Michigan Supreme Court Rules One-Parent Doctrine Unconstitutional

Take note Florida: The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that removing a child from an uncharged parent is unconstitutional.

We accordingly hold that due process requires a specific adjudication of a parent’s unfitness before the state can infringe the constitutionally protected parent-child relationship. In doing so, we announce no new constitutional right. Rather, we affirm that an old constitutional right—a parent’s right to control the care, custody, and control of his or her children—applies to everyone, which is the very nature of constitutional rights. Because the one-parent doctrine allows the court to deprive a parent of this fundamental right without any finding that he or she is unfit, it is an unconstitutional violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In re Sanders, — N.W.2d —- (2014).

Florida has a similar one-parent doctrine. Once a child is adjudicated dependent based on the actions of one parent, both parents can be required to participate in services. An uncharged parent can obtain custody, but only if he or she passes a home study. Home studies are notoriously subject to interpretation by the person or agency conducting them, and can prevent a child from going to a home that the child would not have been removed from in the first place. For example, a child would not be removed for living in an apartment that is too small, but a home study could be negative on that basis and require the child to go to foster care.

Florida should take another look at its one-parent doctrine.

The Michigan opinion is an explicit validation of Professor Vivek Sankaran’s 2009 law review article Parens Patriae Run Amuck: The Child Welfare System’s Disregard for the Constitutional Rights of Non-Offending Parents. Put that one in the pile of law review articles that actually mattered.

 


Comments

One response to “Michigan Supreme Court Rules One-Parent Doctrine Unconstitutional”

  1. Robin Rosenberg Avatar
    Robin Rosenberg

    I think it’s an important topic to have robust research, discussion and debate. Keeping a child from living with a nurturing parent because the apartment is too small is absurd – but so is sending a child to live with a person who they don’t know and for whom there is no indicia of interest or ability to parent. Dropping off a child with a parent who has the interest and ability to parent, but insufficient resources to care for a child is also not right for kids.

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