Marshall County Department of Human Resources v. J.V.

THOMAS, Judge.

In 2009, the Marshall County Department of Human Resources (“DHR”) removed J.J.V. (“the child”) from the custody of M.M.T. (“the mother”). At that time, the child’s father, J.V. (“the father”), was living in Florida, where the child and the mother had resided until the mother left the father.1 The father came to Alabama to locate the mother and the child only to learn that DHR had removed the child from the mother’s home.

The father, without the aid of counsel, attempted to work with DHR, and he briefly reunited with the mother. However, when a DHR caseworker informed him that…