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Mother seeks reversal of termination order; appeals court hears disputes over sobriety, bonding and permanency
Summary
In a termination appeal, counsel for mother argued the trial court improperly discredited evidence of sobriety and bonding and gave disproportionate weight to the children’s preferences; the Department countered that chronic unfitness and long foster placements made termination proper.
Nathan Bench, representing the mother in a contested termination appeal, told the appeals panel that the trial court abused its discretion by discrediting evidence of the mother’s sustained sobriety, overweighting the children’s stated preferences and failing to credit the mother’s removal from an abusive relationship.
Bench said the mother had substantial sobriety (he described roughly 19 months of negative drug screens at one point in the record), had entered a domestic violence shelter after a 2022 incident,…
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