L. A. Cnty. Dep't of Children & Family Servs. v. C.P. (In re J.P.)
Opinion
lead Opinion
Dunning, J.
*792 The mother of a dependent child in a group home placement filed a Welfare and Institutions Code section 388 1 petition seeking, inter alia, reappointment of counsel. The juvenile court scheduled a hearing on the petition, but did not appoint counsel to represent mother at the hearing. At the section 388 hearing, the juvenile court ruled on mother's petition, but again did not appoint counsel to represent mother. The juvenile court's error in failing to timely appoint counsel for mother resulted in a miscarriage of justice, and we reverse.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
J.P. is the youngest of nine children. All his siblings were involved in dependency proceedings at one time or another, and two found adoptive homes several years before J.P. was born. J.P. was born in 2006 and has been in the juvenile dependency system almost his entire life. From 2007 to May 2011, he remained with C.P. (mother) under a family maintenance plan. He was removed from mother's home in May 2011 after she was arrested for assaulting her boyfriend with a deadly weapon. The court appointed counsel to represent mother at the detention hearing. After a contested jurisdiction and disposition hearing…
concurrence Opinion
Baker, J.
I concur in the result, and in what I understand to be the core of the majority's holding: The juvenile court's considered decision to deprive C.P. (Mother) of counsel to prepare and argue her Welfare and Institutions Code section 388 petition-the culmination of a two-year deprivation of counsel-was wrong and demands remediation. I write separately to highlight two points regarding the unique impact that a deprivation of the right to appointed counsel can have (and had here) on the fairness of dependency proceedings.
I
The majority cites In re Kristin H. (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1635 , 54 Cal.Rptr.2d 722 for the proposition that "[t]he harmless error standard has long applied to an appellate court's review of the denial of a parent's statutory right to counsel." I have my doubts that In re Kristin H. is a reliable guide in this case-in that case, unlike this one, the mother was not deprived of counsel; instead, her claim was that her appointed attorney provided ineffective assistance. ( In re Kristin H. , supra , at pp. 1658, 1667-1668, 54 Cal.Rptr.2d 722 .) But regardless, the majority holds the error here is of both statutory and constitutional (due process) dimension, whereas…