Orange County Social Services Agency v. Stephanie D.

This is an unusual dependency case, and perhaps that is why it has run a full course, resulting in an order terminating parental rights, without anybody recognizing that it never should have been one. Stephanie D. and John D., the parents of S., 1 are apparently small-time crooks; however, there is no suggestion they were bad parents. There is no evidence they abused or neglected S., nor that they had any debilitating mental impairment or substance abuse problems. The sole reason that S. came into the dependency system was that neither Stephanie nor John was *1071 available to care for him when Stephanie was arrested and incarcerated for credit card fraud. 2 On that sole basis, the court sustained a dependency petition—erroneously, as it turned out, because there was neither any allegation nor any evidence that Stephanie was unable to arrange for care of S. during her incarceration. Such inability is the key fact that allows the court to take jurisdiction over the child of an incarcerated parent when there are no other grounds for doing so. And here there were none.

Although the jurisdictional order was itself appealable, and Stephanie failed to file such an appeal, she…