Ga. Dep't of Human Servs. v. Steiner

• Decision Date: 18 June 2018
• Docket Number: S18A0281
• Citation: 815 S.E.2d 883
• Parties: GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, DIVISION OF FAMILY AND CHILDREN SERVICES v. Christopher STEINER.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

303 Ga. 890

815 S.E.2d 883

GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, DIVISION OF FAMILY AND CHILDREN SERVICES

v.Christopher STEINER.

S18A0281

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: June 18, 2018

Ross Warren Bergethon, Deputy Solicitor-General, Annette M. Cowart, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Sarah Hawkins Warren, Solicitor-General, Penny Hannah, Assistant Attorney General, Shalen S. Nelson, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Alan Pinson, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Victoria Cuneo Powell, Assistant Solicitor- General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Kenneth Gene Lawrence, Turner & Lawrence, PC, 423 South Mulberry Street, Jackson, Georgia 30233, for Appellant.

Joseph Scott Key, Kayci Nicole Dennis, Miller & Key, PA, 79 Lawrenceville Street, McDonough, Georgia 30253, for Appellee.

Andrew Santos Fleischman, Ross & Pines, LLC, 5555 Glenridge Connector, Suite 435, Atlanta, Georgia 30342, Laura D. Hogue, Hogue & Hogue, LLP, P.O. Box 1795, Macon, Georgia 31201, Charles R. Bliss, Atlanta Legal Aid Society, Inc., 54 Ellis Street. NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Lisa Jane Krisher, Georgia Legal Services Program, 104 Marietta Street, N.W., Suite 250, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-2743, Michael Joseph Tafelski, Jamie B.J. Rush, Georgia Legal Services Program, 104 Marietta Street, Suite 240, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, David Alfred Webster, 1145 Hurt Building, 50 Hurt Plaza, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Mara Leah Block, Atlanta Legal Aid Society, 246 Sycamore Street, Suite 120, Decatur, Georgia 30030, for Amicus Appellee.

Grant, Justice.

The Georgia Department of Human Services, Division of Family and Children Services ("DFCS") appeals from the decision of the Lamar County Superior Court finding that Georgia’s central child abuse registry is unconstitutional, both on its face and as applied to appellee Christopher Steiner. The trial court also found that DFCS failed to prove that Steiner committed an act of child abuse by a preponderance of the evidence as required to maintain Steiner’s listing in the registry. This Court granted DFCS’s application for discretionary review. We hold that Steiner failed to demonstrate a constitutionally protected liberty or property interest sufficient to trigger the due process protections that he claims were violated by operation of the registry, and because the Act was constitutionally applied to Steiner, he lacks standing to bring his facial challenge on that ground. We further hold that the child abuse registry is not criminal in nature, and that the superior court therefore erred in finding it to be so. And because an abuse investigator’s determination about whether a report of child abuse is supported by the evidence is not a judicial function, the superior court erred in finding that the statute requiring the investigator to report such cases to DFCS for inclusion in the child abuse registry violates the separation of powers provision of the Georgia Constitution. Finally, because at least "some evidence" supported the administrative hearing officer’s conclusion that DFCS had proved an act of child abuse as defined for purposes of the child abuse registry, the superior court erred in reversing the administrative law court. We reverse.

I.

Georgia’s central child abuse registry, also known as the Child Protective Services Information System ("the Act"), is a statutory system that provides for the establishment and maintenance of a central registry containing information about "substantiated" cases of child abuse. See OCGA §§ 49-5-18 – 49-5-187. The Act requires that DFCS investigate reports of child abuse and, if the abuse investigator finds by a preponderance of the evidence that an act of child abuse occurred, information must be added to the registry about the abuse, the abuser, the child victim, and the child’s guardian. See OCGA §§ 49-5-182, 49-5-183. Access to the registry is limited to certain government child abuse investigators and government or licensed childcare-related entities. The registry may only be used for the following purposes: conducting child abuse investigations; screening applicants for childcare-related employment, licensing, or volunteer activities; conducting background checks on current or prospective foster parents and adoptive parents; compiling statistical information regarding substantiated cases of abuse; responding to inquiries from individuals seeking to find out whether the individual’s own name is included in the registry; and meeting federal funding requirements. See OCGA § 49-5-185.

OCGA § 49-5-183 requires that DFCS must notify an alleged abuser when his or her name is added to the registry. See OCGA § 49-5-183 (a). The alleged abuser may then request an evidentiary hearing before an administrative law judge ("ALJ") by submitting a written request for a hearing to DFCS within ten days after receiving the notice. See OCGA § 49-5-183 (a) & (c). The general public is excluded from the administrative hearing, and the associated records are kept under seal. See OCGA § 49-5-183 (e). The ALJ makes the final "administrative determination regarding whether, based on a preponderance of evidence, there was child abuse committed by the alleged child abuser to justify the investigator’s determination of a substantiated case." OCGA § 49-5-183 (d). If not, the ALJ must order the alleged abuser’s name removed from the registry. OCGA § 49-5-183 (e). Either party may seek judicial review of the ALJ’s decision by filing a petition in the superior court of the county in which the administrative hearing was held. OCGA § 49-5-183 (f). The records and judicial review proceedings in the superior court also are closed to the public. Id.

In late October 2016, K.S., a 13-year-old girl, was reported missing by her grandmother, who is her legal guardian. K.S.’s grandmother told members of the local Sheriff’s Office that K.S. was likely at Steiner’s home, and the investigation evolved into an interference-with-custody case. K.S. was later found to have been at Steiner’s home as her grandmother had suspected.¹

During the course of the investigation, a forensic interview was conducted with K.S. Immediately after the interview, a deputy sheriff spoke with K.S. and obtained a written statement from her that included the following description of an encounter with Steiner several days earlier at K.S.’s grandmother’s home:

I usually show my affection hugging him. I leaned against him on his stomach and he wrapped his arms around

me. He started to hump me a way a dog would. I said stop the first time. Then he done it again. When he done it the 2^nd time my nana turned around and saw it. I got off of him and walked away a little from him to make him stop.

According to K.S.’s statement, Steiner was 52 years old at the time. DFCS conducted an investigation and determined that this encounter was a "substantiated case" of child sexual abuse, as defined in OCGA § 49-5-180 (8) & (10) and OCGA § 19-7-5 (b) (10).²

Steiner’s name and identifying information were therefore added to the child abuse registry, along with a copy of the DFCS investigator’s report and a classification of the abuse as sexual.

In January 2017, after Steiner was added to the registry, DFCS mailed him a letter notifying him of the determination that he had committed a substantiated case of child abuse, of his listing in the child abuse registry, and of the procedure for contesting that listing. The letter identified the "maltreatment" as fondling and the "maltreatment type" as sexual abuse. It informed Steiner that the date of the alleged abuse was October 29, 2016, and that the abuse occurred in Lamar County. On the last page of the notice, the allegations of child abuse were summarized as follows:

You were substantiated on as a result of K.S. maltreator exposed the child to inappropriate sexual contact which resulted in the maltreator inappropriately touched and dry humped her in the residence of the legal guardian.

Steiner requested a hearing before an ALJ, contesting his listing in the registry and contending that the Act was unconstitutional on its face and as applied to him. Specifically, Steiner argued that it was impossible to tell from the vague and ungrammatical notice what he was accused of doing, who K.S. was, what was meant by "dry humped," and whether K.S. had been "exposed" to sexual contact by witnessing sexual contact between others or by being sexually touched by Steiner or someone else. He also argued that the conduct described in the notice was not an act of child abuse.

Steiner contended that the Act violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and parallel provisions of the Georgia Constitution because it did not provide for adequate notice and a pre-deprivation hearing. He further argued that the Act violated the separation of powers doctrine in that it vested a DFCS investigator with the judicial power to determine whether the allegations of child abuse were substantiated by a preponderance of the evidence. Finally, he contended that because the Act was criminal in nature, he should be granted "the full panoply of rights of a criminal defendant" under the state and federal constitutions, including the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy and public trial.

Following a hearing at which K.S. and two other witnesses testified, the ALJ issued a written decision rejecting Steiner’s petition for removal from the registry and noting that Steiner’s motion to declare the Act unconstitutional had been denied at the hearing.³ The ALJ stated that he had questioned K.S. before she testified and determined that she was capable of giving reliable testimony. The ALJ found that K.S. had recognized the written statement that she gave to the sheriff’s deputy and testified that she was telling the truth when she wrote the statement. She also testified that Steiner "tried to hump her like a dog" and that her Nana saw it the second time, which is what she wrote in the...