Opinion ID: 110113
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: rights of children committed by their parents

Text: Notwithstanding all this, Georgia denies hearings to juveniles institutionalized at the behest of their parents. Georgia rationalizes this practice on the theory that parents act in their children's best interests and therefore may waive their children's due process rights. Children incarcerated because their parents wish them confined, Georgia contends, are really voluntary patients. I cannot accept this argument. In our society, parental rights are limited by the legitimate rights and interests of their children. Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves. Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 170 (1944). This principle is reflected in the variety of statutes and cases that authorize state intervention on behalf of neglected or abused children [16] and that, inter alia, curtail parental authority to alienate their children's property, [17] to withhold necessary medical treatment, [18] and to deny children exposure to ideas and experiences they may later need as independent and autonomous adults. [19] This principle is also reflected in constitutional jurisprudence. Notions of parental authority and family autonomy cannot stand as absolute and invariable barriers to the assertion of constitutional rights by children. States, for example, may not condition a minor's right to secure an abortion on attaining her parents' consent since the right to an abortion is an important personal right and since disputes between parents and children on this question would fracture family autonomy. See Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S., at 75. This case is governed by the rule of Danforth. The right to be free from wrongful incarceration, physical intrusion, and stigmatization has significance for the individual surely as great as the right to an abortion. Moreover, as in Danforth, the parent-child dispute at issue here cannot be characterized as involving only a routine child-rearing decision made within the context of an ongoing family relationship. Indeed, Danforth involved only a potential dispute between parent and child, whereas here a break in family autonomy has actually resulted in the parents' decision to surrender custody of their child to a state mental institution. In my view, a child who has been ousted from his family has even greater need for an independent advocate. Additional considerations counsel against allowing parents unfettered power to institutionalize their children without cause or without any hearing to ascertain that cause. The presumption that parents act in their children's best interests, while applicable to most child-rearing decisions, is not applicable in the commitment context. Numerous studies reveal that parental decisions to institutionalize their children often are the results of dislocation in the family unrelated to the children's mental condition. [20] Moreover, even well-meaning parents lack the expertise necessary to evaluate the relative advantages and disadvantages of inpatient as opposed to outpatient psychiatric treatment. Parental decisions to waive hearings in which such questions could be explored, therefore, cannot be conclusively deemed either informed or intelligent. In these circumstances, I respectfully suggest, it ignores reality to assume blindly that parents act in their children's best interests when making commitment decisions and when waiving their children's due process rights.
This does not mean States are obliged to treat children who are committed at the behest of their parents in precisely the same manner as other persons who are involuntarily committed. The demands of due process are flexible and the parental commitment decision carries with it practical implications that States may legitimately take into account. While as a general rule due process requires that commitment hearings precede involuntary hospitalization, when parents seek to hospitalize their children special considerations militate in favor of postponement of formal commitment proceedings and against mandatory adversary preconfinement commitment hearings. First, the prospect of an adversary hearing prior to admission might deter parents from seeking needed medical attention for their children. Second, the hearings themselves might delay treatment of children whose home life has become impossible and who require some form of immediate state care. Furthermore, because adversary hearings at this juncture would necessarily involve direct challenges to parental authority, judgment, or veracity, preadmission hearings may well result in pitting the child and his advocate against the parents. This, in turn, might traumatize both parent and child and make the child's eventual return to his family more difficult. Because of these special considerations, I believe that States may legitimately postpone formal commitment proceedings when parents seek inpatient psychiatric treatment for their children. Such children may be admitted, for a limited period, without prior hearing, so long as the admitting psychiatrist first interviews parent and child and concludes that short-term inpatient treatment would be appropriate. Georgia's present admission procedures are reasonably consistent with these principles. See ante, at 613-616. To the extent the District Court invalidated this aspect of the Georgia juvenile commitment scheme and mandated preconfinement hearings in all cases, I agree with the Court that the District Court was in error.
I do not believe, however, that the present Georgia juvenile commitment scheme is constitutional in its entirety. Although Georgia may postpone formal commitment hearings, when parents seek to commit their children, the State cannot dispense with such hearings altogether. Our cases make clear that, when protected interests are at stake, the fundamental requirement of due process is the opportunity to be heard `at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.' Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 333 (1976), quoting in part from Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U. S. 545, 552 (1965). Whenever prior hearings are impracticable, States must provide reasonably prompt postdeprivation hearings. Compare North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 (1975), with Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600 (1974). The informal postadmission procedures that Georgia now follows are simply not enough to qualify as hearingsโlet alone reasonably prompt hearings. The procedures lack all the traditional due process safeguards. Commitment decisions are made ex parte. Georgia's institutionalized juveniles are not informed of the reasons for their commitment; nor do they enjoy the right to be present at the commitment determination, the right to representation, the right to be heard, the right to be confronted with adverse witnesses, the right to cross-examine, or the right to offer evidence of their own. By any standard of due process, these procedures are deficient. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974); Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972); McNeil v. Director, Patuxent Institution, 407 U. S. 245 (1972); Specht v. Patterson, 386 U. S., at 610. See also Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, 269-271 (1970). I cannot understand why the Court pretermits condemnation of these ex parte procedures which operate to deny Georgia's institutionalized juveniles even some form of hearing, Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, at 333, before they are condemned to suffer the rigors of long-term institutional confinement. [21] The special considerations that militate against preadmission commitment hearings when parents seek to hospitalize their children do not militate against reasonably prompt postadmission commitment hearings. In the first place, postadmission hearings would not delay the commencement of needed treatment. Children could be cared for by the State pending the disposition decision. Second, the interest in avoiding family discord would be less significant at this stage since the family autonomy already will have been fractured by the institutionalization of the child. In any event, postadmission hearings are unlikely to disrupt family relationships. At later hearings, the case for and against commitment would be based upon the observations of the hospital staff and the judgments of the staff psychiatrists, rather than upon parental observations and recommendations. The doctors urging commitment, and not the parents, would stand as the child's adversaries. As a consequence, postadmission commitment hearings are unlikely to involve direct challenges to parental authority, judgment, or veracity. To defend the child, the child's advocate need not dispute the parents' original decision to seek medical treatment for their child, or even, for that matter, their observations concerning the child's behavior. The advocate need only argue, for example, that the child had sufficiently improved during his hospital stay to warrant outpatient treatment or outright discharge. Conflict between doctor and advocate on this question is unlikely to lead to family discord. As a consequence, the prospect of a postadmission hearing is unlikely to deter parents from seeking medical attention for their children and the hearing itself is unlikely so to traumatize parent and child as to make the child's eventual return to the family impracticable. Nor would postadmission hearings defeat the primary purpose of the state juvenile mental health enterprise. Under the present juvenile commitment scheme, Georgia parents do not enjoy absolute discretion to commit their children to public mental hospitals. See ante, at 614-615. Superintendents of state facilities may not accept children for long-term treatment unless they first determine that the children are mentally ill and will likely benefit from long-term hospital care. See ibid. If the superintendent determines either condition is unmet, the child must be released or refused admission, regardless of the parents' desires. See ibid. No legitimate state interest would suffer if the superintendent's determinations were reached through fair proceedings with due consideration of fairly presented opposing viewpoints rather than through the present practice of secret, ex parte deliberations. [22] Nor can the good faith and good intentions of Georgia's psychiatrists and social workers, adverted to by the Court, see ante, at 615-616, excuse Georgia's ex parte procedures. Georgia's admitting psychiatrists, like the school disciplinarians described in Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975), although proceeding in utmost good faith, frequently act on the reports and advice of others; and the controlling facts and the nature of the conduct under challenge are often disputed. Id., at 580. See App. 188-190, testimony of Dr. Messinger. Here, as in Goss, the risk of error is not at all trivial, and it should be guarded against if that may be done without prohibitive cost or interference with the . . . process. . . . `[F]airness can rarely be obtained by secret, one-sided determination of facts decisive of rights. . . .' `Secrecy is not congenial to truth-seeking and self-righteousness gives too slender an assurance of rightness. No better instrument has been devised for arriving at truth than to give a person in jeopardy of serious loss notice of the case against him and opportunity to meet it.' Goss v. Lopez, supra, at 580, quoting in part from Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 170, 171-172 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).