by P.D. Lesko

NOTE:This is one in a series of articles about the Washtenaw County Trial Court and cases where a litigant or litigants appealed a County Trial Court judge’s ruling. The majority of local Trial Court rulings are upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals, but in some instances local judges are found to have ruled erroneously, that they showed bias, abused their discretion, and misruled in egregious ways. While the Michigan Court of Appeals’ (COA) opinions (published and unpublished) are public, those opinions, while delivered to the presiding judge, have to be sought out on the COA’s website using the Michigan Court of Appeals case search.

The following comes from Michigan Court of Appeals opinion in People of the State of Michigan v. Patricia Myia McDaniel: “In January 2021, Child Protective Services(CPS) removed JM and her other siblings, including her younger brother, JM2, from their mother. CPS placed JM and JM2 in the care of McDaniel’s cousin, AB. In July 2021, JM disclosed to AB that she had been sexually assaulted by “Richie Rich”—Allen-Bass. According to JM, in Fall 2020, when she was about 7 years old, she was asleep in her bedroom with her siblings when her mother woke her up. McDaniel told JM, “let’s do grown up stuff.” McDaniel brought JM into her bedroom where Allen-Bass was waiting. McDaniel laid down on her bed, and JM watched as Allen-Bass ‘put his mouth on [McDaniel’s] private.’ McDaniel then placed JM on the bed and told her to lie down. During trial, JM consistently stated that Allen-Bass put his mouth on her
genitals.”

In 2023, Washtenaw County Family Court Judge Tracy E. Van den Bergh ruled that Patricia M. McDaniel, serving a 25-50 year sentence in the Huron Valley Women’s Correctional Facility for abetting the sexual abuse of her minor child, had to be given weekly visitation with four of her six minor children.

Patricia M. McDaniel’s attorney tried to withdraw (unsuccessfully) from the case in which she was charged with CSC First Degree. McDaniel’s “defense” in the trial consisted of arguing the prosecution had presented no evidence that McDaniel’s accomplice, Richard Allen-Bass, in the sexual abuse of the seven-year-old child, had “penetrated” the young girl.

The accomplice had, according to the child, performed oral sex, or blew on the girl’s genitals. This happened either when the young girl was wearing her pajama bottoms, or not wearing her pajama bottoms. The girl could not remember the exact particulars of her state of dress or undress. What was certain was that her mother had awoken her in the middle of the night and said, “Let’s go do some grown up things,” and the “grown up things” consisted of abetting and watching the sexual abuse of her seven-year-old daughter by a Richard Allen-Bass.

Trial Court Judge Tracy Van den Bergh, according to the opinion published by the Michigan Court of Appeals in April 2024 ordered, under MCL 712A.6, that the director of the MDOC must “permit respondent-mother’s supervised parenting time while respondent-mother was incarcerated.”

McDaniel, who is housed in the Huron Valley Women’s Correctional Facility (HVWCF), had sued the MDOC in the Washtenaw County Trial Court because, she alleged, the Dir. of the facility would not grant her the right to video visitation with her minor children.

Following her criminal conviction and incarceration, the Trial Court in the child protective proceedings ordered that McDaniel was to have supervised parenting time, once per week, either in person or by video, with four of her minor children. Her parenting time with the other two children, which included the victim of her criminal conduct, was suspended by Judge Van den Bergh.

The Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) Director Heidi Washington appealed Van den Bergh’s October 10, 2023 order that, in part, “ordered appellant to ‘allow supervised, video visitation’ between respondent-mother and four of her six minor children while respondent-mother was incarcerated in the Huron Valley Women’s Correctional Facility (HVWCF).”

Judge Van den Bergh then proceeded to rule in favor of McDaniels’s request that she be permitted video visitation with her children. The Court of Appeals, in its opinion, ruled that Van den Bergh “should have been aware [that] it had not yet conducted an adjudication and therefore had not found by a preponderance of the evidence that the minor children were within the court’s jurisdiction under MCL 712A.2(b). Notably, we deem it necessary to remind the trial court that its decision following a preliminary hearing to authorize the petition for filing, which only requires a finding of probable cause, is not equivalent to an adjudication and does not establish the court’s jurisdiction over the minor children.”

In other words, Judge Van den Bergh granted the request for video visitation with minor children to a woman who had been sentenced to 25-50 years in prison for abetting the sexual abuse of one of her children, without having established the legal right to do so.

It was, the Court of Appeals wrote in its opinion, a mistake which Van den Bergh should never have made:

“The court could not rely on MCL 712A.6 as authority for entering the order at issue in this case because the court had not yet obtained jurisdiction over the children under MCL 712A.2(b). The trial court erred as a matter of law by putting the cart before the horse and acting as if it were in the dispositional phase without first properly obtaining jurisdiction over the children, thereby skipping the adjudicative phase.”

The Court of Appeals vacated Van den Bergh’s ruling that Patricia McDaniel be given weekly video visitation rights with four of her six minor children. “We therefore vacate the trial court’s order
requiring appellant to permit respondent-mother parenting time.”

The Michigan Court of Appeals also denied Patricia McDaniel’s appeal of her 25-50 year sentence on the grounds she did not have adequate representation.

On May 11, 2023, the Michigan Court of Appeals published an opinion in which a three-judge panel found Washtenaw County Trial Court Judge Tracy E. Van den Bergh’s rulings in a divorce case repeatedly showed bias and abuse of discretion. Further, Van den Bergh was found to have violated court procedures. The Court of Appeals also reversed several of Van den Bergh’s rulings, because she’d neglected to follow Michigan law governing child custody decisions. In its May 2023 Kuebler vs. Kuebler opinion, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that Washtenaw County Trial Court Judge Van den Bergh’s errors had adversely impacted the parties involved in a child custody dispute.