Court Opinion

ID: 9439089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:21:07.511966+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:09.013400
License: Public Domain

TATEL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with Judge Rogers that the District of Columbia juvenile curfew implicates a fundamental right to free movement and that the right should be defined without regard to the age of the right-*571holder. See Rogers Op. at 554-59. Although I still believe that the curfew should be subject to strict scrutiny and that the compelling interest prong of the analysis can adequately account for “the government’s legitimate need to regulate minors,” Hutchins v. District of Columbia, 144 F.3d 798, 826 (D.C.Cir.1998) (Tatel, J., concurring in the judgment), I join Judge Rogers’s conclusion that this curfew fails to survive even intermediate scrutiny. Modeled nearly verbatim on a Dallas juvenile curfew “without apparent determination that circumstances here warranted exactly the same solution,” Rogers Op. at 553, and made permanent by the D.C. Council without any assessment of its effectiveness simply to avoid mooting this litigation when the initial temporary measure expired, see Hutchins, 144 F.3d at 827 (Tatel, J., concurring in the judgment), the D.C. curfew applies at specific times to juveniles of specific ages despite virtually no record evidence that the particular restrictions will deter crime by and against the city’s youth. See Rogers Op. at 56567. Indeed, to conclude on this record that the juvenile curfew survives intermediate scrutiny, as this court now does, strips an already elastic standard of any semblance of heightened review, with grave consequences for other rights protected by intermediate scrutiny. See Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U.S. 718, 724, 102 S.Ct. 3331, 73 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1982); Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 197, 97 S.Ct. 451, 50 L.Ed.2d 397 (1976). I write separately to express my view that quite apart from the question of its constitutionality with respect to the rights of minors, the D.C. curfew fails to survive the strict scrutiny triggered by the restriction it imposes on parents’ fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children.
I know that many parents believe that the curfew reinforces their efforts to ensure their children’s safety and proper upbringing. Indeed, one of the curfew’s stated purposes is to “[a]id[ ] parents or guardians in carrying out their responsibility to exercise reasonable supervision of minors entrusted to their care.” D.C.Code Ann. § 6-2181(e)(3) (Supp.1998). As Chief Judge Edwards and Judge Silberman observe, moreover, the law contains several “defenses” that to some extent preserve parents’ control over their children’s activities. See Silberman Op. at 545-46 (citing D.C.Code§ 6-2183(b)(l)(A), (B), (D), (E), (G)); Edwards Op. at 551-52 (same).
Restating the legislative judgment that “the curfew facilitates rather than usurps parental authority,” Silberman Op. at 545-46, however, does not answer plaintiffs’ assertion of parental rights. Whatever views the judges of this court, members of the D.C. Council, or even the majority of D.C. parents may have regarding the range of discretion needed for proper parenting, the relevant fact is that plaintiffs in this case disagree. In their complaint, see Complaint ¶ ¶ 5, 8, 10, 16, 33, 43, and uncontroverted affidavits, they claim that the curfew interferes with their ability to raise their children as they see fit. For example, Kimberly Denise Dean, a plaintiff who lives in Northeast Washington, said this:
I am the mother of Natiya Daniel Tapper, who is 14 years old, and subject to the District of Columbia’s new curfew law. I have one other child, Qiana Shontay Dean, who is 17 years old.
I have taken great care to raise my daughters and hope they will grow up to be responsible adults. Naturally, this includes setting limits on their activities, such as hours by which they should be in at night. However, the curfew law, [sic] takes away my parental discretion to set those limits. As a responsible parent, I do not often allow my fourteen-year-old child, Natiya, to go out after 11:00 p.m. However, there are times when I decide after careful consideration that she should be allowed to participate in activities that require her to be out after 11:00 p.m.
For instance, last May I allowed Nati-ya to help Qiana celebrate her seventeenth birthday. Qiana, Natiya and a *572couple of Qiana’s girlfriends ate dinner at a local restaurant, saw a late-movie, and then completed the celebration with an early breakfast. My daughters did not arrive home until after 2 a.m.
Soon Natiya will be in high school, and I expect that, like her sister, she will become more involved in social activities that will keep her out late at night. I will try to make wise decisions about whether to allow Natiya to engage in these activities when the time comes. The curfew law, if allowed to stand, will unfairly restrict Natiya’s legitimate social activities and interests, as well as my ability to raise Natiya in the way that I see fit.
Dean Decl. ¶ ¶ 2-4, 6 [JA 402-03]. Another plaintiff, Robert Jablon of Northwest Washington, said:
My wife and I have taken great care to try to raise our children so that they will — we hope — grow into responsible adults.... [J]ust as part of teaching children about responsible behavior involves setting limits, part of that teaching also involves showing them that rules are not rigid, and that reasonable exceptions should be made when there is good justification. Accordingly, my wife and I allow [our eleven-year-old son] Joel to stay out late from time to time, or to go out early in the morning, when in our view there is an appropriate reason. For example, we regularly allow our son Joel to walk our family dog, Calle, around the block before going to bed at night, which could be after midnight during the summer or before 6:00 a.m. We have also allowed Joel to ride his bike to and from a neighborhood friend’s house four or five blocks away when Joel is invited to attend a movie and to return home after midnight on a weekend night or during the week in summer.... It usurps our role as parents for the government to step in and tell us and our children that we cannot make those decisions for ourselves, and it threatens to make us, as well as our children, criminals if we exercise parental discretion in customary, reasonable ways.
Jablon Decl. ¶ 3 [JA 423-24].
Even if walking the family dog could be classified as an “errand” under the curfew’s defenses, see Edwards Op. at 651-52, no fair reading of the law would allow parents to permit their children during curfew hours to participate in a birthday celebration or ride a bike to a friend’s house. The curfew likewise eliminates parents’ discretion to allow their children to take an early-morning jog through the neighborhood, go to a restaurant with friends after a school dance, or — as the District conceded at oral argument — “go out to a friend’s house to do math homework at night” unaccompanied by an adult. Oral Arg. Tr. at 17. The D.C. law makes criminals of parents who consent to their children’s participation during curfew hours in a wide range of social, education-ál, and recreational activities — non-criminal activities that some parents (however few or many) consider fundamental to their children’s growth and well-being. See D.C.Codb§ 6 — 2183(a)(2), (d) (providing for enforcement and criminal penalties).
Thus, not only do I disagree that “[t]he curfew’s defenses allow the parents almost total discretion over their children’s activities during curfew hours,” Silberman Op. at 545-46, I think the curfew squarely implicates the well-established “liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925). As the Supreme Court-stated in Wisconsin v. Yoder, “The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.” 406 U.S. 205, 232, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972). See *573Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923); see also Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622, 639 n. 18, 99 S.Ct. 3035, 61 L.Ed.2d 797 (1979) (opinion of Powell, J.); Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972).
State interference with this long-recognized parental right to raise children demands strict judicial scrutiny. It is in the context of family, in addition to school and other societal institutions, that children of this diverse and democratic nation begin to develop habits of responsibility necessary for self-governance and to observe not only the formal rules established by government but also the informal rules and understandings that undergird civil society. Through parents, children first learn to relate conduct to consequences, to exercise freedom with responsibility, and to respect the views of others. Ms. Dean’s and Mr. Jablon’s affidavits describe precisely that process: They are attempting to teach their children in the way they think best, granting them more freedom when they demonstrate responsibility. As Justice Powell said, “[tjhis affirmative process of teaching, guiding, and inspiring by precept and example is essential to the growth of young people into mature, socially responsible citizens.” Bellotti, 443 U.S. at 638, 99 S.Ct. 3035 (opinion of Powell, J.). The parenting process described by Justice Powell — the very process that the curfew curtails for these plaintiffs — is likewise essential, in my view, to equipping young people with the confidence they need to resist the many destructive influences of society. Schools and other governmental institutions, to be sure, are indispensable to this learning process. Parents, however, retain a critical role because “[w]e have believed in this country that this process, in large part, is beyond the competence of impersonal political institutions.” Id.
Heightened constitutional protection for parental autonomy is required for another reason. In Yoder, the Supreme Court’s unqualified characterization of parents’ “primary role” in child-rearing as “an enduring American tradition” reflected its recognition that “ ‘[t]he fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children. ...’” 406 U.S. at 232-33, 92 S.Ct. 1526 (quoting Pierce, 268 U.S. at 535, 45 S.Ct. 571). Indeed, we refuse to regard “[t]he child [as] the mere creature of the state,” Pierce, 268 U.S. at 535, 45 S.Ct. 571, because insistence on a particular theory of parenting, like “affirmative sponsorship of particular ethical, religious, or political beliefs!,] is something we expect the State not to attempt in a society constitutionally committed to the ideal of individual liberty and freedom of choice,” Bellotti, 443 U.S. at 638, 99 S.Ct. 3035 (opinion of Powell, J.). Of course, this does not mean that Ms. Dean’s and Mr. Jablon’s authority to raise their children is impervious to state regulation. It does mean that to be valid, limitations on parental rights not only must seek to achieve compelling objectives (which the D.C. juvenile curfew does), but also must demonstrate a close fit — substantiated by record evidence — between means and ends (which the curfew does not).
Relying on Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 64 S.Ct. 438, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944), the District argues that parental authority in child-rearing implicates no fundamental right and is subject to reasonable regulation. To be sure, Prince, which was decided before the modern three-tier framework for reviewing equal protection and fundamental rights claims, said that “the state has a wide range of power for limiting parental freedom and authority in things affecting the child’s welfare.” Id. at 167, 64 S.Ct. 438. But as I read Prince, it stands not for the broad proposition that reasonable state regulations may override parental judgments on matters of child welfare, but for the now-settled principle that religious practices may be circumscribed by reasonable, neutral laws of general applicability.
*574Prince sustained the conviction of a Jehovah’s Witness under a Massachusetts child labor law for allowing her nine-year-old niece to distribute religious magazines on the street. Characterizing the issue before the Court, Prince’s opening paragraph states: “The case brings for review another episode in the conflict between Jehovah’s Witnesses and state authority. This time Sarah Prince appeals from convictions for violating Massachusetts’ child labor laws, by acts said to be a rightful exercise of her religious convictions.” Id. at 159, 64 S.Ct. 438. In other words, Prince claimed a right to allow her niece, not to ply the trade of a newsgirl or magazine seller, but to proselytize, to engage in “the public proclaiming of religion.” Id. at 170, 64 S.Ct. 438; see id. at 164, 64 S.Ct. 438 (stating that Prince claimed “the parent’s [liberty] to bring up the child in the way he should go, which for appellant means to teach him the tenets and the practices of their faith”) (emphasis added). Although Prince’s niece offered her magazines for “5<t per copy,” thus technically bringing her conduct under the child labor law, the Court observed that she “received no money” on the evening the offenses occurred, id. at 162, 64 S.Ct. 438, and that while “specified small sums are generally asked and received!,] ... the publications may be had without the payment if so desired,” id. at 161 n. 4, 64 S.Ct. 438. As suggested by the decision’s analogy between child labor and compulsory vaccination laws, see id. at 166, Prince is thus neither a case about “child labor” nor a vindication of state power to trump parental authority, but a case limiting free exercise of religion in the face of otherwise valid state regulation.
Confirming this view, the Supreme Court recently situated Prince in the line of cases establishing that “the right of free exercise does not reheve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).’ ” Employment Div., Dep’t of Human Resources v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990) (quoting United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252, 263 n. 3, 102 S.Ct. 1051, 71 L.Ed.2d 127 (1982) (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment)); see id. at 880, 110 S.Ct. 1595 (characterizing Prince as finding “no constitutional infirmity in ‘excluding [these children] from doing there what no other children may do’ ”) (quoting Prince, 321 U.S. at 171, 64 S.Ct. 438). Explaining the different approach taken in Wisconsin v. Yoder, where the Court demanded “more than merely a ‘reasonable relation to some purpose within the competency of the State’ ” in holding compulsory school attendance laws inapplicable to Amish parents who refused to send their children to school, 406 U.S. at 233, 92 S.Ct. 1526, quoted in Smith, 494 U.S. at 881 n. 1, 110 S.Ct. 1595, Smith said that Yoder implicated not only free exercise but also “the right of parents, acknowledged in Pierce ..., to direct the education of their children,” id. at 881, 110 S.Ct. 1595. Smith thus makes clear that a square assertion of parental rights elevates the standard of review applicable to a free exercise claim otherwise subject to rational basis scrutiny. See id. (“The only decisions in which we have held that the First Amendment bars application of a neutral, generally applicable law to religiously motivated action have involved not the Free Exercise Clause alone, but the Free Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections, such as ... [parental rights].... ”). In light of Smith, I am unconvinced by the District’s reliance on Prince for the proposition that rational basis review applies to parental rights claims. Smith leaves no doubt that if the child labor law in Prince, like the compulsory school attendance law in Yo-der, had genuinely implicated a parental right distinct from the right of free exercise, then some form of heightened scrutiny should have applied. See Smith, 494 U.S. at 881, 110 S.Ct. 1595; accord City of *575Boernen v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, -, 117 S.Ct. 2157, 2161, 138 L.Ed.2d 624 (1997).
In sum, the inquiry triggered by plaintiffs’ claim of a fundamental right is not whether the curfew on the whole helps or hinders parental control — that is a policy question for D.C. lawmakers, not federal judges — but rather whether the District has provided sufficient justification for imposing the particular restrictions on parental control to which these plaintiffs object. On this question, I stand by my view that although the District’s goal of reducing crime by and against juveniles is important enough to justify restrictions on parental liberty under either strict or intermediate scrutiny, the method it chose so plainly lacks an evidentiary link to the stated, goal that it fails the tailoring prong of both strict and intermediate scrutiny. See Hutchins, 144 F.3d at 826-27 (Tatel, J., concurring in the judgment); Rogers Op. at 565-70. I respectfully dissent.