Opinion ID: 167696
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Removing Children from the Home in Emergency Circumstances

Text: 26 Under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, parents have a protected liberty interest in the care, custody and control of their children. Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000). That interest is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by [the Supreme] Court. Id. (citing Pierce v. Soc. of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 401, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923)); see also Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 232, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15, (1972) (The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.). As a result, state officials may not remove children from the home, through either temporary seizures or the permanent termination of parental rights, without providing due process of law. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753-54, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982); Roska II, 328 F.3d at 1245. 27 Nevertheless, the parents' liberty interest is not absolute. States have a parens patriae interest in preserving and promoting children's welfare, Santosky, 455 U.S. at 766, 102 S.Ct. 1388, including a `traditional and transcendent' interest in protecting children from abuse, J.B. v. Washington County, 127 F.3d 919, 927 (10th Cir.1997) (quoting Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 855, 110 S.Ct. 3157, 111 L.Ed.2d 666 (1990)). 28 As a result, when a state agency seeks to remove children from the home, due process requires that the parents receive prior notice and a hearing, except in extraordinary situations where some valid governmental interest is at stake that justifies postponing the hearing until after the event. Spielman v. Hildebrand, 873 F.2d 1377, 1385 (10th Cir.1989) (quoting Smith v. Org. of Foster Families for Equal. & Reform, 431 U.S. 816, 848, 97 S.Ct. 2094, 53 L.Ed.2d 14 (1977)). These extraordinary situations include [e]mergency circumstances which pose an immediate threat to the safety of a child. Hollingsworth v. Hill, 110 F.3d 733, 739 (10th Cir.1997). However, the `mere possibility' of danger is not enough to justify a removal without appropriate process. Roska II, 328 F.3d at 1245 (quoting Tenenbaum v. Williams, 193 F.3d 581, 594 (2d Cir.1999)). 29 Importantly, even when such a pre-hearing removal is justified, the state must act promptly to provide a post-removal hearing. See K.D. v. County of Crow Wing, 434 F.3d 1051, 1056 n. 6 (8th Cir. 2006) (Once a child is removed from parental custody without a court order, the state bears the burden to initiate prompt judicial proceedings to provide a post deprivation hearing.); Brokaw v. Mercer County, 235 F.3d 1000, 1020 (7th Cir.2000) ([D]ue process guarantees that the post-deprivation judicial review of a child's removal be prompt and fair.); Campbell v. Burt, 141 F.3d 927, 929 (9th Cir.1998) (stating that [f]ederal procedural due process guarantees prompt post-deprivation judicial review in child custody cases); Weller v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. for Baltimore, 901 F.2d 387, 396 (4th Cir.1990) ([E]ven if it is constitutionally permissible to temporarily deprive a parent of the custody of a child in an emergency, the state has the burden to initiate prompt judicial proceedings to ratify its emergency action.). 30 Our cases have not offered a precise definition of emergency circumstances which pose an immediate threat to the safety of a child. Hollingsworth, 110 F.3d at 739. However, in several instances we have concluded that the requisite emergency circumstances did not exist. Most recently, in Roska II, 328 F.3d at 1240, 1245-46, we held that the parents of a twelve-year-old boy who had been removed from their home without prior notice or a hearing had sufficiently alleged a violation of their due process rights. Despite evidence indicating that a mother might be suffering from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (a disorder where an individual, usually a mother, inflicts physical harm upon a child to gain the sympathy and attention of medical personnel, id. at 1238), [t]here was nothing particularly unusual about [the boy's] condition at the time he was removed, id. at 1241. Moreover, the boy's physician had stated that it would be a mistake to remove him from the home. We also observed that state officials had not even attempted to obtain an ex parte order authorizing the removal. Accordingly, no evidence indicate[d] that [the boy] was in immediate threat of death or severe physical harm. Id.; see also Malik v. Arapahoe County Dep't of Social Servs., 191 F.3d 1306, 1315 (10th Cir.1999) (finding no extraordinary circumstance dangerous to the child based on the uncle of a four-year-old girl having taken nude photographs of her during a visit five months before the removal); Hollingsworth, 110 F.3d at 739 (concluding that the record contains no evidence that [the plaintiff] actually endangered the welfare of her children prior to their removal). 2 31 Other courts have provided a somewhat more precise formulation of the standard required under the Due Process Clause to remove a child from the home without prior notice and a hearing. The First Circuit has concluded that a majority of circuits addressing this issue have held that a case worker . . . may place a child in temporary custody when he has evidence giving rise to a reasonable and articulable suspicion that the child has been abused or is in imminent peril of abuse. Hatch v. Dep't for Children, Youth, & Their Families, 274 F.3d 12, 20 (1st Cir. 2001) (citing Brokaw v. Mercer County, 235 F.3d 1000, 1019 (7th Cir.2000)); Croft v. Westmoreland County Children & Youth Servs., 103 F.3d 1123, 1126 (3d Cir. 1997); Gottlieb v. County of Orange, 84 F.3d 511, 518 (2d Cir.1996); and Manzano, v. S.D. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 60 F.3d 505, 511 (8th Cir.1995); see also Hatch, 274 F.3d at 21-22 (adopting the reasonable suspicion standard); Thomason v. SCAN Volunteer Servs., Inc., 85 F.3d 1365, 1373 (8th Cir.1996) (explaining the justification for the reasonable suspicion standard by stating that [w]here a treating physician has clearly expressed his or her reasonable suspicion that life-threatening abuse is occurring in the home, the interest of the child (as shared by the state as parens patriae ) in being removed from that home setting to a safe and neutral environment outweighs the parents' private interest in familial integrity as a matter of law). 32 The Ninth and Eleventh Circuits have formulated the standard somewhat differently, requiring reasonable or probable cause of imminent danger. See Wallis v. Spencer, 202 F.3d 1126, 1138 (9th Cir.2000) (stating that [o]fficials may remove a child from the custody of its parent without prior judicial authorization only if the information they possess at the time of the seizure is such as provides reasonable cause to believe that the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury and that the scope of the intrusion is reasonably necessary to avert that specific injury ) (emphasis added); Doe v. Kearney, 329 F.3d 1286, 1295 (11th Cir.2003) (indicating that a state may not remove a child from parental custody without judicial authorization unless there is probable cause to believe the child is threatened with imminent harm ) (emphasis added). 33 Notably, the Eleventh Circuit has indicated that this circuit has adopted the probable cause standard. See Kearney, 329 F.3d at 1295 (citing Roska I, 304 F.3d at 993). We do not read our Roska opinions in that way. In those opinions, we stated that the mere possibility of danger does not justify a warrantless removal. Roska II, 328 F.3d at 1245; Roska I, 304 F.3d at 993 (internal quotation marks omitted). However, we added that emergency circumstances which pose an immediate threat to the safety of a child may do so. Roska II, 328 F.3d at 1245 (quoting Hollingsworth, 110 F.3d at 739); Roska I, 304 F.3d at 993 (quoting Hollingsworth, 110 F.3d at 739). We did not specify whether the state must have a reasonable suspicion of such circumstances or must establish probable cause that they exist. 34 In determining whether emergency circumstances exist, there is also some disagreement as to the significance of another matter — whether state officials lacked sufficient time to obtain judicial authorization for the removal without jeopardizing the safety of the child. The Second Circuit has reasoned that: 35 While there is a sufficient emergency to warrant officials' taking a child into custody without a prior hearing if he or she is immediately threatened with harm, the converse is also true. If the danger to the child is not so imminent that there is reasonably sufficient time to seek prior judicial authorization, ex parte or otherwise, for the child's removal, then the circumstances are not emergent; there is no reason to excuse the absence of the judiciary's participation in depriving the parents of the care, custody and management of their child. If, irrespective of whether there is time to obtain a court order, all interventions are effected on an emergency basis without judicial process, pre-seizure procedural due process for the parents and their child evaporates. 36 Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 594 (emphasis supplied) (internal citations and quotations omitted). 37 The Eleventh Circuit has criticized the Second Circuit's sole focus [on] whether there is time to obtain a court order. Kearney, 329 F.3d at 1297. In the Eleventh Circuit's view, due process is a flexible concept — particularly where the well-being of children is concerned — and deciding what process is due in any given case requires a careful balancing of the interests at stake, including the interests of parents, children, and the state. Id. This kind of subtle balancing, the court reasoned, cannot be properly accomplished when courts blunt the inquiry by simply asking whether there was time to get a warrant. Id. at 1297-98. 38 In our view, the reasonable suspicion standard appropriately balances the interests of the parents, the child, and the state. The failure to act when a child is in danger may have unthinkable consequence[s]. Jordan v. Jackson, 15 F.3d 333, 350 (4th Cir.1994). As a result, social workers should be afforded some discretion when they seek to protect a child whose safety may be at risk. See Hatch, 274 F.3d at 22; Thomason, 85 F.3d at 1373. Following the majority approach, we conclude that state officials may remove a child from the home without prior notice and a hearing when they have a reasonable suspicion of an immediate threat to the safety of the child if he or she is allowed to remain there. We emphasize again that even in these instances in which emergency removal is justified, the state must afford the parents a prompt post-removal hearing. See County of Crow Wing, 434 F.3d at 1056 n. 6; Brokaw, 235 F.3d at 1020; Campbell, 141 F.3d at 929; Weller, 901 F.2d at 396. 39 As to whether state officials have time to seek judicial authorization for the removal, we agree with the Eleventh Circuit that this consideration should not be the single focus of the inquiry. Kearney, 329 F.3d at 1295. In many instances, it may not be entirely clear either how long it would take to obtain judicial approval or whether this period of delay would jeopardize the safety of the child. Nevertheless, we also agree with the Second Circuit's observation that, if we do not give any consideration to whether state officials might obtain judicial authorization of the removal without additional risk to the child, then the definition of an emergency may be broadened to such an extent that due process rights are eroded. Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 584. 40 Accordingly, we conclude that in determining whether state officials have a reasonable suspicion of an immediate threat to the safety of the child, we must consider  all relevant circumstances, including the state's reasonableness in responding to a perceived danger, as well as the objective nature, likelihood, and immediacy of danger to the child. Kearney, 329 F.3d at 1295 (emphasis added). Ordinarily, the question of whether state officials had time to seek and obtain judicial authorization for the removal without jeopardizing the safety of the child will be an important consideration, and the failure to establish that judicial authorization was impracticable will undermine the contention that emergency circumstances existed. However, neither this factor, nor any other single factor, is necessarily dispositive. 41 We now turn to the particular arguments raised by the parties in this appeal. 42