Background
In June 2025, a mother (identified by initials AI) contacted law enforcement in Platte County, Wyoming, concerned that her children’s father was using methamphetamine around their two young children, AC and BI. When officers investigated, however, they observed Mother herself acting erratically, suspected she was also under the influence, and found that both parents had recently used methamphetamine. Father’s urinalysis tested presumptive positive; Mother admitted to relapsing the night before. Hair-follicle tests on AC and BI came back positive for methamphetamine, amphetamine, and marijuana. Officers placed the children in protective custody, and the State filed a neglect petition against both parents under Wyoming’s Child Protection Act.
Mother appeared pro se at the August 2025 adjudicatory hearing. She had been informed at the June shelter-care hearing of her right to court-appointed counsel and told she needed to submit financial affidavits—but five to six weeks later, citing lack of transportation, she still had not done so. The juvenile court proceeded under the mandatory statutory timelines for juvenile proceedings. During the hearing the court solicited opening and closing statements from the State, Father’s counsel, and the guardian ad litem, but did not specifically invite Mother to make either. The court similarly allowed the other parties to cross-examine each witness without extending that opportunity to Mother.
After Father’s counsel rested, however, the juvenile court pivoted: it asked Mother three separate times whether she wished to recall any witness for questioning, specifically offering to bring back the investigating officer. Mother declined each time. She instead chose to testify briefly on her own behalf. The court found both parents had neglected the children by exposing them to methamphetamine and entered a written neglect order. Mother timely appealed, arguing the juvenile court had denied her a meaningful opportunity to be heard in violation of due process.
The Court’s Holding
The Wyoming Supreme Court (Justice Fenn, joined by Chief Justice Boomgaarden and Justices Gray, Jarosh, and Hill) affirmed under plain error review. Because Mother had not raised her due process objection before the juvenile court, the Supreme Court could reverse only upon satisfying the three-part plain-error test: (1) the record clearly reflects the alleged error; (2) the error transgressed a clear and unequivocal rule of law; and (3) the party was denied a substantial right resulting in material prejudice. Mother satisfied only the first element.
On the second prong, the court held the juvenile court did not violate a clear and unequivocal rule of law. Under the Child Protection Act, Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 14-3-423(a) (2023), a parent at an adjudicatory hearing has the right to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses and to introduce evidence and otherwise be heard. Procedural due process independently requires “a meaningful opportunity to be heard” before the government interferes with the fundamental right to familial association. The court concluded that those rights were ultimately satisfied: once Father’s counsel rested, the juvenile court offered Mother the ability to recall any witness (including the officer), reiterated that offer three times, allowed her to testify under oath, and imposed no restriction on what she could say. That mid-hearing course correction gave Mother a meaningful opportunity, and her decision to decline cross-examination was her own.
The court also rejected the prejudice argument. Material prejudice requires showing a reasonable probability of a more favorable outcome absent the error. Mother presented no evidence that earlier cross-examination or opening and closing statements would have changed the result: both parents had admitted methamphetamine use, the children had tested positive for controlled substances, and when Mother was given the floor she offered only that Father was not supposed to be at the motel—nothing that would have undermined the neglect findings.
Key Takeaways
- Wyoming’s plain-error doctrine places a steep burden on parents who fail to preserve due process objections at trial: they must show not only a procedural lapse but a violation of a clear and unequivocal rule of law and resulting material prejudice—an exacting three-part standard.
- A juvenile court that initially overlooks a pro se parent’s right to give opening and closing statements or to cross-examine witnesses can cure the problem mid-hearing by expressly and repeatedly offering those opportunities; once the cure is extended and voluntarily declined, the due process violation dissolves.
- The Wyoming Child Protection Act’s statutory rights (Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 14-3-423(a)) and constitutional due process both demand a meaningful opportunity to be heard, but neither specifies the exact moment in the hearing that opportunity must be extended—timing flexibility cuts against appeals based on sequencing alone.
- Practitioners representing parents in Wyoming child protection adjudications should immediately, and on the record, assert any due process objection the moment the court fails to invite their client to participate—waiting to raise the issue on appeal triggers plain-error review and dramatically reduces the chance of reversal.
Why It Matters
Child protection proceedings in Wyoming move fast—statutory timelines leave little room to maneuver—and pro se parents are disproportionately affected by procedural missteps they may not recognize in the moment. In re: AC and BI confirms that Wyoming appellate courts will ask whether the parent received a meaningful opportunity to be heard at any point in the hearing, not whether it came at the textbook moment. For a parent without counsel, that timing distinction is decisive: a missed objection at trial becomes almost insurmountable on appeal under plain-error review.
The practical lesson runs both ways. Juvenile court judges should make affirmative, on-the-record offers to pro se parents at each procedural stage—openings, cross-examination of each witness, closings—both to honor the statute and to protect the record on appeal. Defense counsel in juvenile matters should treat every procedural omission as a live objection requiring immediate preservation. And the opinion reaffirms that Wyoming’s constitutional right to familial association, though fundamental, is not self-executing: it requires the parent to seize the opportunity when offered.