Kirkpatrick v. Dist. Ct.
| Citation | 119 Nev. 66,64 P.3d 1056 |
| Decision Date | 14 March 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 37593.,37593. |
| Parties | Bruce KIRKPATRICK, Petitioner, v. The EIGHTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT of the State of Nevada, In and For the COUNTY OF CLARK, and the Honorable Robert E. Gaston, District Judge, Family Court Division, Respondents, and Sierradawn Kirkpatrick Crow, Real Party in Interest. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Nevada |
Gayle F. Nathan, Las Vegas, for Petitioner.
Rebecca L. Burton, Las Vegas; Bruce I. Shapiro, Henderson, for Real Party in Interest.
Before the Court En Banc.
On April 11, 2002, this court issued an opinion in this case granting the petition for a writ of mandamus.1 Subsequently, the real party in interest filed a rehearing petition. After reviewing the rehearing petition, as well as the briefs and appendix, we conclude that rehearing is warranted, and we grant the petition for rehearing.2 We now withdraw our April 11, 2002, opinion and issue this opinion in its place.
Bruce Kirkpatrick asked us to hold unconstitutional NRS 122.025, which permits a minor under the age of sixteen to marry with the consent of one parent and district court authorization. Under that statute, the district court permitted Kirkpatrick's fifteen-year-old daughter to marry a forty-eight-year-old man with the consent of her mother, but without the knowledge of her father. We conclude that NRS 122.025 is constitutional and that the district court was correct in denying Kirkpatrick's petition to annul his daughter's marriage. We, therefore, deny this petition for extraordinary relief.
SierraDawn Kirkpatrick Crow is the daughter of Karen Karay and petitioner Bruce Kirkpatrick. In 1990, Karay and Kirkpatrick were divorced in California. As part of the divorce decree, Karay and Kirkpatrick were awarded joint legal and physical custody of SierraDawn. In 1992, Karay and SierraDawn moved from California to New Mexico. In December 2000, when SierraDawn was fifteen years old, she informed her mother that she desired to marry her guitar teacher, forty-eight-year-old Sauren Crow. SierraDawn's mother approved of the marriage. However, under New Mexico law, SierraDawn was not permitted to marry. Therefore, SierraDawn, her mother, and Crow traveled to Las Vegas where SierraDawn and Crow could marry, if granted permission by the court.
Karay filed a petition with the Clark County district court to obtain judicial authorization for SierraDawn's marriage. With the petition, Karay filed an affidavit consenting to the marriage, in which she stated that she has "seen no other couple so right for each other," that they "have very real life plans at home, in the town in which we all reside," and that "[t]heir partnership and their talents will be most effectively utilized by this marriage." The district court found that good cause existed under Nevada law for the marriage, and ordered that a marriage license be issued to SierraDawn and Crow. On January 3, 2001, SierraDawn and Crow were married in Las Vegas.
When Kirkpatrick first learned of SierraDawn's marriage, he sought an ex parte temporary restraining order in the New Mexico district court. That court granted the temporary restraining order, and awarded Kirkpatrick immediate legal and physical custody of SierraDawn. Four days later, however, the court rescinded its order because it found that SierraDawn's marriage was valid under Nevada law, and that SierraDawn was emancipated as a result of the marriage.3
Kirkpatrick then asked the Clark County district court to vacate its earlier order authorizing SierraDawn's marriage and to annul the marriage. Following a hearing, during which Kirkpatrick was present and SierraDawn and Crow were physically absent, but were represented by counsel, the district court entered an order denying Kirkpatrick's motion. The district court concluded that the marriage complied with Nevada law and determined that Kirkpatrick lacked standing to challenge the marriage's validity.
Thereafter, Kirkpatrick filed this petition seeking a writ of mandamus to compel the district court to vacate its order authorizing SierraDawn's marriage and to annul the marriage.
A writ of mandamus is available "to compel the performance of an act [that] the law [requires] as a duty resulting from an office, trust or station."4 But we will not issue a writ of mandamus to control a trial court's discretionary action unless the court has manifestly abused its discretion.5 Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy, and it is within the discretion of this court to determine if a petition will be considered.6 We will consider this petition because it raises important issues of public policy and challenges the constitutionality of a Nevada statute, which is applied in contexts wherein review may be evaded.7 Kirkpatrick asserts that, because NRS 122.025 allows the court to approve the marriage of a person under the age of sixteen with the consent of only one parent, he has been deprived of his fundamental right to the parent-child relationship without a compelling reason. Kirkpatrick also maintains that his procedural due process rights were infringed because he was not provided with notice, with an opportunity to be heard, or with an opportunity to object to his daughter's marriage before the court authorized it. Thus, Kirkpatrick raises both substantive and procedural due process challenges to Nevada's marriage consent statute.8
It is well settled that states have the right and power to establish reasonable limitations on the right to marry.9 This power is justified as an exercise of the police power, which confers upon the states the ability to enact laws in order to protect the safety, health, morals, and general welfare of society.10 Pursuant to this power, the Nevada Legislature enacted NRS 122.025, which states, in relevant part:
Kirkpatrick argues that this statute violates his constitutional interest in the care, custody, and management of his daughter since it neither requires his consent nor gives him an opportunity to be heard on the issue of his daughter's marriage. The United States Supreme Court has held that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in the care, custody, and management of their children.11 However, the United States Supreme Court has also held that, although these rights are fundamental, they are not absolute.12 The state also has an interest in the welfare of children and may limit parental authority.13 The Supreme Court has even held, where justified, that parents can be totally deprived of their children forever.14 If the state can completely eliminate all parental rights, it can certainly limit some parental rights when the competing rights of the child are implicated.
The United States Supreme Court has held that the right to marry is a fundamental right.15 In Zablocki v. Redhail, the Court stated:
In Zablocki, when Wisconsin sought to restrict the right to marry, the Supreme Court said:
It is not surprising that the decision to marry has been placed on the same level of importance as decisions relating to procreation, childbirth, child rearing, and family relationships. As the facts of this case illustrate, it would make little sense to recognize a right of privacy with respect to other matters of family life and not with respect to the decision to enter the relationship that is the foundation of the family in our society.... Surely, a decision to marry and raise the child in a traditional family setting must receive equivalent protection. And, if appellee's right to procreate means anything at all, it must imply some right to enter the only relationship in which the State of Wisconsin allows sexual relations legally to take place.17
The Supreme Court has made it clear that constitutional rights apply to children as well as adults.18 In the case of In re Gault, the Court stated that "neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults alone."19 In Planned Parenthood of Missouri v. Danforth, the Court stated, 20 However, the Court has also recognized that states have the power to make adjustments in the constitutional rights of minors.21
Marriage is the cornerstone of the family and our civilization.22 As marriage comprises the most sacred of relationships,23 the decision of whom and when to marry is highly personal, often involving reasons that are complex and vary from individual to individual. The decision to marry should rest primarily in the hands of the individual, with little government interference.24 As a society, we recognize that reasonable constraints on the right to marry are appropriate, especially when the marriage involves a minor.25
There is no one set of criteria that can be set forth as a litmus test to determine if a marriage will be successful. Neither is there a litmus test to determine whether a person is mature enough to enter a marriage. Age alone is an arbitrary factor. The Nevada Legislature recognized that although most fifteen-year-olds would not...
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