Court Opinion

ID: 9578523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:46:03.017641+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:19.113117
License: Public Domain

Duckworth, Chief Justice,
dissenting. A more solemn question for decision can never confront this court than that of taking from a parent its own flesh and blood and giving it to another. This is precisely what the majority has approved in this case. To the judges it was merely deciding a case, but to the father — whose heart bleeds for his own child — and the child itself who is thus torn from its father by the judicial severance *626of the most humane, the most sacred ties that can ever bind man to man, it is cruelty that defies description. If every judge could experience the loss of his own child, simply and solely because some judge- happened to believe it would promote the best interest of the child while another judge could lawfully have held on the same identical facts that his child could not be thus taken from him, I percieve that they would not usurp legislative powers but would follow the law as the legislature has enacted it, which would demand that every judge decide the case upon fixed law, thus affording equal protection as is demanded by the Constitution, State and National. The curse of tyrants ought not to be perpetuated to inflict human misery in the name of a judge who arrogates to himself the right to make the retention of a child by its parents depend upon his will. This case vividly demonstrated the danger of such. The judges who have taken this father’s child from him have allowed a mere accusation of a crime to weigh against him in the face of the universal American principle of law that everyone is presumed innocent until guilt has been proven. The mere accusation could have been made against every judge that has allowed it to influence his judgment. Of course it was ugly for this father to beat himself when in anger, but he did not beat this child. 'And any crime of which he might have been guilty did not involve moral turpitude. What man can say he has never committed a crime? Let him look at his driving record and elsewhere and say he is innocent. If the test of unfitness that has been applied here should be applied to all parents, a cruel judge could rob all of them of their most precious possessions, their children.
But the majority glibly pass over Bond v. Norwood, 195 Ga. 383 (24 SE2d 289); Watkins v. Terrell, 196 Ga. 651 (27 SE2d 329); Morris v. Grant, 196 Ga. 692 (27 SE2d 295); Woods v. Martin, 212 Ga. 405 (93 SE2d 339); and Mills v. Mills, 218 Ga. 686 (130 SE2d 221); all concurred in by all the Justices and holding that a parent can be deprived of the custody of his child under Code §§ 74-106 and 50-121 only when he has lost his right thereto by one of the manners specified in Code §§ 74-108, 74-109 and 74-110; and flatly contradict these full *627bench decisions by which every judge in this State is bound. There is one and only one lawful way this court can rule contrary to these decisions, and that is by reviewing and overruling them. Nothing is accomplished by the voluminous opinion’s review of countless older cases. A mere reading of the opinion in Bond v. Norwood, supra, reveals unmistakably that this court covered all the decisions that the majority mentions, and all seven justices concluded, and so ruled, that they did not mean what this majority of four out of seven say they mean. After reading all that is said in all the past decisions- of this court about ■ the consideration of the best interest of the minor in contests between a parent and a third party, we took note of Code § 74-107 where the legislature expressly limited this consideration to contests between the parents. Why did they thus limit it to such a contest? The only sound reason to be found is that they did not intend for that rule to apply in contests between parents, who by law were entitled to the custody which could be lost only in the manner specified by the law, and third persons.
We also respected the ruling in Miller v. Wallace, 76 Ga. 479, at page 486, as follows: “Under the ‘discretion’ vested in him, no judge has the authority to- disregard or even to impair any 1acknowledged or established right of a party by its exercise, and if he does so, it would seem to follow, as a necessary consequence, that he abuses that discretion.” We then read in Code § 74-108 where it is said: “Until majority the child shall remain under the control of the father, who is entitled to his services and the proceeds of his labor. This parental power shall be lost by: . . then follow specifications of the ways in which it can be lost. But among them is not to be found “welfare and best interest of the child.” Therefore, we found a right established by law, as well as the law that would forfeit that right, and followed the ruling that no judge could disregard or even impair that right by the claim of exercising a discretion whether he was acting under Code § 50-121 or 74-106, and so ruled. The individual Justices constituting the majority might consider that decision an unsound construction of the past decisions and the Code' sections, but they are bound *628thereby unless that decision is overruled. The majority opinion cites Richards v. McELan, 129 Ga. 275 (58 SE 839). While there the minor was taken from the father, yet Justice Beck cited and commended Miller v. Wallace, 76 Ga. 479, and concluded the opinion with: “Certainly where the father is one of the parties to such a case, before the principle just stated [counsel strongly urged in argument before us that in every case regardless of the character of the parties, the welfare of the child is the controlling and important fact] becomes active, the father's prima facie right to possession and control of the child should be shown to have been forfeited or at least very radically impaired.”
In rendering the decision in Bond v. Norwood, 195 Ga. 383, supra, we noted the many cases in which a parent lost his child to a third person, and the many statements that the welfare of the child was considered. We found that the only way to reconcile them was to accept their rulings that the right of custody was vested in the parents by law, and this right could be neither disregarded nor impaired under the claim of exercising discretion, then construed their references to the welfare of the child to be their opinion that the parent had done one or more of the things which the law said forfeited his right, hence hurt the child’s welfare, and that it was upon evidence tending to show these things that the exercise of discretion in favor of the welfare of the child could be done.
The intangible benefits to a child of intimate family associations are beyond the comprehension of the finite mind of any judge. There are things that the makers of our law have said would forfeit the legally vested right of a father to the custody of the child, and that department, not the judiciary, may add by constitutionally enacted law many other grounds for forfeiture. But for a mere mortal to say the father loses this lawful right because he believes it will promote the best interest of the child is to claim omnipotence. The best interest of the child is no more definable than is the expression “as long as a rope.” Neither is meaningful until tested by known standards — as to the child, the law — -and to the rope, lineal standard measurements such as inches and feet, etc.
*629Hitler-Germany, Communist Russia and Red China say the child belongs to the State which will promote its welfare better than mere parents. But America would renounce her belief in God if she so decreed. Here we believe the ideals and principles instilled by the parents do more to promote its welfare than State or judge can do. The controlling law on this question has been fixed by the full bench decisions beginning with Bond v. Nonoood, 195 Ga. 383, supra, herein cited. Therefore, the contrary ruling by four Justices in this case can not change that law. It does two things — (1) unlawfully takes this child from.its father, and (2) creates confusion in the law with the few that might not realize that it being in conflict with the older full bench decisions must yield to them and hence is not the law. While I prepared the opinion in Bond v. Norwood, 195 Ga. 383, supra, it accorded with the judgment of all my associates; yet former Chief Justice Jenkins prepared the opinion in Watkins v. Terrell, 196 Ga. 651, supra; Justice Atkinson prepared the opinion in Morris v. Grant, 196 Ga. 692, supra; and Justice Candler prepared the opinion in Woods v. Martin, 212 Ga. 405, supra; and all of their associates concurred. Justice Almand prepared the opinion in Mills v. Mills, 218 Ga. 686, supra, and all of the Justices, including Presiding Justice Head and Justices Mobley, Quillian and Grice, concurred. They were not guess work but the result of long and careful thought. They are entitled to respect, and the law demands that they be followed.
I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Candler concurs in this dissent.