Opinion ID: 1797530
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Precedent of T.W.

Text: On another relevant point, I must express some surprise at the rather widespread practice in Florida of referring to a majority opinion in T.W. In actuality there was no majority opinion at all. The views of the Justices in T.W. were divided into five separate opinions, none of which garnered the four votes necessary to constitute a precedential opinion under the Florida Constitution. Art. V, § 3(a), Fla. Const.; Santos v. State, 629 So.2d 838 (Fla. 1994). Rather, the decision [9] of T.W. may be fairly described as three general holdings on which a majority agreed, albeit in piecemeal form in five separate opinions: (a) All seven justices agreed that adult women have a right to terminate a pregnancy during the earlier stages, as described in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973); (b) at least six justices agreed that Florida's parental consent statute [10] read in its literal sense was unconstitutional, though two of the six felt that the deficiencies properly could be corrected through a judicial narrowing construction; and (c) at least four Justices  and possibly all seven  agreed that minors do not share the same degree of privacy rights adults possess. T.W., 551 So.2d at 1186-1205 (separate opinions). Beyond these three points, there was no majority view. The last of the three holdings of T.W. has gone unnoticed by a considerable number of persons, apparently because it was contained chiefly in the four separate opinions appended to the plurality. For example, in his specially concurring opinion [11] Justice Ehrlich wrote: I recognize that in cases involving minors, the state has an additional interest in protecting the immature minor and the integrity of the family. Id., at 1198 (Ehrlich, C.J., concurring specially). In this vein, Justice Ehrlich felt that it would be possible for the state to impose at least some restrictions on abortions for minors that would be impermissible for adults. Id. at 1199-1201. Similar views were reiterated by Justice Overton, with Justice Grimes concurring: [A] minor has the disability of nonage, including the inability to contract... . Our right of privacy provision ... did not absolutely remove a minor's disability of nonage ... and those parts of the majority opinion in which I have concurred did not, in my view, so hold.