Santa Cruz County Human Resources Agency v. Paz M.

Appellants Paz M. (mother) and Vincent M., Sr. (father), are the parents of Vincent M., Jr. (Vincent). Two-year-old Vincent was detained in July 2004. At that time, he was living with mother in a residential substance abuse treatment program in which she was participating. Father was in prison, where he had been throughout Vincent’s life. Mother immediately notified the Santa Cruz County Human Resources Agency (the Agency) of her Sioux and Chippewa Indian heritage and provided her tribal enrollment number. The juvenile court took jurisdiction over Vincent, removed Vincent from mother’s custody, denied mother reunification services based on her prior failures to reunify with her seven other children, and granted father reunification services.

Both parents appealed from the dispositional order and, among other things, attacked the adequacy of the Agency’s compliance with the notice *1251 provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 ( 25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.) (ICWA). This court reversed the juvenile court’s order solely due to lack of compliance with the ICWA’s notice requirements and remanded for compliance with those requirements. After remittitur, with a Welfare…

In 1997, I authored Crystal R. v. Superior Court (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 703 [ 69 Cal.Rptr.2d 414 ] (Crystal R.), in which this court joined several other California courts, as well as courts of other states, in applying the existing Indian family doctrine. In Crystal R., the mother, who was not of Indian heritage, had been unable to overcome problems with drug addiction, and reunification services had been terminated as to her. The father had been incarcerated for most of seven-year-old Crystal’s life and he barely knew her. He was one-half Haidá Indian, but *1269 had never had any significant ties with his tribe or with any Indian community. Crystal had been living with her maternal aunt and uncle, who had become her de facto parents and wished to adopt her. The aunt and uncle had provided the only constant and continuing source of stability in Crystal’s life and she had become part of their family. In these circumstances, we found that applying the provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 ( 25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.) (ICWA), including its placement preferences and more stringent evidentiary requirements, would not further the act’s purpose to protect and preserve the…