In Re Term of Parental Rights as to A.N.

NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.
UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL
AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE
ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION ONE

IN RE TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO A.N.

No. 1 CA-JV 26-0057
FILED 09-01-2026

Appeal from the Superior Court in Mohave County
No. S8015JD202500023
The Honorable Aaron Michael Demke, Judge Pro Tempore

VACATED AND REMANDED

COUNSEL

Robert D. Rosanelli Attorney at Law, Phoenix
By Robert D. Rosanelli
Counsel for Appellant Katelynn S.

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Tucson
By Jennifer R. Blum
Counsel for Appellee Department of Child Safety

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Presiding Judge Cynthia J. Bailey delivered the decision of the Court, in
which Judge Angela K. Paton and Judge Michael J. Brown joined.

B A I L E Y, Judge:

IN RE TERM OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO A.N.
Decision of the Court

¶1 Katelynn S. (“Mother”) appeals an order terminating her
parental rights to her child A.N. (“Child”) under Arizona Revised Statutes
(“A.R.S.”) § 8-533(B)(4)’s felony-incarceration provision. We vacate and
remand because the Department of Child Safety (“DCS”) failed to fulfill its
constitutional obligation to make reasonable efforts to provide Mother
visitation with Child.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2 In August 2023, Mother gave birth to Child in Colorado.1

¶3 In October 2024, Mother was arrested in Colorado after a
police officer learned during a traffic stop that she was subject to a Florida
extradition warrant for violating her probation for felony grand theft. The
arrest also led to Mother incurring new criminal charges in Colorado after
an inventory search of her car revealed drugs and drug paraphernalia.

¶4 Upon her arrest, Mother asked her longtime friends, a mother
and daughter living together in Arizona (collectively or individually, the
“Placement Family”), to care for Child. The Placement Family agreed and
brought Child to their Arizona home.

¶5 In November 2024, Mother was released to a sober-living
home in Colorado. Mother called the Placement Family almost daily to talk
to Child until the end of 2024. Starting in January 2025, however, Mother’s
calls became sporadic.

¶6 In March 2025, Mother reported Child as a missing person
because the Placement Family, citing safety concerns, had refused her
request to return Child. Law enforcement promptly investigated and
notified DCS of the situation. In mid-March, DCS initiated a dependency
action in juvenile court and kept Child with the Placement Family. Almost
immediately thereafter, Mother became incarcerated in Colorado and the
juvenile court entered an order adopting the parties’ agreement that Mother
would receive at least four hours a week of supervised virtual visitation
with Child.

¶7 Mother was extradited to Florida to serve a 2.5-year prison
term for the felony probation violation. In July 2025, the juvenile court held
a hearing and found Child dependent as to Mother based on neglect. At

1 Child’s father, who also was subject to termination proceedings, is not a

party to this appeal.

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IN RE TERM OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO A.N.
Decision of the Court

the hearing, Mother requested video visitation with Child and DCS agreed
to arrange it.

¶8 DCS did not, however, ever provide visitation or speak
directly with Mother about that or any other issue. Even after Mother filed
a pro per motion in September 2025 reiterating her visitation request and
identifying the name and cost of the prison’s visitation system, DCS did not
arrange the service.

¶9 DCS contacted the prison about visitation in December 2025,
the month after the juvenile court changed the case plan and DCS moved
to terminate Mother’s parental rights based on the length of her felony
sentence. The prison immediately responded to DCS’s inquiry. A prison
officer identified the prison’s virtual visitation system and explained that
once an application was completed and approved for Child, Mother could
have visitation on a tablet for a fee. The officer added that telephone calls
also could be arranged.

¶10 DCS did not promptly follow up on the information from the
prison. A new DCS case manager was assigned to Mother’s case in late
January 2026. About a week before the early-March 2026 termination
adjudication hearing, the new case manager spoke to her supervisor about
the prison’s visitation system and was told that DCS “[doesn’t] use that
system.”

¶11 DCS did make efforts to communicate with Mother. The
original case worker spoke to prison staff as early as July 2025 to ensure that
Mother was aware of how to contact DCS. The case worker also emailed
the prison warden multiple times and mailed Mother several service letters
starting in, at the latest, September 2025. At least one of the letters listed
visitation as a service in which Mother needed to participate and invited
Mother to contact the case manager by phone or email if she had questions.
But Mother never reached out to DCS.

¶12 Further, after March 2025, Mother never contacted Child
through the Placement Family even though DCS had authorized such
continuing contact, the Placement Family’s phone number and address
never changed, and the Placement Family testified that they remained
willing to facilitate communication. Although Mother did place one call to
the Placement Family at some point, the Placement Family testified that
during that call Mother neither discussed Child nor asked to speak to her.
Similarly, although Mother mailed one letter to the Placement Family
which she claimed included content for Child, she did not make any

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IN RE TERM OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO A.N.
Decision of the Court

inquiries about Child in the letter. Child is bonded to the Placement Family,
the Placement Family wishes to adopt Child, and the Placement Family has
permanent guardianship of Child’s sibling born to Mother at the Florida
prison.

¶13 Mother is projected to be released from the Florida prison
early, in December 2026. Upon her release, however, she will be extradited
to Colorado to be tried on the new drug-related charges, which may result
in four to eight years’ imprisonment. She also may face one to three years’
imprisonment for violating her federal probation. The case manager
further testified, and Mother agreed, that when Mother is released she will
need additional time to demonstrate her sobriety.

¶14 Mother testified that she believed she would receive minimal
additional prison time for her Colorado and federal cases. She also testified
that though the Florida prison would not allow her to enroll in classes when
she arrived there because she was pregnant, she began participating in
substance-abuse and parenting programs soon after she gave birth. She had
not completed any of the programs as of the time of trial.

¶15 Mother explained that her decreased pre-dependency contact
with Child was due to her feeling very ill from her pregnancy, and she
claimed the interlude lasted for “only like three weeks” and “was the only
time I didn’t have contact.” And as to her post-dependency contact, Mother
testified that when she called the Placement Family, they told her she
needed to get DCS’s permission to speak to Child. According to Mother,
she called DCS multiple times but got no answer and there was no option
to leave a voicemail.

¶16 After considering the evidence, the juvenile court granted
termination under A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(4), finding that although DCS’s
reunification efforts “weren’t extraordinary efforts or Herculean efforts,
they were reasonable under the circumstances.” The court explained that
“the distance in Florida, as well as [the] incarceration of the mother, made
it difficult” and was “a mitigating factor.” The court found that DCS “did
make efforts” because it “did send letters and emailed the [prison],” and
although DCS “maybe . . . should make more efforts if someone is in
custody, . . . [M]other did not make efforts . . . on her side.” The court
further found that Mother had “a duty to reach back out to [DCS] and to
maintain contact with them,” and that her account of trying to do so was
not credible. The court finally found that Mother “early on in the case was
given permission to contact the child directly through the placement” but

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IN RE TERM OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO A.N.
Decision of the Court

did not do so, and this too “mitigate[d] [DCS’s] failure in providing contact
or visitation with the child.”

¶17 We have jurisdiction over Mother’s timely appeal under
A.R.S. §§ 8-235(A), 12-120.21(A)(1), and 12-2101(A)(1).

DISCUSSION

¶18 To terminate parental rights, the juvenile court must find by
clear and convincing evidence that a ground for termination exists under
A.R.S. § 8-533(B) and must find by a preponderance of the evidence that
termination serves the child’s best interests. Alma S. v. Dep’t of Child Safety,
245 Ariz. 146, 149-50, ¶ 8 (2018). We limit our review today to the statutory
element.

¶19 Section 8-533(B)(4) provides for termination when “the parent
is deprived of civil liberties due to the conviction of a felony” and “the
sentence of that parent is of such length that the child will be deprived of a
normal home for a period of years.” The parent’s physical absence is not
dispositive for purposes of A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(4). Timothy B. v. Dep’t of Child
Safety, 252 Ariz. 470, 476-77, ¶¶ 24-26 (2022). Whether the parent’s
incarceration will deprive the child of a normal home for years is not subject
to bright-line definition, and each case must be considered on its facts,
guided by factors identified by our supreme court. Michael J. v. Ariz. Dep’t
of Econ. Sec., 196 Ariz. 246, 251-52, ¶ 29 (2000).

¶20 As part of its analysis, the court must determine whether DCS
provided reasonable reunification services. Unlike some other subsections
of A.R.S. § 8-533, subsection (B)(4) does not expressly require DCS to
provide reunification services. But DCS is required “to engage in
reunification efforts on constitutional grounds as a necessary element of
any state attempt to overcome . . . the fundamental liberty interest of the
natural parents in the care, custody and management of their child.” Jessie
D. v. Dep’t of Child Safety, 251 Ariz. 574, 581, ¶ 18 (2021) (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted). Where DCS seeks to terminate an incarcerated
parent’s rights under A.R.S. § 8-533(B)(4), it is constitutionally bound to
provide the parent with appropriate services. Id. at 581-82, ¶¶ 20-21. In
Jessie D., our supreme court specified that if the incarcerated parent
“requests reunification services, such as visitation, and providing the
services will not endanger the child, DCS must make reasonable efforts to
provide these services.” Id. at 582, ¶ 21. Visitation is an essential service.
See Michael M. v. Ariz. Dep’t of Econ. Sec., 202 Ariz. 198, 200, ¶ 9 (App. 2002).

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IN RE TERM OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO A.N.
Decision of the Court

¶21 Here, Mother repeatedly requested visitation and there was
no claim or specter that visitation would endanger Child. Nonetheless, the
juvenile court found that DCS’s failure to provide visitation did not require
termination because DCS made some efforts, DCS faced logistical
challenges due to Mother’s out-of-state incarceration, and Mother refused
to communicate with DCS or with Child through the willing Placement
Family. We may not disregard the juvenile court’s factual findings unless
they are unsupported by reasonable evidence or inference, Brionna J. v.
Dep’t of Child Safety, 255 Ariz. 471, 478, ¶ 30 (2023), and we may not reweigh
the evidence or reassess witness credibility, see Alma S., 245 Ariz. at 151-52,
¶¶ 18-19. But we must not affirm a termination order that is clearly
erroneous, id. at 151, ¶ 18, or that rests upon a misapplication of the law,
Timothy B., 252 Ariz. at 474, ¶ 14.

¶22 We must vacate this termination order. By virtually ignoring
Mother’s request for visitation with Child, we cannot say that DCS fulfilled
its constitutional obligation to make reasonable efforts to provide that
essential service. The juvenile court correctly found that DCS
communicated with prison staff and sent letters to Mother, and that DCS
was challenged by Mother’s incarceration in a Florida prison with
unfamiliar technology. But the court erroneously failed to consider the
lethargic pace of DCS’s visitation-specific efforts—a fact highly relevant to
those efforts’ reasonableness. Despite the parties’ March 2025 agreement
and a court order, DCS made no effort to arrange visitation during Mother’s
incarceration in Colorado. Then, after Mother arrived at the Florida prison,
DCS took no action on Mother’s repeated visitation requests until it reached
out to the prison in December 2025. And DCS made no effort to follow up
on the prison’s immediate response until late February or early March 2026,
just before the termination hearing.

¶23 The court blamed Mother for her failure to communicate with
DCS. Certainly, DCS’s duty to preserve the parent-child relationship “has
limits” and “[t]here always comes a point where the trial court must decide
whether the natural parent is making a good-faith effort to reunite the
family.” In re Maricopa Cnty. Juv. Action Nos. JS-4118/JD-529, 134 Ariz. 407,
409 (App. 1982). But as a preliminary matter, DCS must meet its
constitutional standard. See Jessie D., 251 Ariz. at 581-82, ¶¶ 20-21. Here,
Mother unambiguously notified DCS of her desire for visitation through
her repeated requests in court, and she even specifically identified the
visitation system that would need to be used. Further, DCS was well-aware
of Mother’s whereabouts, and her failure to reach out posed no impediment
to DCS working with the staff at her prison to set up the service. On this

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IN RE TERM OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO A.N.
Decision of the Court

record, Mother’s failure to contact DCS directly provided no justification
for DCS’s failure to reasonably endeavor to arrange visitation.

¶24 Nor was DCS’s conduct justified by Mother’s refusal to
continue her contact with Child through the Placement Family. To be sure,
evidence showed that Mother’s voluntarily decreased contact with Child
was inadequately explained. Even before her incarceration, Mother
significantly reduced her contact with Child for no reason other than not
feeling well. Then, after the incarceration, she stopped all contact with
Placement Family inexplicably. Though Mother testified that the
Placement Family conditioned her continued contact on her obtaining DCS
approval, the Placement Family testified otherwise and the court expressly
discounted Mother’s account of her efforts to call DCS. But though
Mother’s decision not to continue her relationship with Child through the
Placement Family might have belied the sincerity of her visitation requests,
her conduct did not absolve DCS of its constitutional duty to act. Even
accepting DCS’s argument that it is not required to provide duplicative
services to incarcerated parents,2 DCS did not show that the contact
available through the Placement Family was equivalent to the visitation
Mother requested. Nor did DCS ever tell Mother that was the case or act as
though it was.

¶25 We are mindful of our deferential standard of review. But on
this record, we cannot affirm the termination order. DCS’s constitutional
obligation to reasonably endeavor to provide Mother with visitation was
inexcusably unfulfilled.

2 Jessie D., which recognized DCS’s constitutional duty to provide visitation

to incarcerated parents, stated that the duty is excused where a parent does
not request the service or where the service would endanger the child. 251
Ariz. at 582, ¶ 21. Those excuses have long been recognized in other types
of termination cases where DCS has a duty to act. See Shawanee S. v. Ariz.
Dep’t of Econ. Sec., 234 Ariz. 174, 178-79, ¶ 16 (App. 2014); In re Appeal in
Maricopa Cnty. Juv. Action No. JD-5312, 178 Ariz. 372, 376-77 (App. 1994).
Jessie D. did not specifically mention the similarly well-established excuse
that DCS need not duplicate services offered by another source. See 251
Ariz. at 582, ¶ 21; In re Pima Cnty. Severance Action No. S-2397, 161 Ariz. 574,
577 (App. 1989). Though we perceive no logical barrier to applying the
duplicate-service excuse where the parent is incarcerated, we need not
resolve today whether Jessie D. compels a different result because DCS did
not show that its providing the visitation service here would have been
redundant or duplicative.

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IN RE TERM OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO A.N.
Decision of the Court

CONCLUSION

¶26 We vacate the termination of Mother’s parental rights and
remand for DCS to develop a reasonable reunification plan that provides
Mother visitation. Nothing prevents DCS from pursuing termination in the
future if warranted.

MATTHEW J. MARTIN • Clerk of the Court
FILED: JR

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