Lassiter v. Department of Social Services of Durham County, North Carolina
| Decision Date | 01 June 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 79-6423,79-6423 |
| Citation | 68 L.Ed.2d 640,101 S.Ct. 2153,452 U.S. 18 |
| Parties | Abby Gail LASSITER, Petitioner, v. DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES OF DURHAM COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
In 1975, a North Carolina state court adjudicated petitioner's infant son to be a neglected child and transferred him to the custody of respondent Durham County Department of Social Services. A year later, petitioner was convicted of second-degree murder, and she began a sentence of 25 to 40 years of imprisonment. In 1978, respondent petitioned the court to terminate petitioner's parental rights. Petitioner was brought from prison to the hearing on the petition, and the court, after determining, sua sponte, that she had been given ample opportunity to obtain counsel and that her failure to do so was without just cause, did not postpone the proceedings. Petitioner did not aver that she was indigent, and the court did not appoint counsel for her. At the hearing, petitioner cross-examined a social worker from respondent, and both petitioner and her mother testified under the court's questioning. The court thereafter terminated petitioner's parental status, finding that she had not contacted respondent about her child since December 1975, and that she had "wilfully failed to maintain concern or responsibility for the welfare of the minor." The North Carolina Court of Appeals rejected petitioner's sole contention on appeal that because she was indigent, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required the State to provide counsel for her. The North Carolina Supreme Court summarily denied discretionary review.
Held :
1. The Constitution does not require the appointment of counsel for indigent parents in every parental status termination proceeding. The decision whether due process calls for the appointment of counsel is to be answered in the first instance by the trial court, subject to appellate review. Pp. 2158-2162.
(a) With regard to what the "fundamental fairness" requirement of the Due Process Clause means concerning the right to appointed counsel, there is a presumption that an indigent litigant has a right to appointed counsel only when, if he loses, he may be deprived of his physical liberty. The other elements of the due process decision—the private interest at stake, the government's interest, and the risk that the procedures used will lead to erroneous decisions, Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 903, 47 L.Ed.2d 18—must be balanced against each other and then weighed against the presumption. Pp. 25-27.
(b) The parent's interest in the accuracy and justice of the decision to terminate parental status is an extremely important one (and may be supplemented by the dangers of criminal liability inherent in some termination proceedings); the State shares with the parent an interest in a correct decision, has a relatively weak pecuniary interest in avoiding the expense of appointed counsel and the cost of the lengthened proceedings his presence may cause, and, in some but not all cases, has a possibly stronger interest in informal procedures; and the complexity of the proceeding and the incapacity of the uncounseled parent could be, but would not always be, great enough to make the risk of an erroneous deprivation of the parent's rights insupportably high. Thus if, in a given case, the parent's interests were at their strongest, the State's interests were at their weakest, and the risks of error were at their peak, the Eldridge factors would overcome the presumption against the right to appointed counsel, and due process would require appointment of counsel. Pp. 27-32.
2. In the circumstances of this case, the trial judge did not deny petitioner due process of law when he did not appoint counsel for her. The record shows, inter alia, that the petition to terminate petitioner's parental rights contained no allegations of neglect or abuse upon which criminal charges could be based; no expert witnesses testified; the case presented no specially troublesome points of law; the presence of counsel could not have made a determinative difference for petitioner; she had expressly declined to appear at the 1975 child custody hearing; and the trial court found that her failure to make an effort to contest the termination proceeding was without cause. Pp.32-33.
43 N.C.App. 525, 259 S.E.2d 336, affirmed.
Leowen Evans, Raleigh, N.C., for petitioner, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court.
Thomas Russell Odom, Bolton, N.C., for respondent.
Steven Mansfield Shaber, Raleigh, N.C., for state of North Carolina, as amicus curiae, by special leave of Court.
In the late spring of 1975, after hearing evidence that the petitioner, Abby Gail Lassiter, had not provided her infant son William with proper medical care, the District Court of Durham County, N. C., adjudicated him a neglected child and transferred him to the custody of the Durham County Department of Social Services, the respondent here. A year later, Ms. Lassiter was charged with first-degree murder, was convicted of second-degree murder, and began a sentence of 25 to 40 years of imprisonment.1 In 1978 the Department petitioned the court to terminate Ms. Lassiter's parental rights because, the Department alleged, she "has not had any contact with the child since December of 1975" and "has willfully left the child in foster care for more than two consecutive years without showing that substantial progress has been made in correcting the conditions which led to the removal of the child, or without showing a positive response to the diligent efforts of the Department of Social Services to strengthen her relationship to the child, or to make and follow through with constructive planning for the future of the child."
Ms. Lassiter was served with the petition and with notice that a hearing on it would be held. Although her mother had retained counsel for her in connection with an effort to invalidate the murder conviction, Ms. Lassiter never mentioned the forthcoming hearing to him (or, for that matter, to any other person except, she said, to "someone" in the prison). At the behest of the Department of Social Services' attorney, she was brought from prison to the hearing, which was held August 31, 1978. The hearing opened, apparently at the judge's insistance, with a discussion of whether Ms. Lassiter should have more time in which to find legal assistance. Since the court concluded that she "has had ample opportunity to seek and obtain counsel prior to the hearing of this matter, and [that] her failure to do so is without just cause," the court did not postpone the proceedings. Ms. Lassiter did not aver that she was indigent, and the court did not appoint counsel for her.
A social worker from the respondent Department was the first witness. She testified that in 1975 the Department "received a complaint from Duke Pediatrics that William had not been followed in the pediatric clinic for medical problems and that they were having difficulty in locating Ms. Lassiter. . . ." She said that in May 1975 a social worker had taken William to the hospital, where doctors asked that he stay "because of breathing difficulties [and] malnutrition and [because] there was a great deal of scarring that indicated that he had a severe infection that had gone untreated." The witness further testified that, except for one "prearranged" visit and a chance meeting on the street, Ms. Lassiter had not seen William after he had come into the State's custody, and that neither Ms. Lassiter nor her mother had "made any contact with the Department of Social Services regarding that child." When asked whether William should be placed in his grandmother's custody, the social worker said he should not, since the grandmother "has indicated to me on a number of occasions that she was not able to take responsibility for the child" and since "I have checked with people in the community and from Ms. Lassiter's church who also feel that this additional responsibility would be more than she can handle." The social worker added that William "has not seen his grandmother since the chance meeting in July of '76 and that was the only time."
After the direct examination of the social worker, the judge said:
Ms. Lassiter conducted a cross-examination of the social worker, who firmly reiterated her earlier testimony. The judge explained several times, with varying degrees of clarity, that Ms. Lassiter should only ask questions at this stage; many of her questions were disallowed because they were not really questions, but arguments.
Ms. Lassiter herself then testified, under the judge's questioning, that she had properly cared for William. Under cross-examination, she said that she had seen William more than five or six times after he had been taken from her custody and that, if William could not be with her, she wanted him to be with her mother since
Ms. Lassiter's mother was then called as a witness. She denied, under the questioning of the judge, that she had filed the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
BJRL v. State of Utah
...that in the circumstances here the interests to be balanced are different than in Doe. 8See Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18, 24-25, 101 S.Ct. 2153, 2158, 68 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981): `Due process' has never been, and perhaps can never be, precisely defined.... Applying the ......
-
In re Jonathan M.
...only if he had a constitutional right to appointed counsel in the termination proceeding.20 In Lassiter v. Dept. of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18, 24, 101 S. Ct. 2153, 68 L. Ed. 2d 640 (1981), the Supreme Court of the United States addressed whether, in a termination of parental rights case,......
-
People v. Cole
...assure that a given procedure is fundamentally fair in order to comply with due process. ( Lassiter v. Dep't of Social Services (1981) 452 U.S. 18, 27, 101 S.Ct. 2153, 68 L.Ed.2d 640 ( Lassiter ).) While legally distinct, the due process guarantee and the exercise of supervisory powers both......
-
In re Yasiel R.
...of the decision to terminate his or her parental status is, therefore, a commanding one." Lassiter v. Dept. of Social Services, 452 U.S. 18, 27, 101 S. Ct. 2153, 68 L. Ed. 2d 640 (1981). That court has emphasized that even when familial "relationships are strained," the importance of the pa......
-
Fair Notice As A Defense To Novel Tort Liability
...System, 90 Va. L. Rev. 1401, 1402 (2004). 48. DeVries, 139 S. Ct. at 1000 (Gorsuch, J., dissenting). 49. Lassiter v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 452 U.S. 18, 24-25 50. Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 173 (1952). The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject......
-
Unmarried Fathers and Adoption: 'Perfecting' or 'Abandoning' an Opportunity Interest
...IOWA CODE ANN. § 600A.8(3). 160 See supra notes 43–72 and accompanying text. 161 See Lassiter v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of Durham County, 452 U.S. 18, 21–22 (1981) (affirming the termination of a mother’s parental rights because her termination hearing was properly conducted). 162 See, e.g. ,......
-
Determination of parentage - unmarried parents
...countervailing interest, protection.” Lassiter v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. , 22-25 Determination of Parentage — Unmarried Parents §22:155 452 U.S. 18, 27 (1981)(quoting Stanley v. Illinois , 405 U.S. 645, 651 (1972)). Id . at 334. In D.M.T. , the Florida Supreme Court compared the rights of an ......
-
THE EMPTY PROMISE OF THE FOURTH AMENDMENT IN THE FAMILY REGULATION SYSTEM.
...court can determine whether the best interests of the child demand further action be taken) (197.) See Lassiter v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 452 U.S. 18, 45 n. 13 (1981) (Blackmun, J., dissenting) ("[T]he 'best interests of the child' standard offers little guidance to judges, and may effective......
-
Money matters: judicial market interventions creating subsidies and awarding fees and costs in individual and aggregate litigation.
...for all indigents when termination of parental rights is sought); Choiniere v. Brooks, 660 A. 2d 289, 289-90 (Vt. 1995) (same). (33) 452 U.S. 18 (1981). (34) The crabbed and cumbersome ruling provided little possibility for other litigants--also facing the state--to obtain counsel as of con......