STATE OF NEW JERSEY, DIVISION OF YOUTH AND FAMILY SERVICES v. M.G.

 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-2222-05T42222-05T4

STATE OF NEW JERSEY, DIVISION

OF YOUTH AND FAMILY SERVICES,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

M.G.,

Defendant-Appellant

IN THE MATTER OF THE GUARDIANSHIP

OF M.M.M., J.M.M. and Z.G.,

Minors.

____________________________________

 

Submitted August 8, 2006 - Decided August 21, 2006

Before Judges Parrillo and Sabatino.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey,

Chancery Division, Family Part, Union County,

Docket No. FG-20-38-05.

Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender, attorney for appellant, M.G. (Helen Godby, Assistant Deputy Public

Defender and Ruth Harrigan, Designated Counsel, Of

Counsel and on the brief).

Zulima V. Farber, Attorney General of New Jersey,

attorney for the State of New Jersey (Christina G.

Ramirez, Deputy Attorney General, on the brief).

Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender, Law Guardian, attorney for minors, M.M.M., J.M.M. and Z.G. (Phyllis Warren, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

M.G. appeals from a final judgment terminating her parental rights to her daughters, M.M.M. and Z.G., born February 17, 2002 and February 25, 2005, respectively, and her son, J.M.M., born February 14, 2003. A judgment was also entered against the biological father, G.M., who does not appeal. Because we find the trial court's findings are supported by clear and convincing evidence, we affirm.

The relevant facts are as follows. M.G., herself a product of a highly dysfunctional and unstable family, came under the supervision of the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) when on October 9, 1999, at age fifteen, she began a five-month long psychiatric hospitalization at the CCIS Unit at Trinitas Hospital, where she had been admitted for aggression and verbal abuse of her mother. Previously, she had a history of truancy, juvenile delinquency, emotional illness and drug and alcohol abuse. At Trinitas, M.G. was evaluated by Dr. Alan Lee, who found that she was "already [showing] entrenched and maladaptive psychological and personality traits" and was diagnosed at the time with dysthymic disorder, cannabis abuse, alcohol abuse, oppositional defiant disorder, personality disorder not otherwise specified with borderline and narcissistic traits, rule out post traumatic stress disorder, and conduct disorder.

M.G. was discharged from Trinitas on March 9, 2000, into a series of programs that she never satisfactorily completed and from which she was dismissed, mostly for failure to comply with house rules. She was described by one program manager as untruthful and untrustworthy, and upon her last negative discharge on February 9, 2001, M.G. remained missing for the next five months.

By July 26, 2001, M.G. was three months pregnant with M.M.M. and seeking, unsuccessfully through DYFS, "emancipation" from her own mother. The putative father, G.M., had just been sentenced to three-years' probation for eluding police. Although M.G. had left her mother's home, she declined DYFS' offer of services. By January 15, 2002, M.G. had shown up for only one pre-natal appointment. She gave birth to M.M.M. on February 17, 2002, DYFS being unaware of her whereabouts. Only four months later, on June 2, 2002, M.G. obtained a restraining order against G.M., with whom she was then living, alleging that, on more than one occasion, he pushed, punched and kicked her in various places on her body. G.M. was placed on probation and required to complete anger management and counseling. However, less than nine months later, on February 14, 2003, J.M.M. was born to M.G. and G.M. On that date, DYFS received a referral from Trinitas Hospital stating that M.G. gave birth to a full-term healthy boy who needed special care because he was born with a broken clavicle, and that M.G. had not obtained prenatal care during her pregnancy. DYFS substantiated abuse on the basis that M.G. did not complete her pre-natal care.

Several days later, M.G. refused to speak with the DYFS worker. On February 25, 2003, after only one year in her mother's care, M.M.M. was removed from M.G.'s custody, and on March 3, 2003, J.M.M. was placed in foster care directly from the hospital. On March 13, 2003, the court ordered M.G. to undergo parenting skills classes, psychiatric and psychological evaluations, a substance abuse evaluation and urine screen. Subsequent orders of November 29, 2004, January 24, 2005, March 14, 2005, and March 23, 2005 imposed essentially the same requirements and allowed supervised visitations bi-weekly.

Despite these court-imposed requirements, and the repeated opportunities afforded G.M. to comply, G.M. never completed a parenting skills program, and neither did M.G. until, that is, March 16, 2005, two years after M.M.M. and J.M.M. had been removed from her care. M.G.'s participation in individual counseling and therapy sessions was also inconsistent, and she ceased attendance altogether in May and June, 2005. She attended only two sessions in July, 2005. Her compliance with visitation was equally sporadic. In fact, since February 2005, M.G. attended only seven out of seventeen scheduled visits with her children.

On February 25, 2005, M.G. gave birth to her third child, Z.G., but had failed to advise DYFS of her pregnancy until just before the baby was born. She also told DYFS she did not know where G.M. was living even though by then, G.M. had violated probation and was resentenced on the eluding charge to house detention at 168 Catherine Street in Elizabeth, where M.G. was also residing. In fact, Z.G. was at home with G.M. at the time DYFS removed the infant from M.G.'s custody on March 15, 2005. By July 2005, all three siblings were placed in the same foster home with foster parents who expressed a desire to adopt them.

M.G. also misrepresented to DYFS her job, housing and school situation. Indeed, at the time of the guardianship hearing, M.G. and G.M. were living in a single room in a boarding house with no place for the children to live. M.G. had no savings or even a bank account.

Dr. Leslie Williams, a psychologist, performed psychological and bonding evaluations. He concluded that M.G. was not capable of providing adequate parenting to her children, based on her "extensive history of unstable behavior" beginning in adolescence, failure to comply with DYFS requirements, gaps in contact with her children, and an insistence upon doing things her way, without regard to the consequences. Dr. Williams found M.G. to be deceptive and manipulative, placing her own needs above those of her children and blaming others for her problems.

In Dr. Williams' opinion, neither M.G.'s recent completion of parenting skills nor willingness to engage in therapy alters his prognosis. M.G.'s ability to sustain positive changes is poor as is her ability to safely parent her children, based not only on the evaluation, but also on M.G.'s long-standing history of acting out, of being oppositional, negative, mistrustful of others, emotionally unstable and uncooperative. Dr. Williams diagnosed M.G. with negativistic personality disorder with narcissistic and paranoid features. He concluded that she would be unable to provide stability in terms of employment, housing, and a presence in her children's lives.

Dr. Williams found no harm to either J.M.M. or Z.G. from termination of M.G.'s parental rights because these children have "no sense . . . of [M.G.] as [their] mother." And although M.M.M. is familiar and comfortable with M.G., Dr. Williams found no real bond between the two. Although M.M.M. might have experienced a sense of loss "if the visits [had] been . . . [c]onsistently kept", she would not suffer serious and enduring psychological harm if termination were to occur. Whatever sense of loss may be felt would, in Dr. Williams' opinion, be ameliorated by placement in the same home as J.M.M., with whom M.M.M. shares a strong sibling bond.

Dr. Ronald Silikovitz, G.M.'s expert psychologist, opined differently. In his view, M.G. was fit to parent and bonded with her two older children. His opinions, however, were based on information supplied by M.G. and Dr. Silikovitz acknowledged his conclusions would be suspect if M.G. had misled him about her education, employment, housing, visitation, relationship with G.M. and the extent of the domestic violence.

On November 4, 2004, DYFS filed a guardianship complaint against M.G. and G.M. as to M.M.M. and J.M.M. The complaint was amended on June 27, 2005, to include the infant, Z.G. Following the conclusion of evidence on September 2, 2005, the trial judge, in an oral opinion of October 25, 2005, terminated M.G.'s and G.M.'s parental rights to all three children, reasoning in pertinent part:

As for M.G. she was offered visits

. . . and parenting skills training . . . . She was offered a psychiatric evaluation . . ., psychological evaluation . . ., individual therapy . . . . [DYFS] also provided M.G. with bus passes and train tickets and train schedules, offered to reimburse her for travel to visits, and even had a caseworker pick her up and bring her to visits, and pick her up at the train station, go to the housing authority to support her application for an apartment of -- of a size substantial enough to accommodate the return of the children home.

[DYFS] also did home assessments and relative assessments. These were all appropriate efforts designed to help these parents reunite with their children. These efforts are not to be judged by their success or failure, because once [DYFS] made the efforts and offered the services, the ball was then in the court of the litigants.

There are no alternative[s] to termination of parental rights, this Court finds. Neither parent, as I've indicated at length, is fit to parent these children. And there is no prospect that this will change over time. As a matter of fact, while I find specifically that neither parent individually is capable of parenting, I find that the two together as a parenting couple, would probably be even more harmful to the children, because the relationship between the two of them has been abusive and because [M.G.] has not obtained the full benefit from the individual counseling.

With regard to other alternatives beside the parents, there were no paternal relatives offered by [G.M.] . . . . Maternal grandmother [P.G.], maternal aunt [K.G.], were both properly . . . ruled out by [DYFS]. [K.G.] had a criminal history and inadequate housing, [P.G.] had a [DYFS] history herself as well as a history of untreated substance abuse and untreated mental health problems. She certainly is no model of motherhood when she parented M.G., maltreated her so, and abused her so, the eldest of these three children is only three and a half years of age, the youngest is only eight months old. Their current foster parent is willing to adopt them, therefore kinship legal guardianship is not an appropriate alternate to termination of parental rights.

. . . .

Prong four requires proof that termination of parental rights will not do more harm than good.

. . . .

Regarding [M.G.], this Court has considered the facts and the evaluations and the testimony of psychologist Dr[.] Williams and Ronald Silikovitz. As between the two of these expert witnesses the Court considers Dr. Williams conclusions and testimony more objective and more persuasive than those of Dr. Silikovitz. There were flaws in Dr. Silikovitz's reports.

. . . .

There were no obvious flaws in Dr. William[s'] test methods. His conclusion appears to be logically related to his observations.

. . . .

Regarding [M.M.M.], Dr. Williams concluded in his testimony that she quote "may suffer some sense of loss" unquote. But he also opined that this sense of loss would not be enduing as [M.M.M.] did not have a stable bond with [M.G.].

Regarding [Z.G.], Dr. Williams noted that children under one year do not have the psychological ability to bond. [Z.G.] is only eight months old now, therefore termination of parental rights he said would have no effect on her.

The Court notes that [DYFS] stated plan is foster home adoption in this case. The current foster mother had already adopted two other children. Thus there is little question that she is sincere when she says she will adopt these three if they become free to be adopted. While [M.M.M.] does have an attachment relationship with her mother, and that is clear to this Court, she is not bonded to her in a psychological sense. However, both Dr. Williams and Dr. Silikovitz agreed that J.M.M. and M.M.M. are bonded to one another . . . . [S]ince their current foster parent is willing to adopt all three of them, termination of parental rights will do more good than harm in this case. This will afford the three children an opportunity to be raised together in a stable home. Prong [four] of the best interest test is proven by clear and convincing evidence.

On appeal, M.G. raises the following issues:

I. SUBSTANTIAL CREDIBLE EVIDENCE DID NOT EXIST TO SUPPORT THE COURT'S FINDINGS THAT THE 'BEST INTERESTS' TEST WAS PROVEN BY CLEAR AND CONVINCING EVIDENCE.

(A)

DYS FAILED TO SATISFY THE REASONABLE EFFORTS STANDARD BECAUSE IT UNILATERALLY CEASED ALL EFFORTS TO PROVIDE SERVICES TO DEFENDANT WITHOUT JUDICIAL APPROVAL.

(B)

DEFENDANT IS ENTITLED TO A REVERSAL BECAUSE THE EVIDENCE WHICH WAS PRESENTED DID NOT SUPPORT A FINDING THAT TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS WOULD NOT DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

II. DEFENDANT'S DUE PROCESS RIGHTS WERE VIOLATED BY AMENDING THE GUARDIANSHIP COMPLAINT TO ADD Z.F.

We have carefully reviewed the record in light of appellant's contentions and legal arguments and find no basis to disagree with Judge Spatola's well-reasoned opinion. She found clear and convincing evidence that the children's best interests required termination pursuant to N.J.S.A. 30:4C-15 and N.J.S.A. 30:4C-15.1(a). Substantially for the reasons set forth by Judge Spatola in her oral opinion of October 25, 2005, we affirm the judgment terminating M.G.'s parental rights to M.M.M., J.M.M. and Z.G. Moreover, we are satisfied that M.G., who has demonstrated no prejudice, suffered no deprivation of due process by the late amendment to the guardianship complaint adding Z.G.

 
Affirmed.

(continued)

(continued)

11

A-2222-05T4

RECORD IMPOUNDED

 

August 21, 2006