Some might think it piling on. But Justice Ramirez wants there to be no doubt about where the Court of Appeal stands:
"The evidence that even supervised visitation with father presented some danger to
the child’s physical or emotional well-being is as follows. First, as the juvenile court
emphasized, the child was young, only six years old, and had no bonding or relationship
with father whatsoever. Father and the child had last seen each other when the child was
about eighteen months old. The child had recently spoken to father on the telephone and
had treated him like anyone else . . . . Second, father frequently violated his parole, had been in and out of custody for the previous six or seven years, stated under oath that he could not
promise that he would abide by juvenile court orders regarding visitation and contact, and
testified that he only respected the terms of his parole supervision 'To a point.' Third,
this most recent violation of parole involved cutting off his GPS tracking device, drug use
and sex with a prostitute only 30 days after being released from prison. Fourth, father
had a long-standing problem with abusing drugs, beginning at the age of 13. Fifth, and
certainly not least, father had a rather long record of serious criminal convictions,
including several for sex crimes against children. [Emphasis in original] Overall, given that father regularly
engaged in such risky behavior—risky to both himself and the child—and the bond
between father and the child was negligible, we find substantial evidence supports the
juvenile court’s finding that even supervised visits between father and the child
represented a danger to the child’s well-being and thus would be detrimental. However,
as discussed below, this very substantiated finding of detriment was unnecessary given
that the law does not change, once guardianship is selected as a child’s permanent plan,
to suddenly give a mere alleged father a new presumptive right to visitation."
Well then. I guess this one ain't that tough, is it?
