Court Opinion

ID: 9554066
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:40:55.018361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:32:57.419985
License: Public Domain

MONTGOMERY, Justice (specially concurring). I concur in the result. There can be no doubt that petitioner’s due process rights were violated by the district court’s failure to “accord to every person who is legally interested in a proceeding, or his lawyer, full right to be heard according to law.” SCRA 1986, 21-300 A(4) (Repl.Pamp.1989). The court terminated petitioner’s parental rights without permitting court-appointed, counsel in a closely related matter to represent his client fully in both the termination and the neglect proceedings. The court did not allow a continuance to insure that the petitioner, who was not present and was technically unrepresented, would have notice. Actually, in this instance the court was aware that petitioner lacked meaningful notice and yet it terminated his parental rights. While the plurality opinion recognizes that the failure to safeguard petitioner’s rights rests ultimately with the court, the opinion heaps much criticism on the Human Services Department. I do not share the view, nor do I think the facts in this case warrant even an inference, that the failure to provide due process should be attributed to “unprofessional” behavior or any intentional conduct on the part of the Human Services Department. It is true, in my opinion, that the Department attorney owes some duty to a parent in circumstances such as those presented here. The role of the Human Services Department attorney is sometimes like that of a criminal prosecutor, as the plurality points out. Yet in many profound ways the roles of such attorneys are very different. The Human Services Department attorney constantly serves many masters and must balance conflicting responsibilities to “client” (the client being at various and the same times the state, the agency, the children, and in some ways perhaps even the parent) against the rights of third persons, rights so numerous and subtle that they are too “impractical to catalogue.” SCRA 1986, 16-404, ABA Comment (Repl.Pamp.1988). When rights are too numerous to catalogue, and duties on attorneys are open to interpretation, we should be circumspect in describing an attorney’s conduct as, “at best, unprofessional.” It is enough for me that there was a failure in this case to accord petitioner due process. We need not ascribe blame for this failure. With that reservation, I concur with the plurality’s opinion.