IN RE TAYLOR/HARRIS MINORS
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
In the Matter of DAKOTA HARRIS and ARI
DESHON TAYLOR, Minors.
FAMILY INDEPENDENCE AGENCY,
UNPUBLISHED
March 1, 2002
Petitioner-Appellee,
v
No. 236396
Berrien Circuit Court
Family Division
LC No. 00-000074-NA
SHEILA HARRIS, a/k/a DIANE TAYLOR,
Respondent-Appellant,
and
BRYANT TAYLOR
Respondent.
Before: Jansen, P.J., and Zahra and Meter, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Respondent-appellant (“respondent”) appeals by right from the family court’s order
terminating her parental rights to two minor children, Dakota Harris (born December 15, 1995)
and Ari Taylor1 (born October 12, 1997), under MCL 712A.19b(3)(c)(i) (“[t]he parent was a
respondent in a proceeding brought under this chapter, 182 or more days have elapsed since the
issuance of an initial dispositional order, and the court, by clear and convincing evidence, finds . .
. [that] the conditions that led to the adjudication continue to exist and there is no reasonable
likelihood that the conditions will be rectified within a reasonable time considering the child’s
age”), MCL 712A.19b(3)(g) (“[t]he parent, without regard to intent, fails to provide proper care
or custody for the child and there is no reasonable expectation that the parent will be able to
provide proper care and custody within a reasonable time considering the child’s age”), and MCL
1
The parental rights of Ari’s father were terminated on the basis of abandonment, and he has not
appealed the ruling.
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712A.19b(3)(c)(h) (“[t]he parent is imprisoned for such a period that the child will be deprived of
a normal home for a period exceeding 2 years, and the parent has not provided for the child’s
proper care and custody, and there is no reasonable expectation that the parent will be able to
provide proper care and custody within a reasonable time considering the child’s age”). We
affirm.
This Court reviews for clear error a family court’s finding that a statutory basis for
termination has been met. MCR 5.974(I); In re Trejo Minors, 462 Mich 341, 356-357; 612
NW2d 407 (2000). Once a statutory basis has been proven by clear and convincing evidence, the
court must terminate parental rights unless the court finds that termination is clearly not in the
best interests of the child. Trejo, supra at 344, 355. A court’s finding on the best interests prong
is also reviewed by this Court for clear error. Id. at 356-357, 365.
Respondent pleaded no contest to the initial petition, filed in June 2000. The petition
alleged, among other things, that respondent (1) had been arrested in May 2000 for retail fraud,
cocaine possession, and resisting arrest and was currently incarcerated and awaiting sentencing;
(2) had recently served thirteen months in prison for another offense; (3) was a chronic cocaine
abuser and had an extensive history of retail fraud offenses; (4) tested positive for cocaine at
Ari’s birth; (5) had failed to obtain proper medical care for the children; (6) allowed the children
to be cared for by an abusive woman during respondent’s incarceration; and (7) failed to properly
provide for the children’s financial needs during her incarceration. The termination petition,
filed in the spring of 2001, additionally alleged that after being released from jail in November
2000, respondent committed another retail fraud offense within twelve days and was returned to
jail with an earliest release date of January 2002. The family court concluded that respondent’s
incarceration, neglect, and cocaine use warranted termination of her parental rights.
Respondent essentially contends that the family court erred in terminating her parental
rights because if she obtained additional services after leaving jail, she could become an effective
parent. We disagree with respondent’s argument. Indeed the family court’s decision in this case
was supported amply by the testimony of a supervising foster care worker, who stated at the July
2001 termination hearing that (1) appellant, forty-two at the time of the hearing, had been out of
jail for only thirteen days in the previous year; (2) after being released from jail in November
2000 and promising to reform for the sake of her children, respondent stole clothes from a store
and returned to jail on December 6, 2000; (3) respondent received a sixteen-to-sixty-month term
of incarceration for the clothing theft and would not be eligible for parole until January 2002; (4)
respondent was incarcerated for a year between March 1999 and March 2000 and began testing
positive for cocaine after her release; (5) respondent attended inpatient drug counseling from
April 2000 to May 2000 but tested positive for cocaine on May 8, 2000, during outpatient
therapy; (6) respondent pleaded guilty to cocaine possession and retail fraud in June 2000 and
received a six-month sentence; (7) both children had attention deficit disorder; (8) after the end
of her current jail term, respondent would need a long period of reformation before she would be
ready to parent her children; and (9) there was a Children’s Protective Services referral regarding
appellant in October 1998 because the children had been missing medical appointments.
Moreover, respondent herself acknowledged that since March 1999, she had been out of jail and
inpatient programs for approximately six weeks total.
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In light of the foregoing evidence, and giving due regard to the trial court's special ability
to judge the credibility of the witnesses before it, see MCR 2.613(C) and In re Miller, 433 Mich
331, 337; 455 NW2d 161 (1989), the trial court did not clearly err in concluding that at least one
statutory basis for termination existed, see Trejo, supra at 355, and that termination of
respondent’s parental rights was in the best interests of the children. Indeed, given the children’s
ages, the trial court concluded that a permanent family situation was necessary and that “it’s not
fair to the boys to make them wait” for a suitable mother. We discern no clear error with regard
to this conclusion.
Affirmed.
/s/ Kathleen Jansen
/s/ Brian K. Zahra
/s/ Patrick M. Meter
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