Sheboygan County Department of Health & Human Services v. N. H.

COURT OF APPEALS
DECISION NOTICE
DATED AND FILED This opinion is subject to further editing. If
published, the official version will appear in
the bound volume of the Official Reports.
September 10, 2025
A party may file with the Supreme Court a
Samuel A. Christensen petition to review an adverse decision by the
Clerk of Court of Appeals Court of Appeals. See WIS. STAT. § 808.10
and RULE 809.62.

Appeal No. 2025AP903-FT Cir. Ct. No. 2021JC40

STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT II

IN THE INTEREST OF L.H., A PERSON UNDER THE AGE OF 18:

SHEBOYGAN COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES,

PETITIONER-RESPONDENT,

V.

N.H. AND E.H.,

RESPONDENTS,

L.H.,

OTHER PARTY-APPELLANT.

APPEAL from an order of the circuit court for Sheboygan County:
SAMANTHA R. BASTIL, Judge. Affirmed.
No. 2025AP903-FT

¶1 GROGAN, J.1 Luke2 appeals from an order denying his request for
change of placement in connection with a CHIPS3 dispositional order. Luke
argues that the circuit court erred when it denied his request to change his
placement from an outside placement to that of his father’s home, and specifically
asserts that the court erroneously exercised its discretion by failing to properly
weigh the relevant factors. This court affirms.

I. BACKGROUND

¶2 A September 2021 CHIPS petition alleged that Luke was a child in
need of protection or services under WIS. STAT. § 48.13(2), (10), and (10m). Prior
to filing the CHIPS petition, the Sheboygan County Department of Health and
Human Services (Sheboygan DHHS) took temporary custody of Luke due to his
mother’s refusal to allow him to return home, and due to not believing placement
with his father was suitable as a result of substantiated sexual abuse of his
biological daughter three years prior. The circuit court thereafter entered a CHIPS
dispositional order in March 2022 upon determining that Luke was in need of
protection or services. The order required Luke’s father to participate in
counseling, complete a psychosexual evaluation, and to comply with the
evaluation treatment provider’s recommendations.

¶3 In May 2024, Luke filed a request to change placement to his
father’s home. At the hearing, which spanned multiple days, Dr. Latoya K.

1
This appeal is decided by one judge pursuant to WIS. STAT. § 752.31(2)(e) (2023-24).
All references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 2023-24 version.
2
Luke is a pseudonym.
3
“CHIPS” is an acronym for Child in Need of Protection or Services.

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No. 2025AP903-FT

Williams testified that she conducted a psychosexual evaluation of Luke’s father
in April 2023. According to Williams, Luke’s father was “guarded” and exhibited
“instrumental anger,” which she described as occurring when someone undergoing
an evaluation “expresse[s] … frustration,” elevates his tone of voice, exhibits
“slight yelling,” or engages in other behaviors “as a tool to back the evaluator up”
or “to make the evaluator back off.” Williams also testified that Luke’s father
attempted to minimize or justify his actions regarding his daughter’s assault by
claiming that “he didn’t have the money to measure her for a bra, so he did it
himself,” and that during this process he assaulted her “without thought.”

¶4 As part of the evaluation, Williams subjected Luke’s father to two
tests, STABLE and STATIC. Williams explained that the STABLE test “assesses
personality constructs” and “looks for who the person is.” She explained that the
test is “a bit more subjective” and that it is “not weighted as heavily as the
STATIC because” it assesses “the parts of the person that they can change over
time if they wanted to.” In contrast, Williams explained, the STATIC test
“assesses for risk factors that can’t be changed.” Williams testified that she has a
“preference for combining” a subject’s scores on the STABLE and STATIC tests
because “the developers of [the tests] said that [evaluators] can” do so. The
combination of Luke’s father’s test scores indicated an eleven percent chance of
reoffending, a probability that Williams opined constituted “a moderate risk.”

¶5 Williams further opined that Luke’s father was deceptive during the
evaluation. For example, when asked if he “demonstrated an attraction or a
deviance towards males or male children[,]” Williams explained that the father
was not “honest on the questionnaires that would assess for that” and that on the
sex offender treatment evaluation attitude questionnaire, in which subjects are
asked to provide a number between one and four in responding to specific

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No. 2025AP903-FT

questions, “the average person is going to create a scatter” of responses but that
Luke’s father “just did all ones down the form.” Williams suggested that
responding in this way “is a sign that the person is malingering” and testified that
upon seeing his responses, she gave him an “opportunity to go ahead and do the
questionnaire a second time and to be more honest[.]” In response, she said,
Luke’s father proceeded to yell at her and denied being dishonest.

¶6 Williams also testified that Luke’s father has a history of unmanaged
depression and that this is relevant to his risk of reoffending because “people are at
their highest risk to sexually reoffend when they are going through a stressor.”
She explained that “even if [an individual’s] risk is as low as two percent, what
happens with that person is when they go through a stressor, their risk elevates.”
Williams provided various examples of real-world stressors such as experiencing a
depressive episode, going into debt, and job loss. According to Williams, while
Luke’s father’s evaluation indicated an eleven percent chance of reoffending, “that
risk could shoot up very high and it could shoot up at 80, 90, close to a hundred
percent dependent on how difficult of a time he’s having.”

¶7 Williams further confirmed that Luke’s father “has experienced
deviant incestuous arousal” and explained that “not every sex offender has the
ability to be aroused to their own children” and that Luke’s father does have “the
ability to be aroused by his own child.” When asked, she also confirmed that this
arousal is not “something that can suddenly stop without treatment,” and explained
that “[t]he arousal pattern doesn’t stop once it’s activated” but rather is “an
ongoing thing” and that the goal of treatment is to “teach [offenders] how to
extinguish the urge once it’s activated.”

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No. 2025AP903-FT

¶8 Williams also explained that the purpose of sex offender treatment,
which she recommended for Luke’s father, is “to address the dynami[c] risk
factors that can change with treatment.” For example, Williams explained that
“one of the things [she] suggested he work on was … the lack of empathy and
compassion that [she] picked up on from his interview.” She noted that “[h]e
didn’t seem to have very much empathy when talking about other people and other
people’s stressors” and “came off as pretty callous when talking about things that
other people around him had gone through.” As a result, she opined that “[h]is
problem solving skills appeared to be at issue as well in that he kind of seems to
look for the easiest solution to his problems as possible, but then the easiest
solution is usually the one that just creates more problems.” She also noted issues
with his general “attitude and disposition,” specifically stating that being
questioned elevates his anger, which “creates an additional stressor for himself
that can elevate his risk in the moment.”

¶9 In describing Luke’s father’s behavior during the evaluation,
Williams said he “wasn’t really ready to own the situation that happened with his
daughter.” She testified that “[h]e was in denial about how the sexual assault
happened” and that “how he described it happening is just very different from the
research on sexual offending and it’s different from how treatment sees
offending.” Williams explained that the father’s “stance that it was just this
thoughtless act that happened right there in the moment and there had not been any
thoughts about this prior, any fantasizing about it prior … doesn’t fit the research
and it doesn’t fit how the treatment is done.” Williams opined that addressing
these “minimization[s]” and “justifications” makes it “much easier for [offenders]
to work on the additional part of learning to manage their arousals.”

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No. 2025AP903-FT

¶10 When asked whether Luke’s father should participate in or complete
sex offender treatment prior to being reunified with his children, Williams
explained that due to his lack of openness during the evaluation, she was unable to
determine whether he posed a risk to his son. She stated that his failure to
participate in sex offender treatment prevented her from having “the information
that [she] need[s] to know what things would look like in terms of [risk to] his
son.” She testified, however, that she had “information that suggests that he’s at
risk for offending against his daughters.”

¶11 Social worker Kami Richter, the case worker assigned to Luke’s
case, also testified. According to Richter, Sheboygan DHHS considered
Williams’ recommendation that Luke’s father participate in sex offender treatment
to be a recommendation of a treatment provider that he was required to comply
with as set forth in the CHIPS dispositional order. She explained that she had
provided the names of twelve treatment providers to Luke’s father in addition to
the two Dr. Williams had provided, and that to her knowledge, he had not
completed any form of sex offender treatment and was not currently participating
in sex offender treatment at the time of her testimony. Richter also testified that
she did not believe that he was complying with the dispositional requirement that
he participate in individual and family therapy and confirmed that Sheboygan
DHHS’s “primary concern is [Luke’s father’s] lack of sex offender treatment” and
that it was “opposed to reunifying [Luke] with his father” “until that’s
completed[.]”

¶12 At a later hearing, the circuit court heard testimony from Luke, who
expressed his wish to return home with his father. After hearing this testimony
and argument from counsel, the court delivered an oral ruling denying Luke’s
request for a change in placement, stating:

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No. 2025AP903-FT

Dr. Williams’ testimony was very clear, and this Court
has two primary concerns. And that is exactly what
Attorney Blum pointed out which is, one, that she is unable
to rule out that [Luke] could be one of [the father’s] victims
and that is because of his deception in the filling out of his
questionnaire and checking one, circling one for
everything. And Dr. Williams articulated how she pointed
that out to [the father], gave him a second opportunity to
fill it out. And he still indicated ones.

And so she is not able to opine as to whether [Luke] can
be ruled out as a victim for [his father]. And frankly,
sexually assaulting a child once is one time too many. And
when there is a history of sexual assault of a biological
child and [a] professional who this Court has deemed
credible that indicates that she is unable to rule out because
of [the father’s] deception, … [Luke] being a victim, this
Court cannot return [Luke] to your home. And the second
reason is … making sure that [Luke] does not grow up to
do what [his father] did to one of his children. And without
that sex offender treatment, this Court cannot be assured
that that will not happen.

Luke appeals.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶13 A circuit court may order a change of placement or trial reunification
for a child subject to a CHIPS dispositional order where, in its discretion, it
determines that doing so is in the child’s best interest. Tina B. v. Richard H.,
2014 WI App 123, ¶45, 359 Wis. 2d 204, 857 N.W.2d 432; WIS. STAT. § 48.357.
To conclude that the circuit court erroneously exercised its discretion, this “court
must [conclude] either that [it] has not exercised discretion or that it has exercised
discretion on the basis of an error of law or irrelevant or impermissible factors.”
Barstad v. Frazier, 118 Wis. 2d 549, 554, 348 N.W.2d 479 (1984). “[I]f the trial
court applie[d] the correct legal criteria, its decision is virtually invulnerable.”
Richard D. v. Rebecca G., 228 Wis. 2d 658, 670, 599 N.W.2d 90 (Ct. App. 1999).

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No. 2025AP903-FT

III. DISCUSSION

¶14 Luke contends that the “[t]he decision by the [circuit] court gave
insufficient weight to the evidence presented by [Luke] throughout the motion
hearing.” Specifically, he argues that “[m]atters such as [Luke]’s age, level of
maturity, and desire to return to his father’s care [were] noted by the court but not
given their deserved weight.” Luke also asserts that “Dr. Williams provided
evidence that the likelihood of [Luke’s] father re-assaulting a child was low” and
that “the likelihood of [him] assaulting a male child is even lower, given that [he]
is a heterosexual male who is attracted to females.”

¶15 Despite these assertions, Luke nevertheless admits, as he must, that
the circuit court did expressly consider Luke’s testimony, which is clear from the
court’s statement during its oral ruling that Luke’s “wishes do carry a lot of
weight[.]” The court further acknowledged that Luke was engaged and punctual
throughout the course of the proceedings and that “his wishes” were taken “under
serious advisement.” The court expressly concluded, however, that Luke’s wishes
were outweighed by the concern that his father, in failing to pursue sex offender
treatment, posed a substantial risk of reoffending and that assessing the specific
risk posed to Luke was impossible due to his father’s lack of honesty during
Williams’ evaluation. In concluding that Luke’s wishes were outweighed by other
evidence presented, the court relied largely on Williams’ testimony, which had
explained that Luke’s father’s risk of reoffending was made greater by his
unmanaged depression, his continuing denial of his need for sex offender
treatment, and his failure to honestly engage with Williams during the evaluation.

¶16 Having reviewed the Record, this court cannot say that the circuit
court’s analysis was based upon any errors of law or fact or that it was based upon

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No. 2025AP903-FT

impermissible factors. While there may have been, as Luke suggests, “evidence
that supported” placement with his father, the court did not exceed its
discretionary authority in concluding that the evidence that did not support
placement with his father outweighed the evidence Luke relies upon on appeal.
Accordingly, Luke has failed to establish that the court did not properly exercise
its discretion, and the order denying his request for a change in placement is
therefore affirmed.

By the Court.—Order affirmed.

This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT.
RULE 809.23(1)(b)4.

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