In re J.E.

Summary

The Twelfth District Court of Appeals of Ohio affirmed the juvenile court’s judgment granting Butler County Children Services permanent custody of two minor children. The court held that legal custody with the maternal grandparents was not an available alternative because no motion for such custody had been filed, and it rejected the father’s ineffective-assistance and due-process arguments. The court concluded that the children’s abandonment, time in agency custody, and best interests supported the permanent-custody order.

Holdings

1. Legal custody to the maternal grandparents was not an available dispositional alternative because neither grandparent nor any party filed a motion requesting that disposition or identified the grandparents as proposed legal custodians in a qualifying filing. The juvenile court therefore did not err by granting permanent custody to the Agency.
2. Father failed to establish ineffective assistance or prejudice based on counsel's failure to pursue greater participation by Father in the permanent-custody hearing.
3. Counsel was not ineffective for failing to move for legal custody to the maternal grandparents because the grandparents had not sought that disposition, supported permanent custody to the Agency, and legal custody to them was not legally available.
4. Counsel was not ineffective for failing to remind the juvenile court to grant temporary custody to the maternal grandparents because the parties had agreed to the Agency's temporary custody at the adjudicatory and dispositional hearing, and no prejudice was shown.
5. Counsel was not ineffective for failing to object to the magistrate's findings because the challenged findings were either unnecessary to the statutory ground actually used or were supported by facts relevant to the children's best interests, and Father failed to show prejudice.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the juvenile court erred by failing to grant or independently pursue legal custody of the children to their maternal grandparents when no motion for legal custody to the grandparents had been filed.
2. Whether Father's trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to secure Father's greater participation, failing to seek legal or temporary custody for the maternal grandparents, and failing to object to certain magistrate findings.

Disposition

affirmed