¶ 29. Indeed, the primary and controlling issue in termination
proceedings is the determination of what will serve the child’s
interests and welfare. A.M., ¶ 20.
¶ 15
Moreover, even where a less drastic alternative exists and
would be adequate, if the court considers the alternative “in
connection with its overall consideration of the statutory criteria for
termination and finds that termination is in the child’s best
interests, it must reject the alternative and order termination.” Id.
at ¶ 32; see also id. at ¶ 1.
¶ 16
Whether a juvenile court properly terminated parental rights
presents a mixed question of fact and law because it involves
application of the termination statute to evidentiary facts. See id. at
¶ 15. A determination of the proper legal standard to be applied in
a case and the application of that standard to the particular facts of
the case are questions of law that we review de novo. M.A.W. v.
People in Interest of A.L.W., 2020 CO 11, ¶ 31.
¶ 17
We will not disturb the court’s factual findings and
conclusions when they are supported by the record. Id. at ¶ 32; see
also A.M., ¶ 15. The credibility of the witnesses as well as the
7
sufficiency, probative effect, and weight of the evidence, and the
inferences and conclusions to be drawn from it are within the
juvenile court’s discretion. People in Interest of C.A.K., 652 P.2d
603, 613 (Colo. 1982). Our supreme court has emphasized that a
juvenile court’s “determinations regarding permanent placement
and its determination that termination was in the child’s best
interests” are factual findings entitled to deference, unless
unsupported by the record. A.M., ¶ 48.
B. Analysis
¶ 18
The juvenile court concluded that there were no less drastic
alternatives to termination that were in the children’s best interest.
In its oral findings, the juvenile court gave the following reasons for
this conclusion: (1) information received at the September 2020
contested placement hearing indicated that the children’s
placement with the paternal grandmother and fiancée was not in
the children’s best interest (2) father’s potential return home to the
fiancée and paternal grandmother was a concern because of how
father’s unresolved domestic violence issues could negatively affect
the children; and (3) there were legitimate concerns about father’s
motivations for placing the children with the fiancée and paternal
8
grandmother; specifically, that this placement would assist father in
resolving his criminal case. The evidence amply supports the
court’s determination.
¶ 19
First, we do not agree with mother that the juvenile court
erred by incorporating its findings from the placement hearing into
its factual findings at the termination hearing. The court took
proper judicial notice of its prior findings and orders. See People in
Interest of O.J.S., 844 P.2d 1230, 1233 (Colo. App. 1992) (a court
may take judicial notice of its own file, its findings of fact, and its
conclusions of law). Furthermore, the court differentiated between
the findings required at the contested placement hearing and those
related to a less drastic alternatives determination.
¶ 20
Second, at the contested placement hearing, the court
considered the fact that the children “haven’t been placed with [the
fiancée and paternal grandmother] throughout the case” when it
determined that the fiancée and paternal grandmother were not
appropriate placements for the child. The Department previously
determined that the fiancée, on her own, could not be an
appropriate placement for the child because “her housing was an
issue.” Similarly, although the Department approved the paternal
9
grandmother as a placement, she repeatedly insisted that she could
not physically care for the children on her own. Neither father nor
mother points to any evidence indicating that the paternal
grandmother’s situation had changed at the time of the termination
hearing, nor do they provide any legal argument indicating that the
juvenile court could not consider the paternal grandmother’s
previous testimony that she could not care for the children alone.
Cf. People v. Rios, 43 P.3d 726, 732 (Colo. App. 2001) (a court has
discretion to take into consideration its own observations).
¶ 21
Department counsel informed the court that the Department
“seriously look[ed]” at the fiancée and paternal grandmother as a
placement option where they would reside together with the
children in paternal grandmother’s home. At the contested
placement hearing, however, the caseworker testified that having
two adults and two children in the paternal grandmother’s one-
bedroom home made it “quite snug.” Furthermore, when the
fiancée worked, the paternal grandmother would be caring for the
children alone, something that she could not physically
accommodate. The paternal grandmother previously testified that
she did not want the children in daycare. But if the fiancée stopped
10
working to care for the children full time, the caseworker testified
that she would “worry about . . . how they [would] financially
provide for the children . . . [and] themselves.”
¶ 22
We note that, while father asserts that the fiancée and
paternal grandmother could provide “ties to the child’s culture,
heritage, and sibling relationships,” the record supports a finding
that the foster parents could adequately provide such ties. The
record indicates that the foster parents supported the children’s
“black and Spanish roots.” The foster mother testified at the
contested placement hearing that the children have “dolls and toys
and books that are culturally diverse” and that the family attends a
“culturally diverse” church. The foster mother testified that she
wanted to make sure that she was “engaging [the children] in being
around people of different cultures and ethnicities, especially their
own.” She was also open to allowing mother and father to remain
in contact with the children. Finally, during the course of the case,
mother had another child, who was to be placed in the same foster
family.
¶ 23
Third, the juvenile court did not consider placement with the
fiancée and paternal grandmother a viable less drastic alternative to
11
termination because of father’s domestic violence “issues.”
Although father had no convictions for domestic violence at the time
of the termination hearing, his treatment plan included a domestic
violence treatment component. Father was unable to participate in
domestic violence therapy while he was incarcerated. Nevertheless,
the fiancée testified that she planned to invite father into the home
with the paternal grandmother once he was no longer incarcerated.
She testified, “once [father] gets out of prison . . . we’re going to be a
family.” The caseworker testified, at the contested placement
hearing, that she was worried about the fiancée’s safety “and of
course if the children were placed with [the fiancée,] the children’s
safety” if father were released from jail and lived with the fiancée
and paternal grandmother. At termination, no evidence was offered
to controvert this testimony.
¶ 24
Finally, the court expressed concern about “possible issues of
witness tampering.” Specifically, the court noted that “if the father
or the fiancée had the children, that [father] might do better in his
criminal case.” The record shows that, at the time of the contested
placement hearing, father faced witness tampering charges. The
court’s concern was supported by the caseworker’s testimony that
12
those charges were “part of the reason” that she “did not want to
place the children with [the fiancée] and [paternal grandmother].”
¶ 25
In light of the evidence discussed above, the record supports
the juvenile court’s finding that termination of mother’s and father’s
parental rights, not a less drastic alternative, was in the children’s
best interests. Therefore, we do not disturb the court’s
determination.
III. Conclusion
¶ 26
The judgment is affirmed.
JUDGE GROVE and JUDGE PAWAR concur.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.