D.F. v. Florida Department of Children and Family Services

D.F. appeals the trial court's April 21, 2003 final judgment for termination of the parental rights to her three children. We find that the trial court abused its discretion when it denied D.F.'s counsel's repeated requests for a continuance of the final adjudicatory hearing and therefore reverse. In April of 1997, the appellee Florida Department of Children and Family Services adjudicated D.F.'s three children dependent. After being reunited with her children and returned to State custody several times, on July 28, 2001, pick-up orders issued for the children based upon D.F.'s arrest and the department's inability to locate the children. The department eventually located the children and determined that D.F. was incarcerated in Alachua County, Florida.