 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
In re H. E.3/30/2005
In July 2004, the Juvenile Court of Morgan County determined that one-year-old H. E. and his half-sister, ten-year-old M. F., were deprived. Pursuant to this finding, the court placed the children in the temporary custody of the Morgan County Department of Family and Children Services. The children's mother appeals from the court's order, contending there was insufficient clear and convincing evidence to support a finding that the children were deprived. Finding no error, we affirm.
Under OCGA § 15-11-2 (8) (A), a child is deprived when he or she is "without proper parental care or control, subsistence, education as required by law, or other care or control necessary for the child's physical, mental, or emotional health or morals."
On appeal from a juvenile court's order finding deprivation, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the juvenile court's judgment to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found by clear and convincing evidence that the children were deprived. We neither weigh evidence nor determine the credibility of witnesses.
(Footnotes and punctuation omitted.) In the Interest of G. G., 253 Ga. App. 565 (560 SE2d 69) (2002).
So viewed, the record shows that the children's mother has a long history of illegal drug use, alcohol abuse, chronic financial instability, and volatile relationships with abusive men. The mother began using illegal drugs, including intravenous drugs, as a teenager. Over the next several years, she was able to maintain brief periods of sobriety, which ended when she was around others who were using drugs. She drifted between the homes of family members, friends, boyfriends, and fellow drug abusers, and she was sometimes homeless. In addition to the two children at issue in this case, the mother had two other children, one who was raised by a family member and another who was surrendered for adoption. Because of the mother's transient lifestyle and unrehabilitated drug abuse, DFCS offices in seven different Georgia counties have worked with the mother since 1995 to help her address her personal problems and develop parenting skills. According to a DFCS caseworker, the agency's assistance helped the mother make temporary changes in her behavior, but she repeatedly relapsed back to an unstable lifestyle that was dangerous to her and her children.
M. F. was born in January 1994 and was ten years old at the time of the deprivation hearings. In June 1995, a Rockdale County court removed M. F. from her mother's custody and placed the child with her paternal grandparents in Florida. The mother regained custody of the child a few months later, and she and M. F. moved repeatedly before the mother sent the child back to Florida to live with the grandparents in 1998. M. F. lived in Florida from 1998 until 2003, during which time M. F. was very close to her grandparents, a good student with perfect school attendance, and active in extra-curricular activities. The mother visited her only three or four times, provided no clothes or other necessities, and paid no child support . In July 2003, the mother visited M. F. in Florida and, after telling the grandparents she was taking the child to dinner, instead brought the child to Georgia. The mother claimed she took the child away from the grandparents because she was concerned that M. F.'s father, who was a drug abuser, sometimes lived in the grandparents' home and the child had seen drugs in the father's car.
From July through November 2003, M. F. lived in Georgia with her mother, M. F.'s infant half-brother, H. E., and the infant's father. On November 10, 2003, the Morgan County DFCS received a report that the mother's 16-year-old brothe
Page 1 2 3 4 Georgia DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|