State of Utah, in the interest of F.R., D.C., B.C., B.C., and R.C.

----ooOoo----

State of Utah, in the interest of F.R., D.C., B.C., B.C., and R.C.,
persons under eighteen years of age.

______________________________

K.C.,
Appellant,

v.

State of Utah,
Appellee.

MEMORANDUM DECISION
(Not For Official Publication)

Case No. 20010435-CA

F I L E D
October 18, 2002 2002 UT App 346 -----

Fifth District Juvenile, St. George Department
The Honorable Hans Q. Chamberlain

Attorneys:
Kenneth L. Combs, St. George, for Appellant
Mark L. Shurtleff and John M. Peterson, Salt Lake City, for Appellee
Martha Pierce, Salt Lake City, Guardian Ad Litem -----

Before Judges Jackson, Bench, and Orme.
JACKSON, Presiding Judge:

K.C. appeals from the trial court's denial of reunification services and from the trial court's termination of K.C.'s parental rights in her minor children. We affirm.

On both issues, K.C. argues that the evidence was insufficient to support the findings upon which the trial court based its decisions. To show clear error, an appellant must marshal the evidence as discussed below. SeeWest Valley City v. Majestic Inv. Co., 818 P.2d 1311, 1313 (Utah Ct. App. 1991). In both arguments, K.C. fails to meet her appellate burden of showing clear error. The marshaling process is not unlike becoming the devil's advocate. Counsel must extricate himself or herself from the client's shoes and fully assume the adversary's position. In order to properly discharge the duty of marshaling the evidence, the challenger must present, in comprehensive and fastidious order, every scrap of competent evidence introduced at trial which supports the very findings the appellant resists. After constructing this magnificent array of supporting evidence, the challenger must ferret out a fatal flaw in the evidence. The gravity of this flaw must be sufficient to convince the appellate court that the court's finding resting upon the evidence is clearly erroneous. Id. at 1315. K.C. fails because her brief does not present any of the evidence the trial court relied upon in making its findings. "What [she] has not done is to correlate particular items of evidence with the challenged findings and convince us of the court's missteps in application of the evidence to its findings. The findings, then, have not been shown to be clearly erroneous." Id.

K.C. merely included the trial court's findings, consisting of eighty-one pages, as an addendum to her brief and alleged that the evidence referred to in those findings is insufficient.(1) However, a "'reviewing court is . . . not simply a depository in which the appealing party may dump the burden of argument and research.'" State v. Larsen, 828 P.2d 487, 491 (Utah Ct. App. 1992) (citation omitted), aff'd, 865 P.2d 1355 (Utah 1993). Moreover, in an attempt to show insufficiency of the evidence, K.C. has cited only facts in the record that support her position. An attempt to reargue the evidence on appeal is improper appellate practice. Selective representation of the facts tending to rebut the trial court's findings made below does not satisfy the marshaling requirement. See Johnson v. Higley, 1999 UT App 278,¶37, 989 P.2d 61; see also Butler, Crockett & Walsh Dev. Corp. v. Pinecrest Pipeline Operating Co., 909 P.2d 225, 236 (Utah 1995) (holding that rearguing factual issues lost below does not meet marshaling requirement).

Because K.C. has not marshaled the evidence to show clear error in the trial court's findings, we "'assume[] that the record supports the findings of the trial court.'" Larsen, 828 P.2d at 490 (citation omitted). The undisturbed findings support the trial court's legal conclusions regarding reunification services and the termination of K.C.'s parental rights. Thus, K.C. has failed to show reversible error. Accordingly, we affirm.
 
 

______________________________
Norman H. Jackson,
Presiding Judge -----

WE CONCUR:
 
 

______________________________
Russell W. Bench, Judge
 
 

______________________________
Gregory K. Orme, Judge

1. For example, in challenging the court's finding that abuse occurred, K.C. admits that the State "provided evidence to suggest that abuse occurred and that the abuser may have been" K.C.'s husband. However, she never addresses exactly what that evidence was, and then draws the non sequitur conclusion that the State "clearly failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that [K.C.] knew or should have known of the abuse." She fails to show the flaw in the evidence supporting the finding that she knew about the abuse.