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Candidate Notes on 99-138

 


99-138 on Jan 12, 2000

Washington law permits “any person” to petition for visitation rights “at any time” and authorizes state superior courts to grant such rights whenever visitation may serve a child’s best interest. Petitioners Troxel petitioned for the right to visit their deceased son’s daughters. Respondent Granville, the girls’ mother, did not oppose all visitation, but objected to the amount sought by the Troxels.

Held:


(O’Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Ginsburg, and Breyer; Souter and Thomas concurring) Washington’s breathtakingly broad statute, as applied to Granville and her family, violates her due process right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of her daughters. Because we rest our decision on the sweeping breadth of the Washington law, we do not consider the primary constitutional question. We do not, and need not, define today the precise scope of the parental due process right in the visitation context.

Dissent:

(Stevens)

The Washington law merely gives an individual--with whom a child may have an established relationship--the procedural right to ask the State to act as arbiter, through the entirely well-known best-interests standard, between the parent’s protected interests and the child’s. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

Dissent:

(Kennedy)
In my view, it would be more appropriate to conclude that the constitutionality of the application of the best interests standard depends on more specific factors. In short, a fit parent’s right vis-à-vis a complete stranger is one thing; her right vis-à-vis another parent or a de facto parent may be another. In my view the judgment under review should be vacated and the case remanded for further proceedings.

Dissent:

(Scalia)
In my view, a right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the “unalienable Rights” in the Declaration of Independence.



Democrats participating in 99-138



Republicans participating in 99-138



Independents participating in 99-138

Stephen Breyer j1US Supreme Court
Ruth Bader Ginsburg j1US Supreme Court
Anthony Kennedy w2dUS Supreme Court
Sandra Day O'Connor w1US Supreme Court
William Rehnquist j1US Supreme Court
Antonin Scalia w3dUS Supreme Court
David Souter j1US Supreme Court
John Paul Stevens w2dUS Supreme Court
Clarence Thomas j1US Supreme Court



Total recorded by OnTheIssues:

Democrats: 0
Republicans: 0
Independents: 9