Opinion ID: 76424
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fundamental Right to Family Integrity

Text: 15 Neither party disputes that there is no fundamental right to adopt, nor any fundamental right to be adopted. R4-124 at 10 (Joint Pre-trial Stipulation); see also Mullins v. Oregon, 57 F.3d 789, 794 (9th Cir.1995) ([W]hatever claim a prospective adoptive parent may have to a child, we are certain that it does not rise to the level of a fundamental liberty interest.); Lindley, 889 F.2d at 131 ([W]e are constrained to conclude that there is no fundamental right to adopt.). Both parties likewise agree that adoption is a privilege created by statute and not by common law. R4-124 at 10. Because there is no fundamental right to adopt or to be adopted, it follows that there can be no fundamental right to apply for adoption. 16 Nevertheless, appellants argue that, by prohibiting homosexual adoption, the state is refusing to recognize and protect constitutionally protected parent-child relationships between Lofton and Doe and between Houghton and Roe. 8 Noting that the Supreme Court has identified the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children as perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court, Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65, 120 S.Ct. at 2060, appellants argue that they are entitled to a similar constitutional liberty interest because they share deeply loving emotional bonds that are as close as those between a natural parent and child. 9 They further contend that this liberty interest is significantly burdened by the Florida statute, which prevents them from obtaining permanency in their relationships and creates uncertainty about the future integrity of their families. Only by being given the opportunity to adopt, appellants assert, will they be able to protect their alleged right to family integrity. 10 17 Although the text of the Constitution contains no reference to familial or parental rights, Supreme Court precedent has long recognized that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children. Id. at 66, 120 S.Ct. at 2060. A corollary to this right is the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter that has been afforded both substantive and procedural protection. Smith v. Org. of Foster Families for Equal. & Reform, 431 U.S. 816, 842, 97 S.Ct. 2094, 2108, 53 L.Ed.2d 14 (1977) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Historically, the Court's family and parental-rights holdings have involved biological families. See, e.g., Troxel, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972); Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972); Pierce v. Soc'y of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923). The Court itself has noted that the usual understanding of `family' implies biological relationships, and most decisions treating the relation between parent and child have stressed this element. Smith, 431 U.S. at 843, 97 S.Ct. at 2109. Appellants, however, seize on a few lines of dicta from Smith, in which the Court acknowledged that biological relationships are not [the] exclusive determination of the existence of a family, id., and noted that [a]doption, for instance, is recognized as the legal equivalent of biological parenthood, id. at 844 n. 51, 97 S.Ct. at 2109 & n. 51. Extrapolating from Smith, appellants argue that parental and familial rights should be extended to individuals such as foster parents and legal guardians and that the touchstone of this liberty interest is not biological ties or official legal recognition, but the emotional bond that develops between and among individuals as a result of shared daily life. 18 We do not read Smith so broadly. In Smith, the Court considered whether the appellee foster families possessed a constitutional liberty interest in the integrity of their family unit such that the state could not disrupt the families without procedural due process. Id. at 842, 97 S.Ct. at 2108. Although the Court found it unnecessary to resolve that question, Justice Brennan, writing for the majority, did note that the importance of familial relationships stems not merely from blood relationships, but also from the emotional attachments that derive from the intimacy of daily association. Id. at 844, 97 S.Ct. at 2109. The Smith Court went on, however, to discuss the important distinctions between the foster family and the natural family, particularly the fact that foster families have their genesis in state law. Id. at 845, 97 S.Ct. at 2110. The Court stressed that the parameters of whatever potential liberty interest such families might possess would be defined by state law and the justifiable expectations it created. Id. at 845-46, 97 S.Ct. at 2110. The Court found that the expectations created by New York law — which accorded only limited recognition to foster families — supported only the most limited constitutional `liberty' in the foster family. Id. at 846, 97 S.Ct. at 2110. Basing its holding on other grounds, the Court concluded that the procedures provided under New York law were adequate to protect whatever liberty interest appellees may have. Id. at 856, 97 S.Ct. at 2115. 19 In Drummond v. Fulton County Dep't of Family & Children's Servs., the former Fifth Circuit construed Smith's dicta in considering due process and equal protection claims brought by white foster parents challenging Georgia's refusal to permit them to adopt their mixed-race foster child, whom they had parented for two years. 563 F.2d 1200, 1206 (5th Cir.1977) (en banc), cert. denied, 437 U.S. 910, 98 S.Ct. 3103, 57 L.Ed.2d 1141 (1978). 11 Arguing that theirs was a psychological family, the foster parents advanced a theory identical to that of present appellants: 20 Plaintiffs maintain that during the period Timmy lived with them mutual feelings of love and dependence developed which are analogous to those found in most biological families. By so characterizing their home situation they seek to come within the protection which courts have afforded to the family unit. They assert that their relationship to Timmy is part of the familial right to privacy which is a protected interest under the Fourteenth Amendment. As the psychological parents of Timmy, they claim entitlement to the parental rights referred to in numerous decisions. 21 Id. at 1206 (internal citation omitted). Relying on Smith, the Drummond court rejected plaintiffs' argument. Examining state law to determine the extent of plaintiffs' constitutional interests, the court found that [t]here is no basis in the Georgia law, which creates the foster relationship, for a justifiable expectation that the relationship will be left undisturbed. Id. at 1207. The Drummond court stated: 22 The very fact that the relationship before us is a creature of state law, as well as the fact that it has never been recognized as equivalent to either the natural family or the adoptive family by any court, demonstrates that it is not a protected liberty interest, but an interest limited by the very laws which create it. 23 Id. ; accord Mullins, 57 F.3d at 794 (holding that biological grandparents possessed no liberty interest in adopting two of their grandchildren who were available for adoption); Procopio v. Johnson, 994 F.2d 325, 329 (7th Cir.1993) (relying on Smith and holding that [n]otwithstanding the preference that state law grants to foster families seeking to adopt their foster children, this priority does not rise to the level of an entitlement or expectancy). 24 Neither Smith nor Drummond, however, categorically foreclosed the possibility that, under exceptional circumstances, a foster family could possess some degree of constitutional protection if state law created a justifiable expectation of family unit permanency. Drummond, 563 F.2d at 1207. Here, we find that under Florida law neither a foster parent nor a legal guardian could have a justifiable expectation of a permanent relationship with his or her child free from state oversight or intervention. Under Florida law, foster care is designed to be a short-term arrangement while the state attempts to find a permanent adoptive home. 12 For instance, Florida law permits foster care as a permanency option only for children at least fourteen years of age, Fla. Stat. § 39.623(1), and DCF may remove a foster child anytime that it believes it to be in the child's best interests, id. § 409.165(3)(f). Similarly, legal guardians in Florida are subject to ongoing judicial oversight, including the duty to file annual guardianship reports and annual review by the appointing court, id. §§ 744.361-372, and can be removed for a wide variety of reasons, id. § 744.474 (permitting removal of a guardian for such causes as incapacity, illness, substance abuse, conviction of a felony, failure to file annual guardianship reports, and failure to fulfill guardianship education requirements). In both cases, the state is not interfering with natural family units that exist independent of its power, but is regulating ones created by it. Lofton and Houghton entered into relationships to be a foster parent and legal guardian, respectively, with an implicit understanding that these relationships would not be immune from state oversight and would be permitted to continue only upon state approval. The emotional connections between Lofton and his foster child and between Houghton and his ward originate in arrangements that have been subject to state oversight from the outset. We conclude that Lofton, Doe, Houghton, and Roe could have no justifiable expectation of permanency in their relationships. Nor could Lofton and Houghton have developed expectations that they would be allowed to adopt, in light of the adoption provision itself. 25 Even if Florida law did create an expectation of permanency, appellants misconstrue the nature of the liberty interest that it would confer upon them. The resulting liberty interest at most would provide procedural due process protection in the event the state were to attempt to remove Doe or Roe. See Smith, 431 U.S. at 845, 97 S.Ct. at 2110 (considering whether foster families' asserted liberty interest in remaining intact warranted greater procedural safeguards than were currently provided under New York law); Drummond, 563 F.2d at 1204 (considering, if foster family possesses constitutional rights, how much procedural protection is required in order to safeguard them?). Such a procedural right does not translate, however, into a substantive right to be free from state inference. Nor does it create an affirmative right to be accorded official recognition as parent and child. Cf. Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980) (holding that the government's refusal to subsidize the exercise of a constitutional right does not constitute a violation of that right); Webster v. Reprod. Health Servs., 492 U.S. 490, 109 S.Ct. 3040, 106 L.Ed.2d 410 (1989) (same); Mullins, 57 F.3d at 794 (A negative right to be free of governmental interference in an already existing familial relationship does not translate into an affirmative right to create an entirely new family unit out of whole cloth.). In sum, Florida's statute by itself poses no threat to whatever hypothetical constitutional protection foster families and guardian-ward relationships may possess. 26 We conclude that appellants' right-to-family-integrity argument fails to state a claim. There is no precedent for appellants' novel proposition that long-term foster care arrangements and guardianships are entitled to constitutional protection akin to that accorded to natural and adoptive families. Moreover, we decline appellants' invitation to recognize a new fundamental right to family integrity for groups of individuals who have formed deeply loving and interdependent relationships. Under appellants' theory, any collection of individuals living together and enjoying strong emotional bonds could claim a right to legal recognition of their family unit, and every removal of a child from a long-term foster care placement — or simply the state's failure to give long-term foster parents the opportunity to adopt — would give rise to a constitutional claim. Such an expansion of the venerable right of parental control would well exceed our judicial mandate as a lower federal court. See Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 1068, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992) (noting that the doctrine of judicial restraint requires even the Supreme Court to exercise the utmost care whenever asked to break new ground in the field of fundamental rights). 27