Court Opinion

ID: 9635248
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:43:33.580576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:05.386471
License: Public Domain

WALKER, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Occasionally a proceeding comes along where judicial restraint comes hard. This is such a proceeding and I shall make every endeavor to express only those thoughts necessai’y. The majority “conditionally” grants mandamus whereas I would emphatically order same, for reason that Crystal Aubin’s constitutional rights to her children have been seriously tread upon. Admittedly, a review of the record indicates that, chances are, Crystal Aubin will not receive “mother of the year” award. Neither shall millions of other single mothers who are attempting to care for their children under trying economic circumstances. In virtually every parent-child relationship, crystal ball observers can no doubt conjure up more pleasing scenarios, better ways and means of child rearing. However, real life defies such fairy-tale perfection.
Albeit, Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000), was not handed down by our United States Supreme Court until the year 2000, the fundamental rights of parents, to the exclusion of others, have long been recognized through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See In the Interest of J.W.T., 872 S.W.2d 189, 194-95 (Tex.1994). Troxel more clearly and more definitively sets forth those “liberty” interests afforded parents through that Amendment. According to Troxel:
The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” We have long recognized that the Amendment’s Due Process Clause, like its Fifth Amendment counterpart, “guarantees more than fair process.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 719, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997). The Clause also includes a substantive component that “provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests.” Id., 521 U.S. 702, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772; see also Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 301-302, 113 S.Ct. 1439, 123 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993).
Id., 120 S.Ct. at 2059-2060.
In the present case, the Burks, through an arm of the state government, to wit a court, have sought to, and indeed have, interfered with Crystal Aubin’s parental rights by attempting to obtain custody of her children, without standing, without sincere pursuit of the legal process,6 and *205without regard to Crystal Aubin’s parental rights.
I would, applying Troxel, mandamus the trial court, ordering that court to immediately enter an order dismissing the Burks’ lawsuit as an unconstitutional invasion of Ms. Aubin’s liberty rights.

. This case has been pending since 1998, without effort by the Burks to seek finality, but rather a concerted effort by Petitioners to wear the mother down through the legal pro*205cess. The record reveals no effort by the Burks to even seek process upon the chil-drens' natural father, a necessary party to this proceeding. Further, the Burks have avoided finality through the request for legislative continuance.