People in Interest of O.J.R.
2025 COA 78. No. 25CA0282. Dependency and Neglect—Interstate Compact on Placement of Children—Revised Interstate Compact on Placement of Children—Treatment Plan.
September 11, 2025
In 2023, a New York court granted father primary custody of the child, allowing mother parenting time during summer, winter, and spring breaks. In May 2024, father registered the New York order in Colorado and obtained a temporary order limiting mother’s parenting time to supervised visits in Colorado. In July 2024, the Denver Department of Human Services (department) filed a petition in dependency and neglect alleging that the child reported to a third party that father had punched him and hit him with a belt, injuring his face and legs. The petition noted that the child’s mother had never lived in Colorado and was not in the home when the child’s injuries occurred, but both parents had a history of child welfare referrals. The Colorado domestic relations court later certified the ongoing custody proceedings into this dependency and neglect case. The juvenile court initially granted the department temporary legal custody of the child, and he was placed in foster care. Within two weeks, mother requested placement of the child with her, and shortly thereafter, the foster parents requested the child’s removal from their home within 30 days. After a contested custody hearing, the court granted mother’s request for temporary legal and physical custody of the child, and the child was returned to mother’s home in New York. Mother then entered into a deferred adjudication, but father denied the petition and requested an adjudicatory hearing. In November 2024, the juvenile court held a contested adjudicatory hearing concerning only father, who appeared pro se. The court found the child was dependent or neglected and later held a dispositional hearing and adopted a treatment plan for father.
On appeal, father argued that the juvenile court erred by misapplying the Interstate Compact on Placement of Children (ICPC) and giving custody of the child to mother before an ICPC home study had been completed. Specifically, he maintained that (1) the court improperly applied the Revised ICPC because it was not in effect when the placement hearing occurred, and (2) under the current version of the ICPC, a home study was required before the court could grant custody of the child to mother in New York. Colorado enacted the ICPC in 1975 and enacted the Revised ICPC in 2024. However, the Revised ICPC is not effective until 35 states have adopted it, which has not yet occurred. Therefore, Colorado juvenile courts must apply the ICPC, CRS §§ 24-60-1801 to -1803, when addressing the interstate placement of children. The court of appeals determined that the plain language of § 24-60-1802 confines the ICPC’s application to placements of children in foster care or as preliminaries to adoption, so it is not implicated when custody of a child is granted to a parent. The court thus held that the ICPC does not apply when a court grants custody of a child to an out-of-state parent. Therefore, the ICPC’s provisions were not triggered when the juvenile court granted mother custody of the child. Accordingly, though the court erroneously applied the Revised ICPC when it found that an ICPC home study was not required before granting temporary physical and legal custody of the child to mother, the error was harmless because the court had authority to grant custody of the child to mother, and it entered temporary orders to ensure that the custody arrangement was safe and in the child’s best interests.
Father also contended that the juvenile court erred by eliciting and considering the child’s out-of-court statements that were inadmissible hearsay. While father conceded that he did not preserve this claim for appeal, he argued for review of his claim to avoid a miscarriage of justice. However, the miscarriage of justice exception has limited application to situations where juvenile court error that was not otherwise properly preserved for appeal results in a grossly unfair outcome for the parent, which is not the case here. Further, father’s testimony supported the court’s findings that the child lacked proper parental care through father’s actions or omissions. Accordingly, the court found no miscarriage of justice and thus declined to address father’s hearsay objection asserted for the first time on appeal.
Lastly, father asserted that the juvenile court erred by not approving an appropriate treatment plan at the initial dispositional hearing. Here, the juvenile court held a dispositional hearing at which father appeared and represented himself. And the court discussed the department’s proposed treatment plan, which was amended by the guardian ad litem, with father before adopting it. Further, there was no improper burden shifting in the court’s order adopting the plan.
The judgment was affirmed.