In the Interest of D v. D v. L v. and A.C., Minor Children ( 2019 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 19-1325
Filed October 9, 2019
IN THE INTEREST OF D.V., D.V., L.V., and A.C.,
Minor Children,
D.V.M., Father,
Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Marshall County, Paul G. Crawford,
District Associate Judge.
A father appeals the termination of his parental rights to his minor children.
AFFIRMED.
C. Aron Vaughn of Kaplan & Frese, LLP, Marshalltown, for appellant father.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Kathryn K. Lang, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee State.
Mary Cowdrey of Public Defender’s Office, Marshalltown, attorney and
guardian ad litem for minor children.
Considered by Tabor, P.J., and Mullins and May, JJ.
2
MULLINS, Judge.
A father appeals the termination of his parental rights to his four minor
children. The father does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting
the statutory ground for termination cited by the juvenile court, Iowa Code
section 232.116(1)(f) (2019). He only argues termination is not in the children’s
best interests and he should have been allowed an additional six months to work
toward reunification.
A de novo review of the record, see In re L.T., 924 N.W.2d 521, 526 (Iowa
2019), discloses the following pertinent facts. At the time of the termination trial,
the father was incarcerated pending deportation proceedings. The father had also
recently pled guilty to a host of crimes, which included two counts of assault
causing bodily injury against two of the children in interest. A no-contact order was
entered prohibiting any contact between the father and all of the children, effective
until 2024. The father has a history of physically abusing the children, and the
children fear the father and have no desire to have any sort of contact or a
relationship with him whatsoever.
Upon our review, we conclude termination of the father’s parental rights is
in the children’s best interests, see Iowa Code § 232.116(2), and an additional six
months would not alleviate the need for removal. See id. §§ 232.104(2)(b),
.117(5). We affirm the termination of the father’s parental rights without further
opinion pursuant to Iowa Court Rule 21.26(1)(a), (c), (d), and (e).
AFFIRMED.