CHILDREN AND THE LAW
...Dependency Petitions
......Legal Representation
.........For Parents
............Termination of Parental Rights
 9 Cards On This Topic:
  • Appointment of counsel for parents in nondependency termination (former Civil Code section 232) proceedings.
  • Procedure for appointing counsel on appeal.
  • Right to appointed counsel in termination proceedings must be decided on case-by-case basis.
  • FC 7895 requires app. court appoint counsel only for parents appealing judgment freeing child from their custody and control; open question as to whether C must be dependent of court.
  • Counsel must be appointed for indigent parent on appeal from order terminating parental rights.
  • In light of adoptive parents' explicit rejection of familial visitation, post-adoption visitation was impossible, and counsel did not perform incompetently by failing to pursue it.
  • Mother showed prima facie case of prejudicial ineffective assistance where trial atty failed to file Welf. & Inst. Code §388 petition despite "dramatic changes" mother made and imprisonment of abusive F.
  • Indigent parent entitled to appointed counsel in all proceedings terminating parental rights, whether private or state-initiated, including appeals.
  • Court lacks authority to appoint appellate counsel for parent challenging termination order in private former CC §232 action.


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