Opinion ID: 776131
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Title II Appropriately Enforces The Due Process Clause

Text: 7 The Supreme Court indicated, however, that Title II of the Disabilities Act is different from Title I. Although the Court had granted certiorari to consider the appropriateness of Title II as an exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity, the majority in Garrett reserved judgment on the validity of Title II under Section 5. It concluded that Title II, dealing with services, programs, or activities of a public entity, rather than employment, has somewhat different remedial provisions from Title I and is not controlled by the Court's decision restricting equal protection claims against states. Id. at 960 n.1. Title II, unlike Title I, encompasses various due process-type claims with varying standards of liability and is not limited to equal protection claims. In addition to briefly noting differences between the two titles, the Court in Garrett also noted that Section 5 allows Congress to prohibit a broader swath of conduct than the courts have themselves identified as unconstitutional. Id. at 963. 8 In Garrett, the Supreme Court advised the lower federal courts that the first step in reconciling the Eleventh Amendment with legislation adopted under Section 5 is to identify with some precision the scope of the constitutional right at issue that Congress is enforcing, and to define the metes and bounds of that particular right. Id. at 963-64. Obviously, standards of constitutional liability differ depending on the nature of the constitutional right in question. In the case before us, the essential constitutional right sounds most clearly not in equal protection but in due process. The general claim is that the state court in a child custody proceeding denied the partially deaf plaintiff a reasonable way to participate meaningfully in the proceeding so that he could assert his child custody rights. He was, he claims, excluded from participation in the proceeding -- to use the precise words of Title II. In defining the metes and bounds of the constitutional right before us, we must consider whether plaintiff's due process-type claim to participate fully in the hearing in his child custody suit is an exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity. 9 The Supreme Court has recognized the special nature of parental rights and has consequently imposed special due process guarantees so that states may not lightly terminate parents' relationships with their children. The procedural guarantees that the Court has previously had an occasion to discuss include the requirements that states provide indigent parents with court-appointed counsel during certain parental rights hearings, Lassiter v. Department of Social Servs., 452 U.S. 18, 30 (1981) (noting that courts have generally held that the State must appoint counsel for indigent parents at termination proceedings); utilize a clear and convincing evidentiary standard when considering the termination of parental rights, Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 769-70 (1982); and provide indigent parents, free of charge, with the trial records necessary for proper consideration of appeals challenging termination of their parental authority, M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102, 128 (1996). Cf. Little v. Streater, 452 U.S. 1 (1981) (striking down Connecticut's requirement that indigent defendants bear the cost of paternity tests if taken at the indigent's request). In fact, although the Court has issued a number of divided opinions in deciding these questions, it has unanimously agreed that the interest of parents in their relationship with their children is sufficiently fundamental to come within the finite class of liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Santosky, 455 U.S. at 774 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). 10 In Lassiter, the Court said that state termination or alteration of parental rights requires procedural safeguards under the Due Process Clause in order to insure the accuracy and [justice] of the decision, 452 U.S. at 27, and in order to avoid the risk that a parent will be erroneously deprived of his or her child. Id. at 28. Thus the appointment of counsel for indigent parents may be required in complex judicial proceedings that may include the need for [e]xpert medical and psychiatric testimony, which few parents are equipped to understand. Id. at 30. Lassiter makes it clear that in analyzing the safeguards needed in child custody proceedings, the Due Process Clause requires a balancing of the private interests at stake, the government's interest, and the risk that the procedures used will lead to erroneous decisions. Id. at 27. This broad balancing standard under due process -- unlike the flat rule giving only rational basis analysis under equal protection in disability matters -- is open to interpretation by Congress as well as the courts, for otherwise the Court's admonition in Garrett that Congress may seek to deter a broader swath of conduct than the courts have themselves identified as unconstitutional would have no real meaning or effect. Otherwise the congruence required between a piece of Section 5 legislation and the specific constitutional provision enforced by the legislation would mean that Congress may only provide remedies to enforce a specific court decision. This would effectively usurp congressional authority to pass appropriate legislation and would give less deference to Congress than courts ordinarily give to administrative agencies in interpreting statutes. 11 The institutional role of Congress under Section 5 in interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment should be no less expansive than the role of the courts in interpreting statutes at common law. Congress should have at least the same power as Lord Coke described for judges in interpreting statutes in 1628: 12 a construction made by the judges, that cases out of the letter of a statute, yet being within the same mischiefe, or cause of the making of the same, shall be within the same remedie that the statute provideth; and the reason hereof is, that for the lawmakers could not possibly set downe all cases in expresse terms. 5 13 Judges must adjudicate one case at a time and usually do not go beyond the case at hand to anticipate or rule on other fact patterns that may fall within the same mischiefe. Law making for future cases with different fact patterns is usually the role of the legislator, not the role of courts in a single decision on a single set of facts after a courtroom battle by adversaries. Therefore, the courts should not tie the hands of Congress under Section 5 merely to the implementation of previous court decisions. Congress should have under Section 5 at least the power that common law judges possess to enforce the equity of the statute, as described by Lord Coke. 6 14 Here the plaintiff's due process interest is significant in that the judicial proceeding will determine the amount of time, if any, he can spend with his daughter. Failure to accommodate his hearing disability may render him unable to participate meaningfully in that determination. If he cannot understand what is happening during the custody hearing, it will be impossible for him to refute claims made against him, or to offer evidence on his own behalf. Consequently, a state's failure to accommodate plaintiff's deafness may greatly increase the risk of error in the proceeding, precluding one side from responding to charges made by the opposing party, an essential element of our adversary system. From Ohio's perspective, the paramount governmental interest is to insure that the State's most vulnerable citizens are placed with the parent best suited for providing for their welfare. This interest is achieved through a proceeding that permits both parents to understand and to respond to the arguments made by their adversaries, thereby giving the judge a complete picture of each parent's abilities to care for the child in question. At the same time, Ohio has an obvious need to administer its decisions in a cost-conscious and time-effective manner, and at some point the requested accommodations may become so expensive or onerous as to outweigh their usefulness in reaching a decision. 15 In legislating on the subject of disability, Congress may require states in child custody proceedings to consider (1) the vital and fundamental nature of the rights at stake in parental custody hearings, Santosky, 455 U.S. at 753, (2) the fact that costs of supplying the requested accommodation are fairly low, and (3) that parties may be virtually excluded from participation in the state proceeding unless adjustments are made to accommodate the party's disability. The subject matter involved in the instant case -- a father seeking to force the state to provide him with hearing assistance for use in a state judicial proceeding determining his custody rights with respect to his daughter -- raises obvious due process concerns which Congress has the authority to address under Section 5. Based on the Supreme Court cases concerning the process required in child custody suits, it is clear that Ohio is required to provide Popovich with some level of hearing assistance, depending on the degree of his disability, for his daughter's custody hearing and may not retaliate against him for making such a request. As applied to the case before us, the participation requirement of Title II serves to protect Popovich's due process right to a meaningful hearing. In child custody cases involving hearing-impaired parents, Congress is well within its express authority under Section 5 to require states to accommodate parental disability and to refrain from retaliation, for Congress is enforcing the due process right rather than expanding it. There is no separation of powers problem here, as in Garrett, where Congress, according to the view of the majority, failed to observe a clear rule of equal protection law. Congress has not changed the nature of the due process right or watered down the constitutional standard. The congressional exclude from participation standard, as applied here, certainly does not prohibit a broader swath of [state judicial] conduct than the Supreme Court suggests is within the congressional power under Section 5. 16