A Kanawha County Circuit judge "committed clear legal error" by authorizing a mother to have unsupervised visitation with her infant child despite her 20-year history of abuse and neglect case proceedings, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled this week.
The guardian ad litem appointed to represent a child born in March 2016 filed a petition last year in an attempt to stop Circuit Judge Tod Kaufman from enforcing an order granting the child's mother an improvement period. The mother, who the court identifies only by her initials, T.H., already has relinquished or had terminated her rights to 10 of her other children, the filing states.
"For 10 months now, [the infant's] future has remained uncertain. To require him to wait while Respondent Mother attempts to develop parenting skills that, for nearly two decades were almost wholly absent, is certainty not in [the child's] best interest," justices wrote.
Justices on Wednesday ordered the case be sent back to Kaufman and that he terminate the improvement period.
T.H. "has continued a constant pattern of drug abuse, abusive relationships and failure to treat her mental illness over the past two decades," justices wrote.
An emergency abuse and neglect petition was filed by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources within 10 days of the woman giving birth last March. The petition considered the prior terminations of the woman's parental rights and because of evidence she used illegal drugs during her pregnancy, justices wrote.
The child's mother last July filed a motion asking Kaufman to be allowed a post-adjudicatory improvement period, citing her compliance with services, visitation and negative drug screens, Wednesday's filing states. Officials with the DHHR didn't oppose the initial request for an improvement period.
Kaufman granted the motion and set terms and conditions for T.H., which included that she must participate in parenting education, random drug screens, a psychological evaluation and follow all resulting recommendations, participate in counseling and receive supervised visitation with her child, justices wrote.
As the improvement period proceeded, however, the Supreme Court order states that Kaufman authorized unsupervised visitation between the mother and infant. The child's guardian filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court.
On Dec. 1, 2016, justices ordered there not to be any unsupervised visitation until the Supreme Court decided the case. DHHR officials later said they also didn't want the mother to have unsupervised visitation.
"As this Court has held, fulfillment of some of an improvement period's terms without actual improvement of the conditions that led to the filing of the abuse and neglect petition simply is not enough; rather the parent must actively remedy the conditions of abuse and neglect to demonstrate such improvement," the Supreme Court's filing states. "Because the lower court violated this clear statutory mandate, and irremediable prejudice may result from the delays inherent in waiting until the conclusion of the improvement period and for the matter to be set for disposition, we find that prohibition is an appropriate remedy in this case."
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.