Court Opinion

ID: 9470993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:22:49.745917+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:13.771465
License: Public Domain

R. LANIER ANDERSON, III, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
I concur in all of the per curiam opinion for the court except for the final footnote. Although I acknowledge the gravity of the concerns expressed there, I am not yet prepared to concur in the conclusions expressed in the final footnote of the per curiam opinion.
The application of Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18, 101 S.Ct. 2153, 68 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981), to this case presents a close and difficult issue. Although Judge Vance has articulated an intelligible distinction, I conclude ultimately that the holding and rationale of Lassiter require the disposition announced in the per curiam opinion I now join. While it is clear to me that due process will require counsel in most cases of this kind (unless saved by a determination that the evidence was sufficiently great “that the absence of counsel’s guidance ... did not render the proceedings fundamentally unfair,” Lassiter, 452 U.S. at 33, 101 S.Ct. at 2162), a proper reading of Lassiter, in my judgment, calls for a case-by-case rather than a per se approach.