In Re Zeth S.

Melissa A. Chaitin, Los Angeles, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Minor.

William Wesley Patton, Costa Mesa, for Whittier Law School Legal Policy Clinic as Amicus Curiae.

Robert C. Fellmeth; Shannan Wilber, San Francisco; Janet G. Sherwood, Corte Madera, and Donna Furth, San Francisco, for Children's Advocacy Institute of the University of San Diego School of Law, Legal Services for Children and the Northern California Association of Counsel for Children as Amici Curiae.

Kenneth P. Sherman, Lisa E. Mandel and Anne E. Fraggasso for Dependency Court Legal Services, Inc., as Amicus Curiae.

BAXTER, J.

In a juvenile dependency appeal from an order terminating parental rights, may the Court of Appeal receive and consider post-judgment evidence that was never before the juvenile court, and rely on such evidence outside the record on appeal to reverse the judgment? The general answer is no, although in the rare and compelling case an exception may be warranted. In this case the Court of Appeal erred in receiving and considering such post-judgment evidence, presented for the first time through the unsworn statements of the minor's appointed appellate counsel in a letter…