Nevada family-law case summaries

This case involves the termination of parental rights of a mother and father over their four children. The case began in December 2013 when the oldest child, then-fifteen-year-old S.L., showed up at school with a black eye and told a friend that her father, Donald, had hit her. Although S.L. initially told Child Protective Services that she had hit her eye on a cabinet, an investigation revealed multiple bruises and abrasions consistent with abuse. All four children were removed from the home in January 2014 and eventually placed together in a foster home. Once safely in foster care, the children disclosed years of abuse. At trial, S.L. testified that Donald had been abusing her since around third grade. The abuse she described included being hit with a belt and buckle, having her wrist cut with a knife, being shot with a BB gun, having a tooth knocked out, being jumped on while Donald wore work boots until she passed out, being made to stand on her head for thirty minutes, being denied food, and being treated differently from the other children. S.L. testified that her mother, Melissa, knew about the abuse and covered S.L.'s facial injuries with makeup. The children were also coached to repeat false stories about how the injuries occurred. Donald and Melissa entered no-contest pleas to the protective custody petition and were given case plans. They participated in assessments and therapy. However, throughout the process, both parents continued to insist that S.L.'s injuries were self-inflicted. Recorded jail calls captured Melissa calling S.L. a "killer kid" with "a brain of a fucking peanut." A psychological assessment found both parents at high risk to abuse or neglect again. On appeal, the parents argued that taking away their parental rights because they refused to admit the abuse violated their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination - the constitutional protection against being forced to confess to a crime. The Nevada Supreme Court had recently addressed a similar issue in a case called A.D.L., where it ruled that a parent cannot be forced to admit a crime under threat of losing her children. The Court rejected the parents' argument here. It distinguished A.D.L., where a single accidental-looking injury was at issue and the mother had otherwise satisfied her therapy requirements. In this case, the Court explained, the abuse was severe, repeated, and stretched over years, and the parents had not engaged in meaningful therapy that would address the abuse and ensure the children's safety if returned home. The Court drew a line: parents cannot be compelled to admit a crime, but they can be required to engage in genuine therapy aimed at protecting their children. Losing children for failing to undergo such therapy, the Court said, "is simply a consequence of the reality that it is unsafe for children to be with parents who are abusive and violent." The Court also affirmed that there was enough evidence to support the district court's findings that the parents were unfit, had failed to adjust, had made only token efforts toward reunification, and posed a risk of serious injury to the children. Because the children had been outside the home for 30 months at the time of trial, a legal presumption applied that the parents had only made token efforts, and the Court agreed they failed to rebut that presumption. Finally, the Court agreed that termination served the children's best interests, noting that the children had bonded with and integrated into a foster family willing to adopt them.

This case involves a Nevada family in which the oldest child, S.L., suffered severe physical and emotional abuse over a period of years. The abuse came to light in December 2013 when S.L., then fifteen, arrived at school with a black eye and told a friend that her stepfather Donald had hit her. Although S.L. initially told Child Protective Services that she had hit her eye on a cabinet, an investigation found multiple bruises and abrasions consistent with abuse. All four children were removed from the home in January 2014 and placed with the Clark County Department of Family Services (DFS). Once in foster care, the children began describing what had happened at home. S.L. later testified that Donald had abused her since third grade — hitting her with a belt and buckle, cutting her wrist with a knife, shooting her hand with a BB gun, knocking out a front tooth, jumping on her chest while wearing work boots until she passed out, making her stand on her head for 30 minutes, and denying her food. She said her mother Melissa knew about the abuse and helped cover bruises with make-up, and that Donald made the children rehearse stories to tell outsiders. Donald and Melissa entered no-contest pleas to the protective custody petition and were given case plans. They attended assessments and therapy programs, but throughout the process they continued to insist that S.L.'s injuries were self-inflicted. A psychological assessment rated both parents at high risk to abuse or neglect again. Recorded jailhouse phone calls captured Melissa calling S.L. a "killer kid" and saying she "has a brain of a fucking peanut." After a trial, the district court terminated both parents' rights. On appeal, the parents made a constitutional argument: they said they could not be punished — by losing their children — simply for refusing to admit to a crime, because the Fifth Amendment protects people from being forced to incriminate themselves. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected that argument here. The court explained that, under its earlier decision In re Parental Rights as to A.D.L., parents indeed cannot have their rights terminated solely because they refuse to confess. But the court drew a line: parents can be required to engage in meaningful therapy designed to make sure the children will be safe at home, and a failure to make real progress in therapy is a different thing from a refusal to confess. Here, the court said, the parents' rights were not terminated merely because they would not admit the abuse — they were terminated because the abuse was extensive and ongoing, the parents had not meaningfully addressed it in therapy, the assessments showed a high risk of repeat abuse, and the therapist who supported reunification had never seen the children's injuries and believed the abuse had not happened. The court also held that there was strong evidence supporting termination on the statutory grounds — parental unfitness, failure to adjust, token efforts, and risk of serious injury — and that termination was in the children's best interests, given that they had bonded with a foster family willing to adopt them, and the two younger children's wish to return home was conditioned on the violence stopping.

This case arose after the Clark County Department of Family Services (DFS) received an anonymous hotline call in April 2010 alleging that Keaundra D.'s infant son, C.L.B., Jr., had been burned on the face. Keaundra told investigators that the burn occurred when her two-year-old daughter, A.D.L., reported that C.L.B., Jr. had "tried to kiss" a hot iron that fell off a dresser while Keaundra was in another room. DFS removed both children from Keaundra's care. One physician who examined the child in person, Dr. Neuman, found "no evidence of abuse." A different doctor, Dr. Mehta, who reviewed only photographs, opined the burn was deliberate. The juvenile court found the injury was nonaccidental and ordered Keaundra to follow a "case plan" - a list of steps she had to complete to get her children back. She maintained housing and a job, kept in touch with DFS, completed parenting classes, and finished a physical-abuse assessment and therapy. Her therapist testified that her risk of reoffending was low and that she showed none of the signs typical of an abusive parent. DFS itself reported that she had "successfully completed her case plan and has the knowledge and tools to effectively parent her children." But DFS still wanted her parental rights terminated, and the district court still terminated them, for one reason: Keaundra would not admit that she had deliberately held the iron to her son's face. Her case plan required her to "articulate" the "sequence of events" leading to the abuse "as sustained by the Court." Because she insisted the burn was accidental, the court treated her as out of compliance. DFS confirmed at trial that, had Keaundra admitted intentional abuse, it would not have sought termination. The Nevada Supreme Court reversed. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects people from being forced to incriminate themselves, not just in criminal trials but in any proceeding where their answers might be used against them in a future criminal case. Admitting that one held a hot iron to a child's face would expose a person to prosecution for child abuse under Nevada law (NRS 200.508). The court held that a parent cannot be forced to choose between admitting a crime and losing her children - that choice is unconstitutionally coercive. The court drew a line: a juvenile court may require a parent to participate in meaningful therapy, even if therapy works better when a parent acknowledges past conduct, and a parent who refuses meaningful therapy may face consequences. But a court cannot require, as a condition of keeping parental rights, that the parent expressly admit to a crime. The court also held that the evidence did not support termination on its own merits. Nevada law presumes termination is in a child's best interest when the child has been out of the home for 14 of 20 consecutive months, and presumes a parent has made only "token efforts" in similar circumstances. The court found Keaundra rebutted both presumptions: she stayed in regular phone contact, her mother brought the children to visit, A.D.L. cried and begged to go home to her mother, Keaundra helped support the children financially, and after the first termination order the children waited 17 months in foster care before being placed with relatives. Without the presumptions, there was not substantial evidence to terminate.

This case asks a question that Nevada's appellate courts had not previously answered head-on: can a court terminate a parent's rights to her child when the parent is so mentally ill that she would not be considered competent to stand trial in a criminal case? The Nevada Supreme Court held that, under the circumstances here, yes - the trial may go forward. The mother in this case had been diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar disorder. Shortly after her son was born, hospital staff alerted the Department of Family Services because the mother insisted the baby was not hers and tried to take a different child. Two months later she brought the baby to the hospital claiming the infant had told her, in full sentences, that he had an earache. The child was placed in protective custody, adjudicated neglected, and made a ward of the court. The mother received a case plan focused on her mental health, but DFS observed that her condition did not improve. While the termination case was pending, she was arrested for allegedly boarding a bus and trying to take another child she believed was hers, and she was repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial in that criminal case. The district court did several things to protect the mother's interests. It appointed a guardian ad litem (a person appointed to look after the legal interests of someone who cannot represent themselves) under Rule 17(c) of the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure. It granted multiple continuances - delays - hoping the mother would regain competence. When that did not happen, the court ultimately conducted the termination trial without her present in September 2015, with her guardian ad litem in attendance, and terminated her parental rights. On appeal, the mother argued that proceeding without her violated her constitutional right to due process. She pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court case, Mathews v. Eldridge, which requires courts to balance the private interest, the risk of an inaccurate result, and the government's interest before depriving someone of an important right. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected that challenge. It explained that, unlike criminal cases, civil cases - including termination cases - do not require a court to wait indefinitely for a party to regain mental competence. Nevada law actually allows mental illness itself to be a basis for finding parental fault, so it would be inconsistent to also require the court to halt the case forever because of that same illness. The court noted that children have a powerful interest in stability and permanency, and that holding a child "in limbo" until a parent might one day be well enough to participate is not what Nevada law contemplates. The district court had given the mother many chances and had effectively considered all the factors that due process required. The mother also argued that the State had improperly served her by publication (publishing notice in a newspaper rather than handing it to her directly) when it actually knew or could have known where she was. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the State's conduct was proper, but ruled that the mother's lawyer never raised this objection in the district court, so the issue was waived and could not be raised for the first time on appeal. The court therefore affirmed the order terminating her parental rights.

This case involves the termination of a father's parental rights to his two surviving children. Between 2006 and 2011, the family experienced seven separate incidents in which one of the three children swallowed foreign objects such as coins, magnets, and batteries. All occurred while the father, Arli, was at work and the mother, Abigail, was home with the children. One son, J.M., died in 2006 from undetermined causes. After three-year-old E.M.M. required surgery to remove a large battery lodged in his throat, doctors became concerned that Abigail was forcing the children to swallow objects and contacted child protective services. The doctors compared the size of the battery, for a child E.M.M.'s age, to an adult swallowing a golf ball. In November 2011, DFS removed A.P.M. and E.M.M. from the home and placed them in foster care. The juvenile court gave each parent a "case plan" - a written list of things they had to do (such as parenting classes and counseling) to try to get their children back. Arli completed his case plan quickly. Even so, in December 2012, DFS asked the court to terminate both parents' rights permanently. After a five-day hearing, the district court ordered termination, finding that Arli had been neglectful by not taking action to protect his children after the repeated swallowing incidents - including continuing to leave them alone with Abigail - and that termination was in the children's best interests. Abigail died while the appeal was pending, leaving only Arli's appeal. The Nevada Supreme Court addressed two new legal questions. First, it held that finishing a court-ordered case plan does not, by itself, prevent a court from terminating parental rights. A completed case plan can be persuasive evidence in the parent's favor, but Nevada law does not make it a shield against termination if the other legal grounds are satisfied. Second, it interpreted a Nevada statute that creates two legal presumptions when a child has lived outside the home "for 14 months of any 20 consecutive months": (1) the parent is presumed to have made only token efforts, and (2) termination is presumed to be in the child's best interest. Arli argued the district court had to wait the full 20 months before applying these presumptions. The Supreme Court disagreed - once the 14-month threshold is hit, the presumptions can apply right away. Here the children had been out of the home about 17 months, which was enough. Finally, the court held that "substantial evidence" - meaning enough credible evidence that a reasonable factfinder could agree - supported termination. The court pointed to Arli's failure to take protective action after seven serious swallowing incidents, his limited relationship with the children, and the foster parent's testimony that she had a close relationship with the children and wished to adopt them. The court noted that even with Abigail's death, Arli remained "unable to protect his children from danger, swallowing or otherwise." Two justices dissented in whole or in part. Justice Douglas, joined by Justice Cherry, would have remanded for a new best-interests hearing because Abigail - the apparent source of the danger - had died and Arli had completed his case plan. Justice Saitta agreed with most of the majority opinion but wrote separately to dissent on the parental-fault finding, viewing Arli's mistaken belief about Abigail and his completed case plan as not enough to amount to neglect.

This case is about a mother, Keaundra D., who lost her parental rights to her two children after her one-year-old son, C.B., was burned in the face by an iron. Keaundra told investigators she was the only adult home at the time; according to her trial testimony, she was in an attached bathroom getting ready for work when she heard the iron fall, and her older child told her that C.B. had tried to kiss the iron. After an anonymous call to a child abuse hotline, DFS investigated. Keaundra moved her family to Louisiana, which DFS characterized as a flight in an attempt to hide the children. The children were removed from her care, and DFS filed a petition for protective custody, alleging that Keaundra had either physically abused or negligently supervised C.B. At a hearing, a medical examiner, Dr. Mehta, testified that the shape of the burn was inconsistent with an accident and that the iron was deliberately held to C.B.'s face. Keaundra tried to counter that testimony with a report from Dr. Neuman, the physician who had personally examined C.B. in Louisiana. The hearing master - a court officer who conducts hearings and makes recommendations to a judge - refused to admit the report because it was not a certified copy, found that Keaundra physically abused C.B., and the juvenile court affirmed, concluding the injury was not accidental. Keaundra was then given a "case plan" - a set of requirements a parent must satisfy to be reunited with her children. She completed nearly all of it: parenting classes, stable housing and jobs, an assessment, and therapy. Her therapist testified that her behavior and demeanor had markedly changed and that her risk to reoffend was low. But DFS continued to recommend terminating her parental rights for one reason: she would not admit that she had deliberately held the iron to her son's face. DFS stated at trial that, with such an admission, it would not have sought termination. The district court ultimately terminated her rights, relying on the earlier finding that the injury was not accidental. On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court did not decide whether Keaundra abused her child. Instead, it focused on a procedural point: Keaundra argued that Dr. Neuman's report was improperly excluded, and DFS never responded to that argument. Under Nevada's appellate rules, failing to respond to an argument can be treated as a "confession of error" - effectively conceding the point. The court concluded that DFS confessed error. Because every finding of parental fault in the case traced back to the abuse finding - which in turn rested on the improperly excluded rebuttal evidence - the court reversed the termination order and sent the case back for a new trial on Keaundra's parental rights. The court noted, but did not decide, Keaundra's separate argument that conditioning her parental rights on an admission of intentional harm violated her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The order terminating the father Christopher B.'s parental rights was not before the court because he did not appeal.

This case is about ending a mother's legal rights to her child when the child qualifies as a Native American child under a federal law called the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). N.J. was born in September 2005, two weeks premature, and both she and her mother, Dawn, tested positive for marijuana and methamphetamine at the birth. Nevada's child welfare agency, DCFS, became involved, and N.J. was placed in foster care days after leaving the hospital. She remained with the same foster family from that point on. DNA testing showed that Javy J. was N.J.'s biological father, but according to DCFS he denied paternity and never contacted the child or the agency again. Because Javy is an enrolled member of the Ely Shoshone Tribe, N.J. was eligible for tribal membership, which made the ICWA apply to the case. Dawn herself is not a member of any tribe, and the tribe did not intervene in the case beyond providing expert testimony. DCFS created a case plan for Dawn and arranged visits, but the opinion recounts that Dawn continued testing positive for drugs during the first 18 months of N.J.'s life, missed more than half of her scheduled visits in the first year, achieved only a few months of sobriety in 2007, and tested positive again in October 2007. Witnesses described N.J. as fully bonded with her foster family, which planned to adopt her and, having Native American ancestry of its own, planned to educate her about her tribal roots. The complication is that two different legal standards were in play. Nevada law lets a court terminate parental rights if the key facts are proved by "clear and convincing evidence" - a demanding standard, but less demanding than the criminal-law standard. The federal ICWA requires something more: proof beyond a reasonable doubt, including testimony from a qualified expert witness, that keeping the child with the parent would likely cause the child serious emotional or physical damage. The district court used both standards - the state standard for state-law questions and the federal standard for ICWA questions. It found the state requirements satisfied, but found the ICWA requirement unmet, because the tribal expert who testified was not qualified to say whether returning N.J. to either parent would seriously harm her. The district court nonetheless terminated Dawn's rights by applying the Existing Indian Family (EIF) doctrine - a judge-made exception to the ICWA that applies when the child is not, and never was, part of a Native American family or tribe. The Nevada Supreme Court agreed on all fronts. It formally adopted the "dual-standard" approach used in most states: state-law findings are judged by Nevada's clear-and-convincing standard, and ICWA findings by the federal beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard. It found substantial evidence supporting the district court's conclusions that termination was in N.J.'s best interest and that Dawn was at fault as a parent through neglect, unfitness, and merely "token efforts." It agreed that DCFS did not satisfy the ICWA's higher standard because no qualified expert testified about the likelihood of serious harm. But it held that the EIF doctrine may apply on a case-by-case basis - specifically in circumstances like these, where the only person contesting termination is a non-Native American parent, neither the tribe nor the Native American parent objects, and no breakup of a Native American family is at stake. The court observed that applying the ICWA here "would serve only one purpose: to deprive N.J. of the only home she has ever known and come to love," an outcome it said would run counter to the ICWA's goal of protecting the best interests of Native American children. The termination order was affirmed.

This case is about when a court may permanently end a parent's legal rights to her children, and who has to prove what before that happens. In May 2002, Child Protective Services removed two children, then twelve and eleven years old, from the home of their mother, Tammila G., and her boyfriend, George L. CPS had received a report that friends of the couple were binding the children with duct tape, slapping, and kicking them while the adults were away. According to the children, this happened repeatedly, and although they told their mother, she did not take steps to stop it. During a follow-up home visit, Tammila admitted to recent methamphetamine use, and George was arrested for a probation violation after officers found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia in the house. The children were made wards of the State and placed in foster care. The Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) gave Tammila a "case plan" - a list of steps she had to complete to be reunited with her children, such as drug testing, a psychiatric evaluation, parenting classes, and proof of a stable home and income. Over roughly three and a half years, DCFS filed six reports with the court, each showing that Tammila was not completing the plan. To her credit, she visited the children regularly while they were in Nevada, missing only one visit. Eventually the children were placed with their maternal aunt and uncle in Louisiana, who were interested in adopting them, and the State petitioned to end Tammila's parental rights. After a hearing, the district court granted the petition, finding both that termination was in the children's best interests and that "parental fault" existed - the two things Nevada law requires before parental rights can be terminated. On appeal, Tammila made two main arguments. First, she said the State had to prove that an actual adoptive placement existed for the children before her rights could be terminated, relying on the Federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA), a federal law Nevada follows in order to receive federal child-welfare funding. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected this. Reading the federal statute's plain language, the court explained that it requires states to begin looking for an adoptive family at the same time as they seek to terminate parental rights - not to prove one exists first - and the statute even excuses that concurrent search when "the child is being cared for by a relative," which was the situation here. The court also found nothing in Nevada's own statutes requiring proof of an adoptive placement before termination. Second, Tammila argued that the State should have presented evidence of what the children themselves wanted. Nevada law (NRS 128.107(2)) tells courts to consider a child's desires about termination if the child is capable of expressing them, but the statute does not say which side must produce that evidence. Separately, another statute (NRS 128.109(2)) creates a "presumption" - a legal starting assumption - that termination is in a child's best interest once the child has lived outside the parent's home under a protective placement for 14 of any 20 consecutive months. Here, the children had been out of the home for over forty consecutive months. The court held that once that presumption kicks in, it is the parent's burden - not the State's - to offer evidence of the children's desires if the parent wants the court to consider them, because such evidence is part of rebutting the presumption. Tammila offered no such evidence. The court noted that a CASA report from about two years before the hearing indicated the children did not wish to be adopted, but that report predated their move to their aunt and uncle's home, and the district court considered it and terminated the rights anyway. Finally, the court reviewed the record and concluded that substantial evidence supported the termination. Tammila claimed two years of sobriety and a stable home but presented no independent proof of either; she still lived with her boyfriend in the same house where the abuse occurred, and the record did not show the threat had been eliminated. Meanwhile, the children were described as flourishing with their aunt and uncle in Louisiana, with improved school performance and behavior. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the termination.