Joshua Jenkins v. Aurora Jenkins

RENDERED: DECEMBER 12, 2025; 10:00 A.M. NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

Commonwealth of Kentucky Court of Appeals

NO. 2024-CA-0887-MR

JOSHUA JENKINS APPELLANT

APPEAL FROM KNOX CIRCUIT COURT v. HONORABLE STEPHEN MICHAEL JONES, JUDGE ACTION NO. 22-CI-00441

AURORA JENKINS; CABINET OF HUMAN RESOURCES, LEGAL DEPARTMENT; AND RICK DISNEY APPELLEES

OPINION AFFIRMING

** ** ** ** ** BEFORE: EASTON, KAREM, AND MCNEILL, JUDGES. KAREM, JUDGE: Joshua Jenkins appeals pro se from the Knox Circuit Court’s denying his complaint for visitation with his children. We affirm.

Jenkins has three children. He is currently serving a total sentence of twenty years for one count of second-degree rape and one count of second-degree sodomy. The criminal charges did not involve his children. According to Jenkins, the children are currently in the joint custody of their mother, his wife Aurora Jenkins, and their paternal grandfather.

On November 15, 2022, Jenkins filed a pleading pro se in Knox Circuit Court, styled “Complaint for Visitation with his Biological Children.” He sought visitation with his children and requested to proceed in forma pauperis, for appointment of counsel, and for a hearing. The circuit court entered a form order which did not clearly indicate whether Jenkins qualified as a poor person pursuant to Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 453.190 for purposes of proceeding in forma pauperis. Jenkins filed an appeal. On March 23, 2023, a panel of this Court of Appeals vacated the circuit court’s order as inherently ambiguous. It remanded the case for entry of a written order clearly specifying whether Jenkins was granted in forma pauperis status and, if denied, written reasons why.

On remand, the circuit court entered an order granting the motion to proceed in forma pauperis and waiving costs and fees. Jenkins filed a pleading styled “Status of Pending Pleading,” arguing that even though he is incarcerated, he is entitled to a hearing before his visitation rights with his children are denied. He also requested the appointment of a guardian ad litem.

On May 1, 2024, the circuit court entered an order dismissing the action with prejudice “based on the prior order of Knox Circuit Court Civil Action

-2-No. 19-CI-00263 entered on November 8, 2021, wherein this Court ruled that the children shall continue to have no contact or communication with Joshua Jenkins.” Jenkins filed a motion to reconsider. The circuit court denied the motion and this appeal followed.

Jenkins argues that the circuit court was required to conduct a hearing on his petition for visitation and that visitation should be determined based on the best interests of the children and not be denied simply because he is incarcerated.

As a matter of law, incarceration alone does not justify the denial of a right to visitation. Smith v. Smith, 869 S.W.2d 55, 57 (Ky. App. 1994). But there is no indication that the circuit court denied Jenkins’s petition for visitation because he is incarcerated. The court’s reason for denying the petition is plainly stated: there is an order in place in another case, Knox Circuit Court Civil Action No. 19-CI-00263, that Jenkins is to have no contact or communication with the children.

Jenkins cannot seek visitation by means of this action when there is a valid, binding order in the other case that forbids contact or communication with the children. If Jenkins wishes to pursue visitation, he must seek to modify or vacate the order in the other case.

For the foregoing reasons, the order denying Jenkins’s complaint for visitation is affirmed.

-3-

ALL CONCUR.

BRIEF FOR APPELLANT: NO BRIEF FILED FOR APPELLEES. Joshua Jenkins, pro se LaGrange, Kentucky

-4-