In re J.L.S.

Summary

The Ohio Twelfth District Court of Appeals affirmed a juvenile court judgment granting permanent custody of J.L.S. to the Butler County Department of Jobs and Family Services. The court held that the judgment was not against the manifest weight of the evidence, emphasizing the mother's prior involuntary termination of parental rights, statutory abandonment, the child's custodial history, and the child's bond with the foster family. The court also rejected the mother's ineffective-assistance claim concerning the failure to seek placement with a paternal relative because she did not establish prejudice.

Holdings

1. The juvenile court's award of permanent custody to the Agency was not against the manifest weight of the evidence because the evidence supported both that permanent custody was in the child's best interest and that at least one statutory legal circumstance for permanent custody existed.
2. The Agency was not required to make reasonable reunification efforts because Mother's prior involuntary termination of parental rights as to a sibling and her statutory abandonment of the child were reunification-termination factors.
3. A parent's successful completion of case-plan services does not dispositively establish entitlement to reunification or preclude an award of permanent custody.
4. Mother failed to establish ineffective assistance of counsel because she did not demonstrate a reasonable probability that the trial court would have granted a motion for placement with the paternal aunt.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the juvenile court's award of permanent custody to the Agency was against the manifest weight of the evidence.
2. Whether Mother received ineffective assistance of counsel when trial counsel did not file a motion seeking legal custody or placement of the child with a paternal relative.

Disposition

affirmed