D.M.

INTRODUCTION

In early 2020, then three-year-old A.M. and then three-month-old C.M. were taken into protective custody after their mother S.M. (Mother) called 911 and reported that C.M. had been found inexplicably unresponsive in the family’s home. After C.M. was rushed to the hospital, he was placed on life support. Life support was removed a few days later after C.M. suffered both brain and cardiac death. An autopsy confirmed C.M. had suffered multiple fractures to bones throughout his body. Some of the fractures were in various stages of healing, showing C.M. had been injured weeks before he had been admitted to the hospital. The pathologist who conducted the autopsy concluded C.M.’s cause of death was a traumatic brain injury. The juvenile court sustained the allegations of the amended juvenile dependency petition filed by the Orange County Social Services Agency (SSA) on behalf of A.M. The petition alleged that, inter alia, Mother and the children’s father D.M. (Father) (sometimes referred to collectively as the parents) had caused another child’s death within the meaning of Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivision (f) 1 (section 300(f)). The juvenile court also…