Cecilia A. v. Arizona Department of Economic Security

OPINION

TIMMER, Judge.

¶ 1 We are asked to decide whether the juvenile court violates a mentally impaired parent’s due process rights when it fails to suspend a parental severance hearing until the parent can regain the ability to meaningfully participate in the proceedings and assist counsel. In deciding this issue, we must also determine a guardian ad litem’s authority to act for a parent in severance proceedings. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶2 Three months after twenty-month-old A.G. was put in a voluntary foster-care placement, the Arizona Department of Economic…