Assumption of jurisdiction; MCL 712A.2(b)(2); In re MU

Holding that the trial court did not clearly err in assuming jurisdiction over respondent-mother’s children under MCL 712A.2(b)(2), the court affirmed. Pursuant to that subsection, a “trial court has jurisdiction over a juvenile ‘[w]hose home or environment, by reason of neglect, cruelty, drunkenness, criminality, or depravity on the part of a parent, . . . is an unfit place for the juvenile to live in.’” Respondent contended that the trial court erred in finding jurisdiction based on this provision “because the petition made no mention of the children’s home conditions.” But the court found that this subsection does not impose any “such specific requirement. It provides for jurisdiction when a ‘home or environment’ is an unfit place for a juvenile to live in because of neglect, cruelty, drunkenness, criminality, or depravity on the part of a parent.” Respondent pled “to the allegations in the petition that pertained to her.” Those allegations/admissions “included: a 2023 incident during which she shoplifted using” one child’s (LB) “stroller while LB was in it, being the perpetrator of domestic violence, significant drug use, recent incarceration, a strong inference of depravity (if not criminality) relating to the potential adoption of” another of the children, and evidence of neglect as to LB and the third child “given she had no knowledge of where they were at the time of her [6/25] incarceration. The fact that she may not have been convicted of each listed crime” did not undermine the trial “court’s finding as to jurisdiction.” Pursuant to MU, the DHHS does not need to prove that a respondent was convicted of a crime in “‘order for the trial court to assume jurisdiction over the’” children based on criminality. Rather, it only has to establish by a preponderance of the evidence “‘that the respondent engaged in criminal behavior.’”