Court Opinion

ID: 9467739
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:55:19.924614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:30.048562
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur fully in Judge Sprecher’s excellent opinion in this murky and potentially tragic impasse but wish to elucidate what seems the heart of the matter to me.
Harald seeks recognition for either (1) a constitutional right, as a citizen, to remain in the United States, or (2) a right to a due process hearing with respect to the order sending him to Sweden and depriving him of a constitutionally protected liberty interest. Parenthetically, I think it plausible that Harald does in fact presently want to stay in the United States. Children generally prefer things as they are, and, at ten or eleven, “home” is where they have been for the last year or two.
However,
[t]he involvement of a constitutional right for minors by no means lifts a case above the practical and policy problems of minority status into some abstract sphere in which an abandonment of that special body of law that has always applied to children is justified. When both parents and children are involved, ... the law must concern itself even more with that special context, since a court must then confront the unique legal and social role of parents.
Hafen, Children’s Liberation and the New Egalitarianism: Some Reservations About Abandoning Youth to Their “Rights”, 1976 B.Y.U.L.Rev. 605, 641. Although there is sufficient state action here to invoke the protections of the Constitution, see Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161 (1948), the real conflict from a federal viewpoint in the instant case is between Harald’s desire to remain in this country and the essentially private action of his mother in choosing to live in Sweden.1 Any evaluation of the scope of Harald’s protection under the Constitution must focus on our concern with Harald’s rights to be protected against a parental decision that he thinks is contrary to his interests.2 While such rights to override parental pow*666ers of decision having the support of state laws have been recognized in other contexts, e. g., Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 96 S.Ct. 2831, 49 L.Ed.2d 788 (1976); Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622, 99 S.Ct. 3035, 61 L.Ed.2d 797 (1979), those individual circumstances were closely linked with the arguably crucial or irrevocable nature of the interest asserted by the child and the correspondingly diminished interest of the parents. But in the more common case, “[ljegal restrictions on minors, especially those supportive of the parental role, may be important to the child’s chances for the full growth and maturity that make eventual participation in a free society meaningful and rewarding.” Bellotti, 443 U.S. at 638-39, 99 S.Ct. at 3045-46 (emphasis supplied).
Minors, as well as adults, are protected by the Constitution, however, even when that protection operates to subvert the normally dominant parental role. For example, in Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 72-75, 96 S.Ct. 2831, 2842-43, 49 L.Ed.2d 788 (1976), the Court evaluated the right of a pregnant minor to an abortion under a state statute requiring the consent of a parent to such an abortion. The Court struck down the statute because the interest of the minor child in making a decision of such consequence, assuming sufficient maturity, was deemed paramount over any asserted right of parental control. The Court reached this conclusion despite the complex medical and ethical considerations involved in the decision to undergo an abortion. But, as was emphasized in a subsequent decision, see Bellotti, 443 U.S. at 642, 99 S.Ct. at 3047-48, the grave and irrevocable consequences that could flow from unwanted motherhood presumably make the abortion circumstance somewhat unique. Similarly grave consequences would not seem to flow, however, from a denial of the child’s apparent wishes in the instant case. To the contrary, the most severe and deleterious consequences could flow from granting Harald the rights that he seeks here.
The companion cases of Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584, 99 S.Ct. 2493, 61 L.Ed.2d 101 (1979), and Secretary of Public Welfare v. Institutionalized Juveniles, 442 U.S. 640, 99 S.Ct. 2523, 61 L.Ed.2d 142 (1979), provide additional insights into the delicate balancing of constitutional interests when the wishes of parents and children collide. Both cases involve the question of what process is due when parents seek state institutional mental health care for one of their children. The Court ruled that a formal adversarial pre-admission hearing was not necessary and that the state could rely on the parents’ decision to commit a child to a mental institution as long as a “neutral factfinder,” i. e., the admitting physician, still determines whether the statutory requirements for admission are satisfied. Parham, 442 U.S. at 606, 99 S.Ct. at 2506. The Court acknowledged that some parents might attempt to “dump” an unwanted child in a mental home but refused to require a pre-admission hearing into the motivation of the parents because of the disruptive effect of such a hearing on the parent-child relationship. Parham, 442 U.S. at 610, 99 S.Ct. at 2508.
While each set of circumstances may obviously be very different from the others, it is clear that any constitutional rights that a young child may possess to override unpalatable parental decisions are (and in my view should be) very limited.3 Institutionalization in a mental home involves a very serious deprivation of a child’s liberty interest — yet, the Court was willing to “permit the parents to retain a substantial, if not the dominant, role in the decision .... ” Parham, 442 U.S. at 604, 99 S.Ct. at 2505. To give Harald a veto power over his moth*667er’s decision to live in Sweden would be to reverse the normal roles of parent and child in the family setting.
Though a child who is not yet fully mature in all respects may be able to make mature decisions concerning certain activities, the parent-child relationship cannot be separated by subject matter into component parts. Litigation over the child’s capacity to make [one] decision may endanger that relationship. If disagreement between parent and child over a contested right has not already ‘fractured the family structure,’ the state has a legitimate interest in preserving the parental role in guiding the child in other decisions that he is not yet mature enough to make alone. The psychological costs of litigation may even justify recourse to arbitrary line drawing by age, sacrificing the interests of the unusually precocious child at an age at which the availability to his contemporaries of individualized inquiry would only serve as a forum for immature aggression.
Developments in the Law — The Family, 93 Harv.L.Rev. 1156, 1380 (1980) (footnotes omitted). A child of less than eleven is simply not capable of going it alone. If Harald is able to remain in the United States contrary to the wishes and decision of his custodial parent, who will assume responsibility for his care? I am reluctant to make a child de facto a ward of the state because of a disagreement over where the family will live.4 The power that Harald seeks to exercise over his own life is simply inappropriate to a child of his limited age and maturity. For this reason I would decline to recognize any independent constitutional right that Harald, not yet eleven, might exercise to challenge the decision of his custodial parent as to where she and her son will live.

. I deem it immaterial, when one parent has lawful rights to custody of the child, that the decision to live in Sweden has been made by only that parent. See Leonhard v. United States, 633 F.2d 599, 619 & n.28 (2d Cir. 1980). Harald does not challenge his mother’s right to custody; he is willing to remain in her custody if she elects to live in the United States. Appellant’s Brief at A-10. Certainly the factors considered by the Swedish court in awarding custody are not relevant to a determination of Harald’s rights under the Constitution.

. This distinguishes this case from others establishing constitutional rights for children where the parents side with the child against the state. E. g., Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969); In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967). In such cases, a minor’s constitutional rights pose no disruptive problems for the family.

. In circumstances where the parent is unfit or acts contrary to the best interests of the child, state intervention into the familial relationship on behalf of the child may be justified. See Parham, 442 U.S. at 624, 99 S.Ct. at 2515 (Stewart, J., concurring); Id. at 630-31, 99 S.Ct. at 2518-19 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Harald has made no such claim in the instant case, however, and it is in any event doubtful that such a claim would properly be brought in federal court. State laws provide redress for the problems created by unfit parents.

. I am also reluctant to recognize the father as an alternative provider of care for Harald because this would condone his “kidnapping” of Harald in apparent violation of the Swedish custody decree. In any event, custody is for the state courts to determine.