IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 15-1336
Filed October 14, 2015
IN THE INTEREST OF T.W. and T.L.,
Minor Children,
M.A.L., Mother,
Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Johnson County, Deborah Farmer
Minot, District Associate Judge.
A mother appeals from the juvenile court’s order terminating her parental
rights to her two children. AFFIRMED.
Noelle Murray of Murray Law Office, P.L.C., Cedar Rapids, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Kathrine S. Miller-Todd, Assistant
Attorney General, Janet Lyness, County Attorney, and Emily Voss, Assistant
County Attorney, for appellee.
Anthony Haughton, Linn County Advocate, Cedar Rapids, attorney and
guardian ad litem for minor children.
Considered by Doyle, P.J., and Mullins and Bower, JJ.
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MULLINS, Judge.
A mother appeals from the juvenile court’s order terminating her parental
rights to her two children.1 She argues the juvenile court erred in failing to grant
her additional time to work toward reunification with her children. Upon our de
novo review of the record, we affirm.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
The mother has two children, T.W., born in August 2011, and T.L., born in
November 2012. The Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS) first became
involved with this family in 2012 due to domestic violence between the parents.
The parents participated in voluntary services and the case was closed. At birth,
T.L. tested positive for marijuana and DHS again recommended the parents
participate in voluntary services. Before this second case was closed, another
domestic violence incident occurred between the parents and DHS
recommended voluntary services a third time in December 2013. The parents
failed to follow through on these services, and the State filed child-in-need-of-
assistance (CINA) petitions in February 2014.
In March 2014, the mother stipulated that the children were in need of
assistance. The juvenile court adjudicated T.W. and T.L. CINA in April 2014. In
May 2014, the juvenile court held a dispositional hearing during which it
continued placement and custody of the girls with their parents. In July 2014, the
court removed the children from their parents and placed them in foster care
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Hearing regarding the father’s parental rights was pending at the time of the mother’s
appeal in this case.
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because the mother had violated the safety plan following another domestic
violence incident with the father.
The juvenile court held review hearings in December 2014 and February
2015. In February 2015, it appeared the parents were making improvements and
visits progressed to semi-supervised and then overnights. In early March 2015,
local police executed a search warrant at the parents’ home, and both parents
admitted to illegal drug activity. Police had warned DHS of the impending
search, and DHS had cancelled a scheduled visit, otherwise the children would
have been present when the raid occurred. In April 2015, the mother was
arrested and charged with two felony counts. She was released from custody in
June and ordered to obtain a substance abuse evaluation and participate in any
recommended treatment, but she failed to complete the evaluation. That same
month, the juvenile court held a review hearing and the State filed a petition to
terminate the mother’s parental rights to her two children.
In July 2015, the juvenile court held a hearing on the State’s petition and
entered an order terminating the mother’s parental rights to T.W. and T.L. under
Iowa Code section 232.116(1)(h) (2013). The juvenile court discussed the
mother’s progress, noting she had attended counseling, sought employment,
maintained housing for her and the girls, consistently attended visitation and
displayed appropriate parenting skills, and that she loved her daughters and
shared a bond with them. But it also considered her repeated bad decisions,
including her involvement in illegal drug activity and her relationship with the girls’
father.
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The juvenile court concluded that the children could not be returned to the
custody of either parent without continuing to be in need of assistance and it was
in the children’s best interests to terminate parental rights. The court considered
the risk of incarceration that the mother faced, especially in light of her criminal
history, and found it “impossible to grant [the mother] ‘more time’ when her future
is so uncertain and when her children have been forced to wait for so long
already.” This appeal followed.
II. Standard of Review
We review termination-of-parental-rights proceedings de novo. In re A.M.,
843 N.W.2d 100, 110 (Iowa 2014). We give weight to the factual determinations
of the juvenile court but are not bound by them. In re A.B., 815 N.W.2d 764, 773
(Iowa 2012). Our primary consideration is the best interests of the child. Id. at
776.
III. Analysis
On appeal, the mother does not contest the grounds for termination of her
parental rights but argues that the juvenile court erred in denying the mother
additional time to work toward reunification pursuant to Iowa Code section
232.104(2)(b). Section 232.104(2)(b) allows a juvenile court to delay “placement
of the child for an additional six months,” so long as the court determines that the
need for removal “will no longer exist” at the end of the extension. Iowa Code
§ 232.104(2)(b).
In denying the mother’s request for an additional six months to work
toward reunification, the juvenile court considered the domestic violence issues
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that plagued the case despite services being offered for three years, the pending
criminal drug charges against both parents, and the likelihood that neither parent
would be available to parent the children within six months. A mother’s potential
imprisonment for pending felony drug charges and “her resulting inability to care
for the children” is a risk that prevents the court from “finding the children would
not be at risk if returned to her care.” In re A.A.G., 708 N.W.2d 85, 92 (Iowa Ct.
App. 2005).
While in their parents’ care, the girls witnessed numerous incidents of
domestic violence between their parents. Based on what the police raid
disclosed about drug activities at the parents’ home, the parents likely exposed
the girls to illegal drug use and sales. At the time of the termination hearing, the
mother was facing felony criminal charges with a potential sentence of
incarceration of up to twenty-five years on one count and five years on another.
T.W. was only three years old at the time of the termination hearing and T.L. only
two. Both girls had been removed from their parents’ home and custody for over
one year at the time of the hearing. The DHS worker testified that the children
are comfortable in their foster home and share a bond with their foster parents
who wish to adopt the girls. We cannot ask these children to continuously wait
for their mother to become a stable parent. In re D.W., 791 N.W.2d 703, 707
(Iowa 2010); see also In re A.B., 815 N.W.2d at 778 (“It is simply not in the best
interests of children to continue to keep them in temporary foster homes while
the natural parents get their lives together.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
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“[A]t some point, the rights and needs of the children rise above the rights and
needs of the parent.” In re C.S., 776 N.W.2d 297, 300 (Iowa Ct. App. 2009).
These young children need permanency and stability. Our review of the
record does not persuade us that circumstances would be such that the need for
removal would no longer exist at the end of six months. See Iowa Code
§ 232.104(2)(b). Thus upon our de novo review, we affirm the termination of the
mother’s parental rights to her children.
AFFIRMED.