Opinion ID: 1100352
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Parents' Right to Raise their Children

Text: The majority declines to rule on the minors' claims that the ordinances violate their parents' rights, Majority op. at 1113, but nevertheless spends more than five pages discussing the issue for the sake of completeness, Majority op. at 1113, at the end of which the majority conclude[s] that the ordinances may implicate the parental right to raise children, but leave[s] resolution of this issue for another day. Majority op. at 1115. Therefore, even though, as the majority admits, its discussion of this issue is utter dictum, I respond to it for the sake of the same completeness. Because the majority apparently agrees, Majority op. at 1115 n. 5, I will not belabor the point that the minors lack standing to raise their parents' rights. Major implications would follow from a holding that a minor has standing to assert the rights of the parent. In many cases, the parents' desires to raise their children the way they think best compete with their children's desires to run their lives the way they think best. Therefore, allowing a minor to assert the parent's rights encourages the manipulation of arguments to further the minor's purposes as against the parent's. As one court has recognized, if we accept the argument that parents' fundamental rights are implicated in this context, future litigants could simply artfully plead violations of parental rights to avoid the [well-established] determination that children do not possess all the freedoms of adults. Arguments based on minors' rights to engage in particular conduct would be routinely recast as arguments based on parents' rights to allow their children to engage in precisely the same conduct. Schleifer, 159 F.3d at 852. Even if the minors had standing to assert this claim, determining whether an individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in any given case must be made by considering all the circumstances, especially objective manifestations of that expectation. Stall, 570 So.2d at 260 (quoting Shaktman v. State, 553 So.2d 148, 153 (Fla.1989) (Ehrlich, J., concurring specially)) (emphasis added). Parents do not have an unlimited constitutional right to rear their children any way they see fit, regardless of the consequences to the community at large. Parents have responsibilities. The State already demands a certain threshold level of care under its child neglect statutes. See, e.g., § 39.001(3), Fla. Stat. (2002) (outlining general protections for children); § 39.01, Fla. Stat. (2002) (defining abuse and abandonment). Parents must ensure that their children are educated, see § 1003.21(1)(a)1, Fla. Stat. (2003) (requiring regular school attendance during the entire school term for children between the ages of six and sixteen); § 1003.24, Fla. Stat. (2003) (providing that, subject to certain exceptions, each parent of a child within the compulsory attendance age is responsible for the child's school attendance as required by law); they cannot abuse or neglect their children, see § 39.806(1)(g), Fla. Stat. (2003) (providing for termination of parental rights when parent abuses child); and they must give their children a certain level of financial support, see § 39.01(30)(f), Fla. Stat. (2003) (stating that the term neglects the child encompasses a parent's failure to supply the child with adequate food, clothing, shelter, or health care, although financially able to do so or although offered financial or other means to do so). An ordinance prohibiting minors from remaining in public unsupervised during late-night hours is simply another legitimate requirement that parents adequately supervise their children. Curfew ordinances inevitably assume a threshold level of parental responsibility. See Schleifer, 159 F.3d at 851 (noting that the city was entitled to believe that a nocturnal curfew would promote parental involvement in a child's upbringing despite evidence that some parents did not support the curfew); Bykofsky v. Borough of Middletown, 401 F.Supp. 1242, 1255 (M.D.Pa.1975) (noting that curfews encourage parents who ignore their children's nighttime activities to take a more active role in their children's lives), aff'd, 535 F.2d 1245 (3d Cir.1976). As the majority acknowledges, Majority op. at 1114, many courts have held that juvenile curfew ordinances either do not implicate parents' fundamental rights or interfere with them only minimally. See Hutchins, 188 F.3d at 540-41 (holding that the federal right of parental control only includes parents' control of the home and formal education of children and not parental decisions about when their children can be on public streets); Schleifer, 159 F.3d at 853 (concluding that a curfew ordinance did not fall within the type of intimate family decisions protected from state interference); Qutb, 11 F.3d at 495-96 (holding that a juvenile curfew ordinance constituted a minimal intrusion on parents' rights and only affected a parent's ability to allow the minor to remain in public places, unaccompanied by a parent or guardian); Hodgkins v. Peterson, 175 F.Supp.2d 1132, 1162 (S.D.Ind.2001) (concluding that parents have no fundamental right to allow their minor children to be in public places with parental permission during curfew hours and that statute did not infringe on minors' First Amendment rights), rev'd, 355 F.3d 1048, 1064-65 (7th Cir.2004) (holding that curfew statute violated minors' free expression rights but declining to reach the merits of parents' right to privacy claim); Bykofsky, 401 F.Supp. at 1264 (concluding that the ordinance constitutes a minimal interference with the parental interest in influencing and controlling the activities of their offspring, in light of numerous exceptions in the ordinance); City of Panora v. Simmons, 445 N.W.2d 363, 369-70 (Iowa 1989) (holding that a curfew was a minimal infringement on parents' rights). I do not contest that parents have a fundamental right in the upbringing of their children. See, e.g., Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 232, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972) (stating that the primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition); Von Eiff v. Azicri, 720 So.2d 510, 513 (Fla.1998) (explaining that Florida's Constitution guarantees a right to privacy and that such right includes a parent's fundamental right to rear his or her child). The issue here, however, is the scope and dimension of the right. The Supreme Court has rejected the view that a parent's right to raise a child is unqualified, superseding all government regulation. See Prince, 321 U.S. at 167, 64 S.Ct. 438 (stating that the state has a wide range of power for limiting parental freedom and authority in things affecting the child's welfare); Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160, 178, 96 S.Ct. 2586, 49 L.Ed.2d 415 (1976) (stating that parents have no constitutional right to provide their children with private school education unfettered by reasonable government regulation); Bykofsky, 401 F.Supp. at 1262 (stating that the State may act to promote its legitimate interests, despite parents' fundamental rights, when actions concerning the child have a relation to the public welfare); cf. Cramp v. Bd. of Pub. Instruction of Orange County, 125 So.2d 554, 558 (Fla.) (stating that First Amendment rights are not absolute and that courts must balance the private right against the alleged public interest), rev'd on other grounds, 368 U.S. 278, 82 S.Ct. 275, 7 L.Ed.2d 285 (1961); 16A Am.Jur.2d Constitutional Law § 397 (1998) (stating generally that fundamental constitutional rights of individuals are not absolute, limitless, or unrestricted rights). In the parental context, [n]ot every state restriction of a child's freedom derivatively abridges the fundamental rights of parents. Schleifer, 159 F.3d at 852. Parents' fundamental right to privacy does not encompass allowing their children to wander the public streets unsupervised during the late night hours, even with parental permission. The social burdens that accommodating such a decision would entail, and the risks to the health and safety of children, justify government regulation of that decision. See Yoder, 406 U.S. at 233-34, 92 S.Ct. 1526 (stating that parents' fundamental rights are subject to limitation. . . if it appears that parental decisions will jeopardize the health or safety of the child, or have a potential for significant social burdens ) (emphasis added); cf. People v. Pierson, 176 N.Y. 201, 68 N.E. 243 (1903) (holding that parent's right to practice religion did not include liberty to expose the community to communicable disease). As one court has said, insofar as a parent can be thought to have a fundamental right, as against the state, in the upbringing of his or her children, that right is focused on the parents' control of the home and the parents' interest in controlling, if he or she wishes, the formal education of children. It does not extend to a parent's right to unilaterally determine when and if children will be on the streets  certainly at night. That is not among the intimate family decisions encompassed by such a right. Hutchins, 188 F.3d at 540-41 (plurality opinion) (citing Schleifer, 159 F.3d at 853). This is true even in Florida.