Court Opinion

ID: 9616411
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:46:35.363432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:58.338516
License: Public Domain

DIMOND, Justice Pro Tern
(dissenting)-
I fear the court’s decision upholding the order of the superior court amounts to an invitation to the state to intrude upon the sanctuary of the home more freely than otherwise might be the case — to interfere with and disrupt the very private relationship between parents and children. All the state need show is that a child is “dependent”, and that will be established by producing facts indicating that the children lack “proper” parental care by reason of the parents’ “faults, habits or neglect”. AS 47.10.010(a)(5); AS 47.-10.290(3). With the approach taken by the majority, the state may now consider itself able to do that without a great deal of difficulty.
*1203The problem is that the majority does not attempt to concern itself with objective standards against which proper parental care and faults, habits or neglect may be measured. The very vagueness of those terms invited the social worker to utilize his own subjective view as to whether an invasion of the home and an attempt to remove the children from their parents was justified.
This interference by the state with basic, fundamental rights is potentially all-encompassing. There are any number of views on the subject of whether parental care is proper. What may be proper to one person may be highly improper to another — there are no objective criteria. Almost any parent may be considered as not giving his child the proper parental care, depending on the ultimately personal determination of what the statute envisages.
Of course, the lack of proper parental care must be caused by the faults, habits or neglect of the parents. But that is not very helpful. Any adult person, if he is honest, would admit to having many faults, some of which may result, in varying degrees, in lack of proper parental care of his children. Precisely the same thing can be said of habits, and I assume the legislature was referring to bad habits, which are extremely difficult to change.1
That leaves neglect which results in lack of proper parental care. Here, too, a vast number of parents are affected. The poor may neglect their children by not providing for their physical needs, such as adequate medical attention, clothing, food and shelter and other things. The rich may neglect their children by failing to minister to their psychological and moral needs, such as loving care, security and fulfillment in the personal relationships of love, trust and fidelity, and a good parental example of how an adult should behave.
The latter kind of neglect may be infinitely more harmful than the former. But I would be very much surprised if that type of neglect would often be the subject of the scrutiny of the state and the basis of an effort to separate children from their parents. It is the poor, the so-called “under-privileged”,2 such as we have in this case, upon whom the state would probably focus most of its attention.
I point out the extremely vague and imprecise nature of the statute in order to show my deep concern as to how it may be used by good-intentioned people to deprive parents of their fundamental natural right to nurture and direct the destiny of their children.3 'It is important to notice that my argument supposes no evil intentions on the part of the state. Its agents are sincere and exercise their duties as they see them with subjective good intentions concerning what they consider the best interests of the children. But with no objective standards to guide them, my position is that good people (not bad ones), consistently acting upon the position they adopt, could act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. A tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive of all tyrannies, because those who act do so with the approval of their consciences.
*1204This case demonstrates the fears I have expressed as to the lack of objective standards in the státute. Acting at the instance of the social worker, whose position was supported quite strongly by the guardian ad litem for the children, the superior court found the children dependent because of lack of proper parental care. The faults, habits or neglect of the parents, upon which the ultimate adjudication was made, was that some of the children missed school for four or five days because their parents were under the influence of alcohol.
The disposition made was that all of the children be removed from the custody of their parents and placed in the Alaska Youth Village for a period of 14 months. At the end of that time they will be returned to their parents,4 unless the Division of Family and Children Services demonstrates that the parents 'have not overcome their drinking problems, have not shown their ability to provide a stable home, and have not been able to hold or have not sought continuous employment, or “for such other reasons as would allow the court to adjudicate the minors as dependent if still with their parents”. Visitation was permitted, but only if the parents were sober and not ill.5
But that was not all that was provided. The father of the children was ordered to do the following:
At any time that the father of the children is not employed, he shall within three working days report to the Division of Family and Children Services and request their assistance in obtaining employment. He shall thereafter at intervals of not less than every two weeks further report to the Division of Family and Children Services regarding his efforts in the interim period at obtaining a job and further request their assistance.
There was no express sanction provided if the father failed to conform. But the penalty for nonconformance was, by inference, abundantly clear — the further loss of his children.
Finally, the order provides:
The Division of Family and Children Services shall prepare and proceed with a written plan of care and development of the children including their schooling, their visits with their parents, their medical needs and their psychological needs. The Division shall also formulate a written plan regarding the rehabilitation of the parents, including their inability to hold continuous employment, any medical problems and their visitation and development of responsibility towards the children.
I have no problem in agreeing with the majority that the evidence supports the trial judge’s finding that the children missed four or five days of school because of the intoxication of their parents. But I cannot agree that such a finding makes the children dependent within the meaning of the statute, or that it calls for such a severe order of disposition.
As a matter of common justice, I do not see how the order can be supported. Notably lacking is any evidence that there was child abuse or that the children were deprived of the necessities of life such as food, clothing and shelter, and perhaps more important, the love of their parents. Notably lacking is any reference in the order to evidence produced at the hearing: (a) that other children were absent from school for longer periods of time, and (b) that the two 'older children, at a conference with the judge in chambers, indi*1205cated that they wanted to be at home with their parents.
The basic problem in this case, as I see it, is the fact that neither of the parents are able to ingest alcohol without harmful effects. From the evidence presented, each may well be classified as an alcoholic which, by legislative definition, is
[A] person who habitually lacks self-control in using alcoholic beverages, or uses alcoholic beverages to the extent that his health is substantially impaired or endangered, or his social or economic function is substantially disrupted.6
Alcoholism is not a crime,7 but rather is classified as an illness or disease,8 and therefore punishment cannot be lawfully imposed upon one because he is an alcoholic or because he is even simply intoxicated. The state, of course, would agree, and deny that any punishment was involved in this case. It is not punishing, but only healing and rehabilitating.
But we should not be deceived by a name. For the parents to be deprived of the custody of their children and the children deprived of the love and nurturing of their parents, without the consent of either; to place restrictions on the parents’ visitation of their children; to require the father to report regularly to the social workers on his success or lack of it in obtaining continuous employment at the risk of further losing custody of his children; and to force the parents to submit to a plan of rehabilitation formulated by the Division of Family and Children Services as a condition of keeping the family together, if and when the children are eventually returned to their parents — who really cares whether this is called punishment or not. That it includes the elements of punishment — loss of fundamental rights, shame, exile,9 insults to the inherent dignity and integrity of the parents as human beings — is obvious. Only grave parental misdeeds could justify such a rupture in the parent-child relationship, and misdeeds of sufficient gravity are totally absent here.10
I say this in spite of the fact that the majority, in supporting the disposition order, did not rely solely on the trial judge’s adjudicative findings based on the petition in this case.- The majority looked back at the intervention by the Division of Family and Children Services in the lives of the parents and children since 1971, which apparently was justified by the immoderate drinking of alcohol by the parents during that period. I can find nothing in these past circumstances which was so extreme, so far as the best interests of the children are concerned, as to justify the sweeping order of disposition in this case.
Where disposition is being considered, the majority justifies the consideration by *1206a court of facts not alleged in the petition on the analogy of sentencing in a criminal case, where the court looks to facts in the past record of a convicted defendant which were not admissible at his trial. I mention this to emphasize the point I am making — that a children’s dependency proceeding in no way has any of the characteristics of a criminal action, and because of that, punishment or penalties should not be inflicted as I believe they were here.
This case represents to me a massive encroachment upon and denial of some of the inalienable rights of human beings. The state, with all of its vast power, has assumed the role of “big brother” or “super-parent” in regulating the lives of the parents and children who are the victims in this case. I believe it is important to state again what I said not long ago in Turner v. Pannick:11
I believe the basic concept that governs this case is the fundamental natural right of parents to nurture and direct the destiny of their children. This is a truth which one discovers by reason, and has the status of knowledge rather than mere opinion. Nature has instilled in man a love for his children; an intimate bond, by nature, exists between parent and child. It would be repugnant to the natural law to deprive a parent of the right to rear his children, except for the most grave reasons. The family is one of the oldest institutions known to mankind and forms the basic unit of our society. The family should enjoy considerable autonomy and independence from state interference.
If the rule were otherwise, we would be taking a step toward a totalitarian government. Children could be removed from their parents’ custody at the will of the state, depending upon what some governmental petty tyrant decides is meant by the term “welfare” or “best interests” of the children. Such a state of affairs would be entirely contrary to the form of government envisioned by the founding fathers of our nation.12
I dissent from the majority opinion of this court. The majority states that removal of the children from the family home is justified only under “extreme conditions”. I cannot in any way agree that the conditions are so extreme as to justify the action taken in this case.
I would reverse the orders of adjudication and disposition of the superior court, dismiss the petition, and return the children to their parents, with some agreeable provision being made to have persons trained in the field of alcoholism assist the parents in overcoming their excessive drinking.

. Lord IXenry Wotton, in the cynical words of his creator, Oscar Wilde, said:
But then one regrets the loss of one’s worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one’s personality.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dell Pub. Co., Laurel Edition, 1967, at 212.

. The word “under-privileged”, as used as a synonym for poor, is inappropriate. A privilege is a special advantage which one person or class has over another. It is an inequality before the law. An under-privileged person must mean a person who has not enough privilege — a person, that is, who lias not enough advantage over his neighbor. To use the word, then, is to complain that there is not enough inequality.

.See my concurring opinion in Turner v. Pannick, 540 P.2d 1051, 1055-56 (Alaska 1975).

. However, as the majority points out, the children would remain in the legal custody of the state for another year.

. The mother of the children testified that she had stomach and heart troubles — that she was ill. Under the literal wording of the order of disposition, this means that she would not be permitted to see her children, even if she were sober.

. AS 47.37.270(1).

. In 1972 the Alaska Legislature adopted the Uniform Alcoholism and Intoxication Treatment Act. The Declaration of Policy in the Act provides :
It is the policy of the state that alcoholics and intoxicated persons should not be criminally prosecuted for their consumption of alcoholic beverages and that they should be afforded a continuum of treatment so they may lead normal lives as productive members of society. AS 47.37.010.

. Peter v. State, 531 P.2d 1263, 1266 (Alaska 1975).

. In separating parents from their children, there is a form of exile for both.

.As I have stated, the basic problem is the probability that the parents suffered from the illness or disease of alcoholism. If that is so, the Division of Family and Children Services should refer the problem to professionals in the field of alcohol abuse. There now exists in this community, by reason of the enactment of the Uniform Alcoholism and Intoxication Treatment Act in 1972, treatment programs for alcoholics under the direction of persons highly qualified in that field. I see no reason why such treatment cannot be carried on with parents and children living together as they have the natural right to do. In fact, it seems to me far more likely that such treatment will be successful if the parents do not have to cope at the same time with the agony and anger resulting from being deprived of the custody of their children.

. 540 P.2d 1051 (Alaska 1975).

. 540 P.2d at 1055-56.