Court Opinion

ID: 9786065
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:46:25.555312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:41.297634
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
with whom HARGRAVE, C.J. and LAVENDER, J., join, dissenting.
11 The court holds today that neither a father's incarceration nor his previous court-ordered bar of visitation will provide a defense against a mother's complaint of his wiliful failure to maintain a relationship with his child, a ruling which, pursuant to the terms of 10 O.S. Supp.1998 § 7505-4.2 (H),1 may result in the nonconsensual termination of paternal status. Today's pronouncement is fraught with state and federal constitutional infirmities. Insofar as the court's ruling deprives the father of his interposed defense of lack of willfuiness, it denies him unimpeded access to court2 and due process3 *813affordable under the state and federal fundamental charters. There is no indication in the pertinent statute of legislative intent to samction either complete destruction or even an abridgment of this father's defense based on his lack of willfuiness.4 Today's pronouncement that rules out that defense is arbitrary and impermissible.5 When a court circumscribes the range of plainly admissible probative facts to show the absence of willfulness, due process is offended.6 The tone of today's opinion-pronouncing that the father "may not rely on the existence of court orders to excuse his lack of relationship with the child7 -denies him full opportunity to explore all available facts that are probative of his lack of willfulness. Today's ruling operates significantly to restrict his access to the courts for establishing a statute-based defense against the mother's termination quest.
{2 The common law knows not of judicial severance of a parental tic8 Parental relationship is viewed as eternal, indestructible and hence incapable of dissolution.9 Because the common law does not allow the parent-child bond to be severed, courts cannot alter this status-based relationship without a faithful obedience of the statutory terms 10 Today we are creating a termination neither sanctioned by legislation nor cognizable at common law.
138 Proceedings to terminate one's recognized family status present matters of grave consequence. - Constitutional law surrounds both the marital as well as the parental status with a panoply of protections. Consistently with the obligations imposed by the due process clause, indigent individuals seeking dissolution of a marital bond are entitled to court access at the expense of the government,*81411 and parental-status termination decrees are constitutionally infirm unless they be based on clear and convincing proof.12 A state does not act in a manner consistent with the due process and equal protection clauses,13 when it conditions, based on the litigant's ability to pay, a parent's access to appellate review of a decree that destroys parental rights.14
[ 4 Parental terminations are, perhaps, the most serious of all status-based bond severance proceedings. Federal due process and equal protection afford safeguards protecting familial associations. - Oklahoma also surrounds all access to courts with constitutional shelter.15 Yet, today's pronouncement severely abridges this father's recognized federal- and state-law shields by fashioning a short-cut to termination that is neither legislatively sanctioned nor cognizable at common law. I hence recede from today's pronounce, ment because it (a) severely abridges this litigant's statute-based opportunity to defend against the mother's severance quest by demonstrating that one indispensable probative element is absent from the evidence she adduced in the proceeding-that of willful failure "to maintain a significant relationship with a minor through visitation or communication ..." and (2) invites as well as licenses the use of public law's quasi-criminal process regime (victim protection orders) as a designing custodial parent's collateral weapon for orchestrating the destruction of the noncustodial sire's legal status.

. The pertinent terms of 10 O.S. Supp.1998 § 7505-4.2 (H) provide:

. The terms of Art. 2 § 6, Ok. Const., state:
"The courts of justice of the State shall be open to every person, and speedy and certain remedy afforded for every wrong and for every injury to person, property, or reputation; and right and justice shall be administered without sale, denial, delay, or prejudice."
A ruling barring one from the access to court which is essential to the relief sought is violative of Art. 2, § 6, Okl. Const., Carter v. Carter, 1989 OK 153, ¶ 2, 783 P.2d 969, 970.

. The text of Art. 2 § 7, OK. Const., provides:
"No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."
The pertinent provision of U.S. Const. amend. XIV § 1 states:
*813"[NJor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; ..."
Depriving a child-support or alimony obligor from participation in judicial proceedings for failure to pay support constitutes a denial of due process. Carter, supra note 2, at ¶ 2, at 970 (citing Bishop v. Bishop, 1958 OK 16, ¶ 18, 321 P.2d 416, 417 and Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U.S. 409, 444, 17 S.Ct. 841, 854, 42 L.Ed. 215 (1897). Early jurisprudence recognized that due process signifies, at minimum, one's right to participate in judicial proceedings and to be given a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Hovey, supra, 167 U.S. at 417, 17 S.Ct at 844.

. The statutory ground upon which the termination proceeding is rested plainly calls for proof of willful neglect. For the text of 10 O.S. Supp. 1998 § 7505-4.2 (H) see supra note 1.

. The range of critical defense evidence cannot be restricted without offending traditional and fundamental standards of due process. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 1049, 35 L.E.2d 297 (1973); Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 319-20, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 1112, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974).

. The U.S. Constitution guarantees all defendants a meaningful opportunity to be heard in order to present a complete defense. Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S.Ct. 2142, 2146, 90 L.Ed.2d 636 (1986) (citing California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 2532, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984). Rules that exclude defense evidence are unconstitutionally arbitrary or disproportionate where they infringe upon a weighty interest of the defendant. United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 308, 118 S.Ct. 1261, 1264, 140 L.Ed.2d 413 (1998) (citing Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U.S. 44, 56, 107 S.Ct. 2704, 2711, 97 L.Ed.2d 37 (1987)). Due process is violated by the exercise of judicial power in an action which was not reasonably calculated to inform interested parties of its pendency. It logically follows that due process is also violated by the exercise of judicial power in an action where a party is not given a reasonable opportunity to be heard. Johnson v. Scott, 1985 OK 50, ¶ 11, 702 P.2d 56, 59. Minimum standards of due process require that persons be afforded not only notice but also an opportunity to be heard before any of their substantial rights may be altered or affected. Patel v. OMH Medical Center, Inc., 1999 OK 33, ¶ 39, 987 P.2d 1185, 1200 n. 56 (citing Matter of Estate of Pope, 1990 OK 125, ¶ 3, 808 P.2d 640, 642-43)).

. Referencing the opinion of the court.

. Davis v. Davis, 1985 OK 85, ¶ 20, 708 P.2d 1102, 1111 (abrogated by subsequent legislation and then overruled on other grounds).

. Id.

. The text of 25 O.S.1991 § 29 states:
"'The rule of the common law, that statutes in derogation thereof are to be strictly construed, has no application to the laws of this state, which are to be liberally construed with a view to effect their objects and to promote justice."
Liberal construction of a statute is not a device for extending the ambit of an enactment beyond its intended scope. Davis, at ¶ 20, at 1111.

. Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 374, 91 S.Ct. 780, 784, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971).

. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 747-48, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 1391-92, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982).

. The pertinent provision of U.S. Const. amend. XIV § 1 states:
"[NJor shall any state ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

. M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102, 102, 117 S.Ct. 555, 556, 136 L.Ed.2d 473 (1996).

. For the text of Art. 2 § 6 see supra note 2.