Parental Rights Upheld in Starving Case

Parents who starved a San Diego County child nearly to death are entitled by state law to take part in a program of attempted family reunification before the child is put up for adoption, a state appellate court ruled Friday.

A law allowing the withdrawal of parental rights without reunification in cases of serious child abuse covers only acts of beating that cause injury, and does not apply to depriving a young child of food, said the 4th District Court of Appeal.

The court said the parents, John and Sandra Zimmerman, could get training and other reunification services from San Diego County before a final decision on whether their relationship with their son, Troy, would be dissolved. In the meantime, Troy is to remain in foster care, where he was placed in 1989 at age 2.

“It is not as if we are unconcerned for those in Troy’s plight,” the opinion by Justice Howard Wiener said. “However, the protection afforded by (the law) must ‘focus on the preservation of the family whenever possible,’ ” he said, quoting the statute.

Robert Frank, a lawyer for Sandra Zimmerman, said the ruling did not necessarily mean the parents would keep the child.

“They have to be given a program to learn how to take care of the child. They have to succeed with that program, and it has to be in the best interests of the child to be with them” before the child is returned to them, Frank said.

He said the court had recognized the Legislature’s intention in passing the law, that “except in the most unusual circumstances, the government should try to help the family get back together before they terminate parental rights. That’s a fundamental right under the Constitution.”

Frank also said he had no idea of Sandra Zimmerman’s whereabouts, prompting him to ask that she be identified in a press account. The court used only the last initial of the family, as is customary in cases involving children, and did not specify the home town.

A county lawyer and a lawyer appointed to represent the child could not be reached late Friday.

The County Department of Social Services said Troy was found in May, 1989, near death from starvation and had been subjected to “serious, non-accidental physical harm” by his parents since November, 1988.

Frank said Friday that the starvation of the child had not been malicious. He said Troy was unable to keep his food down, and his mother did not know how to handle the problem. He said Troy was below his birth weight when he was taken from the home, but has made a full recovery.

The parents pleaded no contest to child abuse charges in July, 1989, the court said. The following month, Superior Court Judge Christine Pate granted a request by the county to terminate their parental rights and place Troy for adoption by the foster parents with whom he was living. Pate said the child would be in danger in his parents’ home, and reunification services were unlikely to prevent future abuse.

But the appeals court said the law allowing termination of parental rights without reunification services in cases of severe physical abuse applies only to “specific, traumatic acts caused by some form of striking.”

Wiener said the Legislature, which last amended the law in the 1987-88 session, was aware that deprivation of food was a form of child abuse that could lead to removal of the child from the home. Lawmakers must have intended not to include food deprivation in the law that lets a judge bypass reunification programs, Wiener said.