Opinion ID: 418703
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: governmental ends and means

Text: 51 Rights of the sort asserted by the plaintiffs are not absolute; when incompatible with sufficiently potent public interests, they must give way. But such situations arise infrequently. Severance of the relationship between a parent and his child will survive constitutional scrutiny only if four requirements are met: (a) the asserted governmental interest must be compelling; (b) there must be a particularized showing that the state interest in question would be promoted by terminating the relationship; (c) it must be impossible to achieve the goal in question through any means less restrictive of the rights of parent and child; and (d) the affected parties must be accorded the procedural protections mandated by the Due Process Clauses. 52 These requirements, and the degree to which the defendants in the instant case have complied with each, are considered in order below. Our conclusion is that the plaintiffs have stated a cause of action in at least three of the four dimensions. We offer a relatively detailed analysis to explain our conclusion in the hope of preventing similar debacles in the future. Cases such as this can be avoided only through the promulgation of executive or congressional guidelines governing the administration of the Witness Protection Program that ensure the identification and accommodation of interests like those of the plaintiffs. The formulation of such guidelines may be difficult; the following discussion is intended to facilitate their development.
53 The first and most important implication of our finding that the plaintiffs' stake in one another's companionship must be deemed a fundamental liberty interest is that the government must have a very good reason for abrogating their rights. Whatever may be the strength of the state interest necessary to justify a minor or moderate interference with their relationship, 88 it is clear that permanent termination of their bond can be justified only by the promotion of a compelling objective. 89 54 The defendants might point to two objectives in an effort to provide a compelling justification for their conduct in this case: 90 promotion of the best interests of the children themselves or advancement of the public interest in the suppression of organized crime. 55 The first argument merits only brief attention. For two reasons, invasion of the plaintiffs' protected interests cannot be justified on the basis of the government's parens patriae interest in protecting the welfare of the children. 91 First, the Supreme Court has made plain, albeit in dictum, that a government could not break up a natural family solely on the basis of a determination that the children's best interest would be served thereby, absent a showing that the parents were unfit to care for their offspring. Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246, 255, 98 S.Ct. 549, 554, 54 L.Ed.2d 511 (1978) (quoting Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U.S. 816, 862-63, 97 S.Ct. 2094, 2119, 53 L.Ed.2d 14 (1977) (Stewart, J., concurring in the judgment)). The relations between William and his offspring are entitled to no less protection. See Part III, supra. Second, the only plausible basis for a justification related to the best interests of the children would be the possibility that their lives would be endangered if William were allowed to see them. 92 That argument, however, is seriously weakened by the fact that the government itself must bear at least some responsibility for creating any such danger. By inducing Allen to come forward with evidence against leaders of organized crime, it has created a situation in which the children are potential targets of retaliation. Invasion of the plaintiffs' rights should not be legitimated by the need to solve a problem the defendants themselves have generated. 56 The second argument available to the defendants is much more substantial. Organized crime, they might point out, is a serious problem in the United States today. Moreover, its very organization, and the code of secrecy by which its participants are bound, hamper the efforts of law enforcement agencies to obtain the evidence necessary to stop or curtail it. Evidence against organization leaders is particularly hard to come by. The police therefore must rely heavily on testimony provided by informants--people formerly or currently involved in organized criminal activity. Securing the aid of such persons is not easy; they are aware that by providing evidence against their former partners or employers, they place their own lives and the lives of their families in jeopardy. If the government were unable to guarantee their safety, they would rarely come forward. In sum, suppression of organized crime requires that the government be empowered, in its discretion, to relocate informants and members of their households and to maintain the secrecy of their new identities. And that, in turn, requires that the government be free, when it deems appropriate, to terminate contacts between witnesses or members of their families and people who figured in their past lives. 57 The foregoing justification clearly has some force. Whether it would be sufficient to warrant severance of the bond between a child and his natural parent we find it impossible, at this point, to say. Our inability to resolve this issue derives partly from the paltriness of the pertinent precedent. The lack of guidance afforded us by the case law results, in turn, principally from the frequency with which we and other courts have employed a convenient device for evading questions like that before us. Faced with a conflict between an important individual right and a powerful state interest that allegedly warrants infringement of the right, courts have been prone to hypothesize that the state's objective would prevail if the challenged statute directly and effectively promoted it, and then go on to examine the closeness of the fit between the statute and the asserted objective--in general and in the case at bar. The usual conclusion is that the enactment, in fact, would do little to advance the asserted end. Its principal justification thus undercut, the enactment collapses when subjected to constitutional attack. See, e.g., Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678, 690-91, 694-96, 97 S.Ct. 2010, 2018-19, 2021-22, 52 L.Ed.2d 675 (1977); Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 500, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 1936, 52 L.Ed.2d 531 (1977) (plurality opinion). 93 58 In the following sections, we follow a similar analytical path. 94 But, though that analysis suffices to decide the case before us, it leaves unresolved one important question likely to be presented in similar cases in the future (and thus that must be addressed by the draftsmen of guidelines for dealing with situations like this): if, in a particular instance, government officials demonstrate that the testimony of an informant is essential to the prosecution of an important leader of organized crime and that the interests of a non-custodial parent and members of the informant's household cannot be accommodated without risking human life, may the government go ahead, accept the informant and his family into the program, and subsequently deny the parent access to the children? 59 Courts' traditional reluctance to confront questions of this order means that we have very little to go on. We know, of course, that a state's legitimate interests in protecting children's welfare and in promoting the public health, safety, welfare and morals are sufficient to justify minor restrictions on parents' control over the upbringing of their offspring. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 233, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 1542, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972) (dicta); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166-70, 64 S.Ct. 438, 442-444, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944). And, if it can show that a parent is neglectful or otherwise unfit to care for a child, a state may sever the bond between the two. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 652, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 1213, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972) (dicta). 95 But there are few other features on this doctrinal map. Without any markings to assist us in getting our bearings, our answer to the aforementioned question might turn solely upon whether we felt that the suppression of organized crime was sufficiently important to be fairly described as compelling. 60 Any inclination we might have to speculate on that issue is dissipated by the paucity of relevant evidence in the record before us and the inconclusiveness of the data available from other sources. Observers and scholars continue to disagree not only over the likelihood that an informant will be disciplined by those he implicates 96 (and thus the need for a Witness Protection Program), but also over the nature and scope of the activities conducted by organized crime 97 and the seriousness of the threat that such activities pose to law-abiding citizens and to the integrity of our economic and political systems. 98 Given the range of respectable opinions on these crucial issues, we must decline to say more than that the assessment of the relative strength of the government's interest and the parent's and children's rights will be a difficult task for the body that ultimately must undertake it.
61 Assuming, arguendo, that the government's interest in the suppression of organized crime is sufficiently potent to justify invasion of constitutionally protected familial rights, the government may not rely on an irrebuttable presumption that its interest would be promoted in a given case, without affording the affected parties an opportunity to prove otherwise. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 657-58, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 1215-16, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972). 99 In part, this principle is an outgrowth of the doctrine of procedural due process. 100 In part, it is a corollary of the doctrine of substantive due process: 101 avoidance of any unnecessary infringement of fundamental rights requires that the government make a particularized showing of advantage in every case in which it contemplates depriving someone of constitutionally protected interests. 102 62 In this case, there may have been such a particularized determination; the governing Justice Department Order instructs the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the concerned division to admit a witness and his household into the program only upon a finding that (among other things) admission would be advantageous to the Federal interest. 103 But, putting aside for the moment the high risk of error in such an ex parte judgment made by an interested party, 104 there is no indication in the record that the Assistant Attorney General was ever aware that induction of Allen, Catherine and the children would have the effect of terminating the relationship between the children and their natural father. The Constitution requires that there be more than a determination that the Federal interest would be marginally advanced by taking action in a particular case; there must be a showing that the governmental interest would be promoted in ways sufficiently substantial to warrant overriding basic human liberties. That requirement has not been met in this case.
63 To justify restriction of constitutionally protected activity, the government must do more than show that such curtailment would promote, in a particular case, compelling governmental interests. 64 [I]f there are other, reasonable ways to achieve those goals with a lesser burden on constitutionally protected activity, a State may not choose the way of greater interference. If it acts at all, it must choose less drastic means. 65 Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 343, 92 S.Ct. 995, 1003, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972) (quoting Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 488, 81 S.Ct. 247, 252, 5 L.Ed.2d 231 (1960)). This principle has been repeatedly reaffirmed when constitutionally protected familial rights have been threatened. See Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. at 686, 97 S.Ct. at 2016; Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 194-95, 93 S.Ct. 739, 748-49, 35 L.Ed.2d 201 (1973); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 155, 93 S.Ct. 705, 727, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). 66 In this case, the defendants concede that they were and are capable of arranging secret meetings between William and the children. 105 They acknowledge that such contacts would not jeopardize the safety of the children, Catherine or Allen. And, whatever may be the legal or equitable constraints on their ability, at this juncture, to demand that Catherine permit the children to see their father, it is beyond dispute that they had the authority, at the time they accepted Allen and his family into the program, to insist that Catherine agree to such an arrangement. 106 There is no suggestion in the record that the defendants would have been unable to induce Allen to testify had they demanded that the rights of the plaintiffs be accommodated in the aforementioned manner. In short, the defendants apparently had ready access to a less drastic means for achieving their goals. Their decision not to avail themselves of that option was inconsistent with their duty under the Constitution.
It is beyond dispute that 67 state intervention to terminate the relationship between [a parent] and [a] child must be accomplished by procedures meeting the requisites of the Due Process Clause. 68 Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 1394, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982) (quoting Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18, 37, 101 S.Ct. 2153, 2165, 68 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981) (Blackmun, J., dissenting)). 107 Conformity with the principles of procedural due process, in this context, serves three independent functions. First, by exposing to adversarial testing the government's asserted rationale for its action, it reduces the likelihood of error--i.e., the risk that the government will act on the basis of what, in reality, is an insufficient justification. 108 Second, it permits the adversely affected parties to inform the government of ways in which the government's objectives might be achieved through means less restrictive of their rights. Third, it accords the affected parties some measure of dignity; it enables them to participate in and understand the process whereby their interests are assessed and, if necessary, restricted. 109 69 It is clear that the requisites of the Due Process Clause were not satisfied in the instant case. The defendants have never provided William with any kind of notice or opportunity to be heard. The Constitution certainly requires that much. 110 70 How much more the Constitution requires in situations like that before us is far from clear. Set forth below are some of the major considerations that must be taken into account when designing a system for dealing with cases of this sort. Formulation of the details we must leave to a body with greater knowledge than we possess of the ways in which the Witness Protection Program does or might operate. 71 We begin with the principle that, 72 [b]efore a person is deprived of a protected interest, he must be afforded opportunity for some kind of a hearing, except for extraordinary situations where some valid governmental interest is at stake that justifies postponing the hearing until after the event. 73 Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 570 n. 7, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2705 n. 7, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972) (quoting Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 379, 91 S.Ct. 780, 786, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971)) (emphasis added). Holding the hearing before execution of the decision is particularly important where, as here, the deprivation of the protected interest might be irrevocable or might cause irreparable harm and where the decision will not turn on judgments that can sensibly be made on the basis of written submissions. 111 74 At oral argument, the defendants' counsel argued that the need for secrecy and speed in the admission of witnesses might make a pre-entrance hearing of any sort impracticable. In some cases that may well be true, but it appears that in the majority of cases the Attorney General's office now informs the Marshals Service of a decision to admit an informant at least three workdays prior to the scheduled pick-up. 112 It seems to us not inconceivable that, sometime during those three days, a secret meeting might be held to hear and evaluate the government's assertions of need and the objections and claims of the non-relocated parent. 75 In those instances in which holding such a hearing would truly be impossible, the requirements of the Due Process Clause would be merely suspended, not eliminated; 113 as soon as practicable after the admission of the informant, a hearing would have to be held, at least to work out some accommodation of the rights of the children and the parent left behind. 114 76 Envisioning what a pre-admission (or post-admission) hearing might look like is no easy task. The affected parties would be entitled to no more (and no less) than a hearing appropriate to the nature of the case. Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 313, 70 S.Ct. 652, 657, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950). [D]ue process is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 2600, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972). The situation before us is so idiosyncratic that it is difficult to predict the kind of process that both would be workable and would fulfill the three functions described above. We are unable to do more than offer the following suggestions: 77 (1) The irrevocability of decisions to admit witnesses and their households, combined with the virtual impossibility of obtaining meaningful judicial review of such judgments, strongly suggests that those determinations should be made in accordance with a standard set of basic procedures, not processes developed and modified on a case-by-case basis. Compare Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. at 757 & n. 9, 102 S.Ct. at 1396 n. 9 (procedural rules of general application necessary when appellate review would be insufficient to ensure fundamental fairness), with Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. at 31-32, 101 S.Ct. at 2162 (procedures determined on a case-by-case basis suffice when appellate review would be an adequate check). 78 (2) This is not to say that those procedures should be highly formal; quite the contrary. The need for confidentiality and some measure of speed, combined with the value of encouraging the parties to speak freely with one another in working out a mutually satisfactory solution to their common problem, argues in favor of an informal setting. Some kind of neutral arbiter might have to be present, but the emphasis should be on negotiation and accommodation, not confrontation. 79 (3) In deciding more specific questions relating to the form of the proceeding--e.g., whether the parties should have a right to be represented by counsel, should be able to present or cross-examine witnesses, etc.--reference should be made to the three factors set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976), for the selection of a procedure that optimally balances the reduction of the risk of error and the burdensomeness of additional safeguards. 115 Reliance on those considerations should be tempered, however, by sensitivity to (a) the need to foster negotiation and compromise and (b) the importance of involving the non-relocated parent in the decisionmaking process. 116