IN RE: the Involuntary Termination of the Parent-Child Relationship of A.G. (Minor Child) (2025)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

[1] S.G. II (“Father”) appeals the trial court's termination of his parental rights over his minor daughter, A.G. (“Child”).¹ Father raises two issues for our review, which we restate as follows:

1. Whether Father preserved his challenges to certain findings made by the trial court for appellate review.

2. Whether the trial court's termination of Father's parental rights over Child is clearly erroneous.

[2] We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[3] Child was born in 2014. In 2015, Father was convicted and incarcerated in Illinois for robbery. In 2017, Father was released to parole and lived with Child and Child's biological mother in Indiana “for a brief period of time” until the mother “had another kid” and “moved in with her other baby[’s] father.” Tr. p. 53. In 2019, Father was convicted in Indiana of Level 3 felony aggravated battery and again incarcerated.

[4] In June 2022, Child's mother was involved in a “physical altercation,” in Child's presence, with the father of her other child. Ex. Vol. p. 10. The State charged both adults with domestic battery in the presence of a child. Based on the charge of domestic violence against mother, the Indiana Department of Child Services (“DCS”) filed a petition alleging Child to be a Child in Need of Services (“CHINS”). The trial court adjudicated Child to be a CHINS based on mother's ensuing admission.

[5] At the time DCS filed the CHINS petition, Father was incarcerated. At no point since that filing has Father not been incarcerated or on work release. He was placed on work release in March 2023, and the court at that time ordered him to comply with certain conditions in the ongoing CHINS proceeding. However, Father failed to comply with several of those conditions, including requirements that he refrain from illicit substance use, which was also a violation of his conditions of work release. Thus, about eight months after being placed on work release, Father was returned to prison. And, thereafter, the court found that Father's return to incarceration rendered him unable to engage in services.

[6] In July 2024, DCS filed its petition to terminate Father's parental rights over Child. After an ensuing fact-finding hearing on that petition, the court found that Child had been removed from Father's care for at least fifteen of the most recent twenty-two months, and, despite DCS's reasonable efforts to preserve the family relationship and reunify Child with Father, Father has been “unable to remedy the circumstances” that resulted in Child being placed outside of his care. Appellant's App. Vol. 2, p. 9. The court further found, relying on the CASA's testimony, that Child is well-bonded with her foster family and that DCS has a satisfactory plan in place for Child's ultimate placement. Accordingly, the trial court terminated Father's parental rights over Child.

[7] This appeal ensued.

Standard of Review

[8] Indiana appellate courts have long adhered to a highly deferential standard of review in cases involving the termination of parental rights. In re S.K., 124 N.E.3d 1225, 1230-31 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019). In analyzing the trial court's decision, we neither reweigh the evidence nor assess witness credibility. Id. We consider only the evidence and reasonable inferences favorable to the court's judgment. Id. In deference to the trial court's unique position to assess the evidence, we will set aside a judgment terminating a parent-child relationship only if it is clearly erroneous. Id.

[9] To determine whether a termination decision is clearly erroneous, we apply a two-tiered standard of review to the trial court's findings of facts and conclusions of law. Bester v. Lake Cnty. Off. of Fam. & Child., 839 N.E.2d 143, 147 (Ind. 2005). First, we determine whether the evidence supports the findings; second, we determine whether the findings support the judgment. Id. “Findings are clearly erroneous only when the record contains no facts to support them either directly or by inference.” In re A.D.S., 987 N.E.2d 1150, 1156 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), trans. denied. If the evidence and inferences support the court's termination decision, we must affirm. In re L.S., 717 N.E.2d 204, 208 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999), trans. denied. We will accept unchallenged factual findings as true. See In re S.S., 120 N.E.3d 605, 614 n.2 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019).

[10] It is well-settled that the parent-child relationship is one of society's most cherished relationships. See, e.g., In re A.G., 45 N.E.3d 471, 475 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015), trans. denied. Indiana law thus sets a high bar to sever that relationship by requiring DCS to prove several elements by clear and convincing evidence. Ind. Code § 31-35-2-4(c), (d) (2024). Clear and convincing evidence need not establish that the continued custody of a parent is wholly inadequate for a child's very survival. Bester, 839 N.E.2d at 148. It is instead sufficient to show that the child's emotional and physical development are put at risk by the parent's custody. Id. If the trial court finds the allegations in a petition are true, the court must terminate the parent-child relationship. I.C. § 31-35-2-8(a).

1. Father's challenges to the trial court's factual findings have not been preserved for appellate review.

[11] On appeal, we first address Father's challenges to the trial court's findings of fact. Father first challenges the trial court's finding that he failed to make “significant progress toward reunification.” Appellant's App. Vol. 2, p. 8. According to Father, the record shows that he made some progress. But Father's argument does not cogently address the court's assessment that that progress was not “significant” and, in any event, is a request for us to reweigh the evidence, which we will not do.

[12] Father also challenges the trial court's findings, and the conclusions derived from those findings, based on the CASA's testimony regarding Child's relationship with her foster family. Father complains that the CASA's testimony was inadmissible hearsay. However, Father did not object to the CASA's testimony on hearsay grounds in the trial court. Accordingly, Father's challenges to these findings and conclusions are not properly before us, and we do not consider them. See, e.g., In re N.G., 51 N.E.3d 1167, 1173 (Ind. 2016) (declining to consider an issue raised for the first time on appeal in a termination case).

2. DCS presented sufficient evidence to support the termination of Father's parental rights.

[13] We thus turn to Father's argument that DCS failed to present sufficient evidence to support the termination of his parental rights. DCS alleged multiple alternative grounds to support the termination of Father's rights; DCS needed to prove only one of those grounds to support the trial court's judgment. See I.C. § 31-35-2-4(c)(1). We focus on the following allegation:

That:

(A) the child has been removed from the parent and has been under the supervision of a local office or probation department for at least fifteen (15) months of the most recent twenty-two (22) months, beginning with the date the child is removed from the home as a result of the child being alleged to be a child in need of services or a delinquent child; and

(B) despite the department's reasonable efforts to preserve and reunify the child's family ․, the parent has been unable to remedy the circumstances that resulted in the child being placed in care outside the parent's home.

I.C. § 31-35-2-4(d)(2); see also Appellant's App. Vol. 2, p. 6. Again, the trial court concluded that DCS presented sufficient evidence under that provision, and it terminated Father's parental rights accordingly.

[14] Father's only argument against the trial court's findings and conclusions under that provision is that it “could not apply” to him because Child “was not removed” from his care but from the mother's care following her incident of domestic violence. Appellant's Br. at 9. Father is incorrect as a matter of law. As Indiana's case law makes clear, when parents do not live together and a child is removed from the home of one parent but not placed in the home of the other, the child is “effectively removed from both ․ parents ․” In re I.A., 934 N.E.2d 1127, 1133 n.3 (Ind. 2010) (citing Tipton v. Marion Cnty. Dep't of Pub. Welfare, 629 N.E.2d 1262, 1266 (Ind. Ct. App. 1994)). Here, although Child lived with her mother at the time DCS took custody of Child, DCS did not and could not place Child with Father because of his incarceration. Accordingly, Child was removed from Father's care as well.

[15] Further, insofar as Father argues under Indiana Code section 31-35-2-4(d)(2) that he could not be asked to “remedy the circumstances” that resulted in Child's removal from mother's care, Father again misunderstands the law. As our Supreme Court has made clear, DCS was required to show that the conditions that resulted in DCS “placing and then retaining [the Child] in foster care rather than placing [her] with Father” were unlikely to be remedied by Father. Id. at 1134. DCS did so when it showed Father's continuing and repeated incarceration, and Father's arguments on appeal with respect to Child's mother are nonstarters.

Conclusion

[16] For all of these reasons, we affirm the trial court's termination of Father's parental rights over Child.

[17] Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Mother executed a consent for the Child's adoption and was dismissed from the termination proceeding.

Mathias, Judge.

May, J., and Bradford, J., concur.