Opinion ID: 1879539
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Eldridge Factors and the Santosky Case

Text: In Eldridge, the Court listed three distinct factors in the determination of the nature of the process due in a particular proceeding: (1) the private interest affected by the proceeding; (2) the risk of erroneous deprivation of that private interest by the state's chosen procedure, and the value of any additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and (3) the countervailing governmental interest supporting use of the challenged procedure. Id. at 335, 96 S.Ct. at 903. In Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982), the Court held that constitutional due process requires application, at the least, of a clear and convincing evidence standard in an action to terminate parental rights based upon a finding in the factfinding hearing that the child is permanently neglected. Applying the Eldridge factors, the Court first noted that both the nature of the private interest threatened and the permanency of the threatened loss determine whether the loss threatened by the proceeding is sufficient to warrant requiring greater than average certainty in factfinding. An elevated standard of proof had previously been required in juvenile delinquency, civil commitment, deportation and denaturalization proceedings. The Court observed that the factfinding stage focuses primarily on the parent whose rights will be cut off forever by an unfavorable finding in an adversary hearing between the state and the parent. The Court further noted that although the child and the foster parents are deeply interested in the outcome, the child and the parent are not adversaries in the factfinding stage, but share an interest in preventing the erroneous termination of their natural relationship. The next question was whether the lower standard fairly allocated the risk of an erroneous factfinding between the state and the parent. The Court adverted to the disparity between the parties' litigation resources and to the subjective nature of the evidence arising from encounters among the agency, the parent and the child, factors which the Court characterized as tending to result in underweighing probative facts favoring the parent. The Court then stated that while use of a preponderance standard reflects a nearly neutral social judgment between erroneous termination of parental rights and erroneous failure to terminate, the likely consequence of erroneous failure to terminate is an uneasy status quo, while the actual consequence of an erroneous termination is the unnecessary destruction of the natural family. The court finally determined that while there is still reason to believe that a positive, nurturing parent-child relationship exists, the government's parens patriae interest favors preserving, rather than severing, natural familial bonds. The goal of the factfinding stageto determine accurately whether the parent can and will provide a normal family relationship with the childis better served by use of the elevated standard. Accordingly, the Court held that a near-equal allocation of risk [of erroneous factfinding] between the parents and the State is constitutionally intolerable. 455 U.S. at 768, 102 S.Ct. at 1402.