DCPP VS. M.A.W. AND W.W., IN THE MATTER OF THE GUARDIANSHIP OF G.V.W. (FG-04-0120-18, CAMDEN COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) (RECORD IMPOUNDED) (CONSOLIDATED)

RECORD IMPOUNDED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the
internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NOS. A-4060-17T3
A-4061-17T3
NEW JERSEY DIVISION
OF CHILD PROTECTION
AND PERMANENCY,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
M.A.W. and W.W.,
Defendants-Appellants.
_____________________________
IN THE MATTER OF THE
GUARDIANSHIP OF G.V.W.,
a Minor.
_____________________________
Submitted May 15, 2019 - Decided June 4, 2019
Before Judges Accurso, Vernoia and Moynihan.
On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey,
Chancery Division, Family Part, Camden County,
Docket No. FG-04-0120-18.
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for
appellant M.A.W. (Eric R. Foley, Designated Counsel,
on the briefs).
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for
appellant W.W. (Sigrid Sletteland Franzblau,
Designated Counsel, on the briefs).
Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, attorney for
respondent (Melissa H. Raksa, Assistant Attorney
General, of counsel; Juliana L. Stiles, Deputy
Attorney General, on the brief).
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, Law Guardian,
attorney for minor (James Joseph Gross, Designated
Counsel, on the brief).
PER CURIAM
In these consolidated cases, defendants M.A.W. (Mary) and W.W.
(Warren) appeal from a final judgment terminating their parental rights to their
fourth child, G.V.W. (Gina), removed from their care at birth and now three
years old.1 Mary contends the Division of Child Protection and Permanency
failed to prove the four prongs of the best interests standard of N.J.S.A. 30:4C -
15.1(a)(1) to (4) by clear and convincing evidence. Warren argues the
Division failed to prove the first three prongs of that test. The Law Guardian
joins with the Division in urging we affirm the judgment as to both parents.
1
These names are fictitious and employed to protect the child's privacy.
A-4060-17T3
2
Having considered defendants' arguments in light of the record and controlling
law, we affirm the termination of their parental rights to Gina.
Defendants have an almost ten-year history with the Division, a great
deal of which is recounted in our 2014 opinion affirming the termination of
their rights as to their three older children. See N.J. Div. of Child Protection &
Permanency v. M.W. and W.W., Nos. A-4056-12 and A-4067-12 (App. Div.
July 7, 2014) (slip op.). Warren is now fifty-two and Mary thirty-four years
old. The couple met over thirteen years ago when both were patients at a
psychiatric hospital. Id. at 4. Warren had been admitted to the hospital after a
suicide attempt and auditory hallucinations. Ibid. He suffered from bipolar
disorder and a long-standing addiction to drugs, including crack cocaine. Ibid.
Mary was admitted after stabbing her brother. Ibid. Both have extended
criminal histories, Warren having been convicted of burglary, criminal sexual
contact, criminal trespass, and writing bad checks, among other things; and
Mary of terroristic threats, aggravated assault and resisting arrest. Id. at 3.
As fully set forth in Judge Axelrad's comprehensive oral opinion in this
case, Gina was born to defendants in April 2016. The Division effected an
emergency removal three days later, following a report from the hospital of
concern for Mary's mental health, as well as her hygiene, her demands to hold
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the baby while under anesthesia, and her overfeeding the newborn. The
hospital assigned Mary a twenty-four-hour aide and barred Warren from
visiting after security had to escort him out after a violent outburst. A hair
follicle sample Warren provided several days later tested positive for cocaine.
The Division placed Gina with the resource parents who had adopted her three
older siblings.
For the next two years, the Division offered defendants a myriad of
services, including supervised visitation, individual therapy, couples
counseling, rent assistance, in-home services for Mary through the Division
and substance abuse treatment for Warren. The court three times rejected the
Division's permanency plan of termination of parental rights followed by
adoption in favor of permitting Mary and Warren more time to overcome the
problems preventing them from providing Gina a safe home. When defendants
made progress, leading the court to order limited unsupervised visitation
contingent on them both providing negative urine screens, they refused the
tests. A hair follicle test of Warren the following week was positive for
cocaine.
Defendants failed to complete services and never overcame their
entrenched pattern of domestic disputes leading to weekly visits from the
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police. Indeed, at the guardianship trial, an officer from the Gloucester
Township Police Department testified his department had received 162 calls
involving the couple from December 2016 through early 2018. Besides calls
from neighbors reporting the couple fighting, Mary called the police,
sometimes several times a week, complaining Warren was mistreating her and
using drugs, as well as that he threw a shoe at her, refused to return her keys,
took her phone charger and refused to turn down the volume of the television.
One Division caseworker testified to the many calls Mary made to the Division
hotline disguising her voice and claiming to be Warren, "admitting" drug use
and demanding Gina's return. Another caseworker testified the hostility
Warren exhibited when the Division removed Gina was "the most intense" she
had ever encountered in the hundreds of removals she had conducted.
The Division's expert psychologist, Dr. Jeffrey, testified about her
findings following psychological evaluations of Mary and Warren and the
bonding evaluations she conducted. Dr. Jeffrey testified Mary suffered from a
parent-child relational problem, specific learning disability, borderline
intellectual functioning, severe and chronic adjustment disorder, personality
disorder with mixed personality features, as well as dependent, narcissistic and
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anti-social personality features. She concluded Mary would not be able to
provide Gina a minimal level of safe parenting.
As to Warren, Dr. Jeffrey noted he acknowledged his bipolar disorder
and history of alcohol and drug problems. Dr. Jeffrey diagnosed him as
suffering from parent-child relational problems, relationship distress with
spouse, bipolar disorder, adjustment disorder, severe and chronic educational
problems, self-regulation problems, alcohol use disorder, substance use
disorder, and a mixed personality disorder with narcissistic and dependent
personality disorder features. Based on the testing she conducted, Dr. Jeffrey
determined it was "unlikely that [Warren] views himself as needing to
change." She testified Warren was not capable of a minimal degree of safe
parenting and that Gina would be at risk in his care.
Dr. Jeffrey also opined that Mary and Warren "[t]ogether . . . do not
compensate for the deficits in each of them," finding their volatile relationship
"even more problematic" for Gina. She found that as a couple, they
demonstrated a "level of impairment where there is not a functioning
partnership" and opined the absence of basic skills necessary to resolve the
serious conflicts regularly occurring between them placed Gina at a risk of
harm in their care.
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Dr. Jeffrey testified Gina displayed an insecure attachment to Mary and
Warren in the bonding evaluation she conducted, and that Gina would not be at
risk for harm if her relationship with them were severed. Dr. Jeffrey testified
Gina displayed a secure attachment to both resource parents, and that she
would be at risk of severe and enduring harm if separated from them, which
Mary and Warren could not mitigate. Dr. Jeffrey also emphasized Gina's need
for permanency because children her age have not "developed the skills to
cope with radical dislocation of their world."
Neither Mary nor Warren testified or called any witnesses to testify on
their behalf.
After hearing the testimony, Judge Axelrad delivered a comprehensive
opinion from the bench. The judge found placing Gina with Mary and Warren
would expose her to a risk of harm, which neither was prepared to abate. The
judge found Mary, despite years of interventions, did not know how to address
Gina's needs or place those needs above her own owing to her emotional
immaturity. She found Warren's "long-standing drug history" and refusal to
parent independent of Mary, despite her obvious instability, demonstrated an
unwillingness to put Gina's needs ahead of his own. The judge further found
the couple's "dysfunctional interactions raise serious questions about their lack
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of personal insight and poor parenting judgment." She concluded that delaying
permanent placement for Gina will add to the harm she has already suffered
and that removing her from her resource parents and siblings "would cause
serious and enduring emotional and psychological harm to the child."
Judge Axelrad had no difficulty finding the Division provided
defendants a litany of services geared to allowing them to parent Gina. The
court noted the Division attempted to explore alternatives but were advised
repeatedly by defendants that there were no relatives or friends who could
serve and identified several they would not want caring for Gina. Judge
Axelrad concluded that placing Gina with her resource parents and siblings
was in her best interests. The judge concluded Gina was securely attached to
the couple, whom she looked to as her psychological parents, and was
"thriving" in their care.
Our review of a trial court's decision to terminate parental rights is
limited. N.J. Div. of Youth & Family Servs. v. F.M., 211 N.J. 420, 448-49
(2012). We generally "defer to the factual findings of the trial court because it
has the opportunity to make first-hand credibility judgments about the
witnesses who appear on the stand; it has a 'feel of the case' that can never be
realized by a review of the cold record." N.J. Div. of Youth & Family Servs.
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v. E.P., 196 N.J. 88, 104 (2008) (quoting N.J. Div. of Youth & Family Servs.
v. M.M., 189 N.J. 261, 293 (2007)).
Having reviewed this record, we are convinced that Judge Axelrad's
findings are amply supported by the trial testimony. Defendants never
managed to be able to provide Gina with a safe and stable home at any point
after she was removed from their care shortly after her birth. "A parent's
withdrawal of that solicitude, nurture, and care for an extended period of time
is in itself a harm that endangers the health and development of the child." In
re Guardianship of D.M.H., 161 N.J. 365, 379 (1999).
Defendants' arguments that they never harmed Gina, that they were
making progress with services, and that the trial focused largely on their long
history with the Division and not on their current efforts, are belied by the
record. The record painstakingly documented by Judge Axelrad reveals the
Division provided defendants ample services, that defendants failed to avail
themselves fully of those services and that their progress was limited, at best.
When defendants were offered unsupervised time with Gina contingent on
passing a drug screen, they refused the test. In sum, neither Mary nor Warren
took the steps necessary to enable them to serve as minimally functional
parents to Gina.
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We are satisfied the record supports the judge's findings that returning
Gina to defendants would expose her to a risk of harm that neither was
prepared to abate, that delaying permanent placement would only add to that
harm and that termination of their parental rights will not do more harm than
good. We affirm the judgment substantially for the reasons expressed by
Judge Axelrad in her comprehensive opinion from the bench on April 19,
2018.
Affirmed.
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