California Court of Appeal

Welfare and Institutions Code section 355.1(d) creates a rebuttable evidentiary presumption that a parent who has previously been convicted of sexual abuse poses a substantial risk of harm to a child in his or her care or custody. An order removing the Father's children from his care and declaring them dependents of the juvenile court is reversed and remanded for further proceedings with directions to consider the evidence without regard to the section 355.1(d) presumption, where: 1) the Father was convicted in 1987 of sexual abuse of a child under 14 years old; 2) the Father adequately rebutted the presumption of current dangerousness by identifying contrary evidence; and 3) the juvenile court improperly relied solely on the presumption to sustain the allegations in the dependency petition, rather than evaluating the totality of the evidence in the record.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/14/2014
• Published 10/14/2014

Judges

• Perluss

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel