Court Opinion

ID: 9464218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:27:44.614473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:30.931710
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge,
concurring:
While I agree with the views expressed by Judge Roney and concur fully in the result and opinion, I feel that some comment is warranted focusing on the practicalities and realities of the unfortunate situation which confronts us.
Assuming the Drummonds have any pro-tectible liberty interest which triggers the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, I believe the record in this case amply demonstrates that, whatever due process rights the Drummonds had, those rights were more than adequately safeguarded.
First, the record shows that those charged with the awesome responsibility of Timmy’s best interest were concerned, sensitive and sincere professionals.1 Second, there can be no doubt that the Drummonds had notice, at least by March 17, 1975, that placement outside their home was a very real possibility. Third, the Drummonds were heard. The record establishes that the Drummonds personally met with various case workers on at least three occasions: March 10, August 25, and October 4, 1975.2 Fourth, the notes of the October 4 “evaluation interview” conducted by Brenda B. Payne,3 Plaintiff’s Exhibit 14, recommending that the Drummonds be allowed to adopt Timmy, were given to each person present at the November 21 staffing and Mrs. Payne read those notes aloud as her “recommendation.” Payne Deposition at 30. Thus, it cannot be said that the Drum-monds’ interests were not represented at that meeting. While no formal adjudicatory hearing was held, what, as a practical matter, could have been accomplished by such a hearing in view of what had happened before the staffing? My answer to this question is “Nothing.”
As to the equal protection contention, it is abundantly clear to me that no violation occurred. The notes of Ms. Payne’s “evaluation interview” alone should be dispositive on this score. Factors other than race were indisputably taken into account: The Drummonds’ tendency to be overprotective, their intellectual capacities, and their age. Moreover, the “[m]ain topics of discussion” at the November 21 staffing (see Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15) numbered seven: age, health, community setting, involvement of extended family, parenting abilities, intellectual environment, and race.
As to the last of these topics, not only do I agree with Judge Roney’s conclusion that race may be considered as “a” factor in adoptions without violating the equal protection clause, but I would state that as a practical matter, it should be so considered. Indeed, adoption personnel would be blinking at reality if they failed to consider the race of the adoptive parents vis-á-vis the child. I would also go so far as to state that they could give substantial weight to race as a factor — including consideration of such things as the geographical location and area attitudes involved — without treading dangerously on equal protection rights. Indeed, agency personnel, without violating the Fourteenth Amendment, could expressly declare that the racial difference between the child and the “adoptive” parents was the primary reason for making the child placement decision. Granted that society and the community should not harbor attitudes against interracial mixture, the subject of the foster home placement and even adoption is the child, whose life will be affected by community values and preju*1212dices as they exist, not what they ought to be.
Lastly, it would be unwise, and to my mind, an arrogation of power for Federal Judges to voyage into the super sensitive realm of state adoption matters. To set standards as the dissent would require sounds easy. But inevitably that process involves policy choices which go to the heart of the welfare of the child, probably for the rest of the child’s life. On what do we draw in making these choices? Are we, as Federal Judges, endowed with sufficient prescience to decide such delicate issues? We should remind ourselves that we do not possess the wisdom of Solomon and that Timmy’s adoption is not as blissfully simple as cutting the baby in half.

. For example, the notes of the November 21, 1975, “staffing” at which the final decision was made to place Timmy elsewhere, state in pertinent part: “The discussion lasted approximately three hours and the group consensus not to allow the Drummonds to adopt Timmy was carefully thought out and personally painful for all those present.” Plaintiff’s Exhibit 15, p. 1; emphasis added.

. See 547 F.2d at 838-46.

. Quoted in full at 547 F.2d at 843-46.