The West Virginia Supreme Court is considering a mother’s appeal to regain physical and legal custody of her children, which includes allegations of her using Bible verses to abuse the children.
The Berkeley County mother, whose name and initials have been omitted to protect children in the case, still has the right to petition for custody after believing the circuit court made an error in its decision.
There is potential for the case to set a precedent for how a parent’s use of Biblical or religious texts are considered in child abuse cases in West Virginia.
The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals heard from attorneys for the mother, father and some of the children involved April 1 at West Virginia University College of Law in Morgantown in front of law students and the public.
Child abuse and neglect cases have overwhelmed the state Supreme Court and lower courts as West Virginia is in a foster care crisis.
“More than 30% of the Supreme Court’s docket is abuse and neglect child welfare cases,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Haley Bunn told MetroNews. “So part of what we wanted to do, by bringing that case here, was hopefully maybe inspire some of the students to get interested in that area of law.”
Supreme Court Justice Charlie Trump, who is from Berkeley County, voluntarily disqualified himself from the case. Circuit Court Judge Hilary M. Bright filled in on a temporary assignment for the case.
During oral arguments, Martinsburg-based attorney Christian J. Riddell said that his client, the mother, admitted to certain types of abuse toward her children, including domestic violence and verbal abuse that included the use of Bible verses.
“(She) was further found to have been verbally abusive in terms of her use of racially charged language to her children, and ‘misuse of religion’ in terms of the Bible verses she would read to them,” Riddell said during oral arguments.
Kristen Ross, assistant attorney general for the West Virginia Department of Human Services, provided further details during the hearing.
“Basically, she was just weaponizing those verses to disparage the father and to guilt trip the children and trying to get them to manipulate them for more time,” Ross said.
Riddell said that while his client admitted to certain forms of abuse, his argument for appealing the lower court’s ruling centered on that the mother was found guilty under “boilerplate” language of abuse and neglect, though the court had no record or evidence to support it. There was no record that she had physically abused the children or deprived them of basic needs, like food and hygiene, Riddell said.
Child Protective Services workers “specifically admitted that there was no evidence in support of them, especially the allegations relating to physical abuse,” Riddell said.
“She basically was hazardously penalized by the court for refusing to admit to things that never happened, that never happened in reality, and were never found to have happened by a court,” he added.
Ross, who represented the state, said there “was harmless error here with the inclusion of the boilerplate general neglect language.”
“The fact that it was included in the adjudication order is a mistake, and everyone, I believe, is agreeing that she was not adjudicated properly on that ground,” Ross said. “It was literally some language left in order that shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t brought up again. … In fact, the testimony that did come up about it was contrary, so it was just sheerly a mistake, and it was harmless error. It wasn’t used against her in any way.”
Debbie Flowers Payne, attorney for the father, told the Justices that she agreed with the court and Riddell on saying the mother didn’t provide adequate food and shelter should not have been in the court order.
“However, there was evidence that was presented to the court that supported finding that she had committed domestic violence against the children … chasing one of the children with a car on the way to school,” Shepherd said. “She had broken down a bedroom door with the two female children inside. She had thrown shoes at the children to hit them in the head. … There was a large portion of that adjudication that was supported by the evidence.”
Riddell also argued against a finding that the mother made an “inappropriate comment” during a community visit with the children since the comment was never explained in detail. The comment was used against the mother in the lower court as reasoning for terminating her physical and legal custody of the children.
Attorneys for the father and a guardian ad litem for the children laid out their argument for the lower court’s termination of the mother’s physical and legal custody.
After a court-monitored improvement period for the mother, Flowers Payne said she had not changed her inappropriate behavior toward the children.
“She had not changed her thinking, she had not changed her parenting. She could not even change how she treated her children, because as has been stated, (her) visitation was removed three different times,” Flowers Payne said.
Stephanie Shepherd, a guardian ad litem representing some of the children involved in the case, reiterated that the mother had not fully remedied her behavior.
“When it came to whether she was able to articulate that she had remedied the way her behavior and the things that she said to the children, (and she) had remedied the fact that they were emotionally abused, I do not think that that happened,” Shepherd said.
This article originally appeared on West Virginia Watch.
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.
