Myers v. ADHS
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 444
ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISIONS I & II
No. CA09-569
BETHANY MYERS
Opinion Delivered
APPELLANT
V.
ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF
HUMAN SERVICES
APPELLEE
May 19, 2010
APPEAL FROM THE MILLER
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT,
[NO. JV-2008-323-1]
HONORABLE JOE E. GRIFFIN,
JUDGE
SUBSTITUTED OPINION ON
DENIAL OF REHEARING;
AFFIRMED
KAREN R. BAKER, Judge
On April 14, 2010, this court handed down an opinion in this case in which we
affirmed the trial court’s order adjudicating Bethany Myers’s children dependent-neglected.
Myers has filed a petition for rehearing. In response to her petition, which alleged that this
court’s decision contained mistakes of law and fact, we issue this substituted opinion
correcting a nonmaterial mistake of fact and deny Myers’s petition.
Myers and her husband, Jim, are the parents of R.M., N.M.1, M.M., J.M., E.M., and
N.M.2. She appeals from the circuit court’s order adjudicating her children dependentneglected after DHS took them into custody from the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries
Compound in Fouke, Arkansas, in November 2008. In the same proceeding, the circuit court
Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 444
also adjudicated the children of Don Thorne, Albert and Miriam Krantz, and Carlos and
Sophia Parrish dependent-neglected. There was testimony at the adjudication hearing that
Myers’s daughters N.M.1 and M.M., while living in a separate residence, spent a significant
amount of time in the Alamo’s household, and that, at the time of the hearing, Jim was in
hiding with N.M.1, M.M., and J.M. The circuit court sent Myers, who did not contest the
allegations at the hearing, to jail for contempt until Jim produced the children.
All of the parents make the same arguments on appeal: that the evidence does not
support the trial court’s findings of dependency-neglect, and that the court violated their
rights to the free exercise of their religion by ordering them to obtain and maintain housing
and employment separate and apart from the ministry. In a separate opinion, we affirmed the
adjudication order involving Don Thorne’s children. Thorne v. Arkansas Dep’t of Human Servs.,
2010 Ark. App. 317, __ S.W.3d __. For the same reasons expressed in that opinion, we affirm
the part of the order finding the Myers children dependent-neglected. But, unlike the other
parents, Myers did not raise the free-exercise issue below. And she agreed to the case plan in
open court. Thus, we cannot reach her constitutional argument on appeal. Broderick v.
Arkansas Dep’t of Human Servs., 2009 Ark. App. 771, at 8, __ S.W.3d __, __.
Affirmed.
GLADWIN, KINARD, GRUBER, GLOVER and BROWN, JJ., agree.
-2-
CA09-569
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