Jurisdiction under MCL 712A.2(b)(1) & (2); In re Sanders; Authentication; MRE 901; People v Smith; Hearsay; Excited utterance exception; MRE 803(2); In re Meeboer; Harmless error; MCR 2.613(A); In re Miller

Holding that any error in admitting social-media videos was harmless and that statutory grounds existed under MCL 712A.2(b)(1) and (2), the court affirmed jurisdiction over the children. Police engaged after respondent-mother made paranoid, nonsensical statements during a Facebook livestream. They encountered her and two children several miles from home after traveling part of the night, and a social worker testified that the mother said it had been “about two days since they had had a real meal.” The trial court admitted five short videos from the mother’s Facebook account and found a “severe mental health crisis” with the children “right there in the mix of it,” before exercising jurisdiction under (b)(1) and (2). On appeal, the court rejected her argument that the video evidence was not authenticated, noting that authentication was a “close call” but that there was no reversible error because it was not “more likely than not” that the outcome would change without them. As to hearsay, the court affirmed admission of the older child’s statements as excited utterances, noting such statements must be “made before there has been time to contrive and misrepresent,” and finding the child volunteered them during the police intervention in a startling situation. Turning to jurisdiction, the court held that the evidence such as paranoid delusions, forced departure from home, miles of travel at night, and lack of food and water, showed “a substantial risk of harm to their well-being” under (b)(1), and that the “children’s environment was unfit precisely because they had been forced to leave their home because of [the] mother’s delusions” under (b)(2), with neglect established by the failure to provide adequate food and shelter.