The First Department affirms Family Court findings of sexual abuse against a child’s mother’s intimate partner who served as weekend caretaker, upholding the court’s jurisdiction over him as a ‘legally responsible person’ and the admissibility of the seven-year-old’s forensic interview and hospital statements as corroborated evidence.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the termination of a mother’s parental rights but reversed the termination of a father’s rights as to his two biological children. The father complied fully with every ordered service, held a job, and maintained consistent visitation; his only obstacle was stable housing blocked by his criminal history. Because DCS never sought a waiver for a sister-in-law’s disqualified home despite a written policy allowing it, and never followed through on deposit assistance when the father found an apartment one week before the termination hearing, the court held that DCS failed to make reasonable efforts and that proceeding to terminate his rights violated due process.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed termination of a mother’s parental rights to two young children over a dissent arguing the record showed significant progress across all areas of concern. The majority held the trial judge properly weighed the mother’s recent improvements against a continuing pattern of evasion and recurring behavior, and that the mother’s own testimony that she still needed six more months of preparation after five years of DCF services supported a finding of non-temporary unfitness. Judge Wood’s dissent contends the majority applied too demanding a standard under Adoption of Arianne.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed convictions for attempted murder, first-degree kidnapping, and multiple assault charges arising from a domestic violence attack, holding that the AOC’s interpreter Standards create no binding legal rights and that violations warrant only an abuse-of-discretion review; that trapping a victim in a corner with a knife constitutes confinement separate from the accompanying assault offenses; and that a parent’s armed attack on another adult in a young child’s presence creates a substantial risk of physical injury supporting misdemeanor child abuse.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a Rule 41(b) dismissal of a DSS abuse and neglect petition at the close of DSS’s evidence, holding that nearly 1,500 pages of medical records admitted as business records cannot establish non-accidental injury causation without expert medical testimony, and that parental explanations introduced through DSS’s own witnesses that were consistent with accidental injury could not be rebutted by business records alone.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals remanded a termination of parental rights order for ICWA compliance after finding that the trial court had conducted the required inquiry under 25 C.F.R. § 23.107(a) as to respondent-father only; an on-the-record inquiry of respondent-mother is required regardless of her absence from prior hearings, and the termination order remains in place pending the inquiry.