Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Child Protection topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Appeals court hears DCF case on trial counsel withdrawal and parent's self‑representation
Summary
An appeal from a DCF care‑and‑protection trial raised whether the trial judge erred in handling a motion to withdraw counsel and in allowing mother to proceed pro se; the court also heard objections to findings about the father's insight and fitness to co‑parent.
Good morning. The panel considered a multi‑issue appeal from a Department of Children and Families care‑and‑protection proceeding that included disputes over counsel withdrawal, a parent's decision to represent herself, and the trial judge’s findings about parental fitness and the child's need for timely permanency.
Appellate counsel for the mother, Jennifer DeFeo, argued the trial judge failed to conduct the inquiry required by precedent when defense counsel moved to withdraw and denied successor counsel without properly exploring the reasons. DeFeo said the record does not show a complete explanation before the judge decided the motion and that the later colloquy occurred too late to protect the parent's right to counsel.
Father’s counsel Warren Yanoff urged that the judge prematurely prejudged the case and that factual findings (for example, lack of evidence tying past problems to present unfitness) were unsupported. DCF and the child's attorney responded that the judge conducted a thorough colloquy before accepting the mother’s decision to proceed pro se, that the record shows substantial concerns about the mother’s ongoing problems, and that the child's right to timely permanency justified the court's management decisions.
The panel asked detailed questions about what the original motion to withdraw contained, what mother said during subsequent colloquies, and whether the passage of time and prior decisions in related cases affected the trial court’s discretion. The court took the matter under advisement.
