Little v. Streater

• Decision Date: 01 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 79-6779,79-6779
• Citation: 68 L.Ed.2d 627,101 S.Ct. 2202,452 U.S. 1
• Parties: Walter LITTLE, Appellant, v. Gloria STREATER
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

452 U.S. 1

101 S.Ct. 2202

68 L.Ed.2d 627

Walter LITTLE, Appellant,

v Gloria STREATER.

No. 79-6779.

Argued Jan. 13, 1981.

Decided June 1, 1981.

Syllabus

After appellee, while unmarried, gave birth to a female child, she identified appellant as the father to the Connecticut Department of Social Services, a requirement stemming from the child's receipt of public assistance. The Department then provided an attorney for appellee to bring a paternity suit against appellant in a Connecticut state court. Appellant moved the trial court to order blood grouping tests on appellee and her child pursuant to a Connecticut statute (§ 46b-168), which includes the provision that the cost of such tests shall be chargeable against the party requesting them. Asserting that he was indigent, appellant asked that the State be ordered to pay for the tests. The trial court granted the motion insofar as it sought the tests but denied the request that they be furnished at the State's expense, with the result that no tests were performed. After a trial, the court found that appellant was the child's father, entered a damages judgment against him, and ordered him to pay child support directly to the State. The Appellate Session of the Connecticut Superior Court affirmed, holding, inter alia, that § 46b-168 does not violate the due process rights of an indigent defendant in a paternity proceeding.

Held: In the circumstances of this case, application of § 46b-168 to deny appellant blood grouping tests because of his lack of financial resources violated the due process guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 5-17.

(a) Appellant's due process claim is premised on the unique quality of blood grouping tests as a source of exculpatory evidence, the State's prominent role in the litigation, and the character of paternity suits under Connecticut law. In evaluating that claim, the following factors must be considered: the private interests at stake; the risk that the procedures used will lead to erroneous results and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and the governmental interests affected. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18. Pp. 5-12.

(b) Assessment of these factors indicates that appellant did not receive the process he was constitutionally due. The private interests implicated are substantial. Given the usual absence of witnesses in a paternity suit, the self-interest coloring the litigants' testimony, Connecticut's onerous evidentiary rule that the reputed father's testimony alone is insufficient to overcome the mother's prima facie case, and the State's refusal to pay for blood grouping tests, the risk is not inconsiderable that an indigent defendant will be erroneously adjudged the father. Furthermore, because of its recognized capacity to definitively exclude a high percentage of falsely accused putative fathers, the availability of scientific blood test evidence clearly would be a valuable procedural safeguard in such cases. And the State's financial interest in avoiding the expenses of blood grouping tests is not significant enough to overcome the substantial private interests involved, particularly where federal funds are available to help defray such expenses and the State could advance such expenses and then tax them as costs to the parties. Thus, without aid in obtaining blood test evidence in a paternity case, an indigent defendant, who faces the State as an adversary when the child is a recipient of public assistance and who must overcome the evidentiary burden Connecticut imposes, lacks "a meaningful opportunity to be heard." Pp. 2209-2211.

Reversed and remanded.

Jon C. Blue, New Haven, Conn., for appellant.

Stephen J. McGovern, Hartford, Conn., for appellee.

Chief Justice BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.

This appeal presents the question whether a Connecticut statute which provides that in paternity actions the cost of blood grouping tests is to be borne by the party requesting them, violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment when applied to deny such tests to indigent defendants.

I

On May 21, 1975, appellee Gloria Streater, while unmarried, gave birth to a female child, Kenyatta Chantel Streater. As a requirement stemming from her child's receipt of public assistance, appellee identified appellant Walter Little as the child's father to the Connecticut Department of Social Services. See Conn.Gen.Stat. § 46b-169 (1981). The Department then provided an attorney for appellee to bring a paternity suit against appellant in the Court of Common Pleas at New Haven to establish his liability for the child's support.¹

At the time the paternity action was commenced, appellant was incarcerated in the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Enfield. Through his counsel, who was provided by a legal aid organization, appellant moved the trial court to order blood grouping tests on appellee and her child pursuant to Conn.Gen.Stat. § 52-184 (1977), which later became Conn.Gen.Stat. § 46b-168 (1981) and includes the provision that "[t]he costs of making such tests shall be chargeable against the party making the motion." ² Appellant asserted that he was indigent ³ and asked that the State be ordered to pay for the tests. The trial court granted the motion insofar as it sought blood grouping tests but denied the request that they be furnished at the State's expense. App. 8.

For "financial reasons," no blood grouping tests were performed even though they had been authorized. Id., at 12. The paternity action was tried to the court on September 28, 1978. Both appellee and appellant, who was still a state prisoner, testified at trial. Id., at 14-19.⁴ After listening to the testimony, the court found that appellant was the child's father. Id., at 2-20. Following a subsequent hearing on damages, the court entered judgment against appellant in the amount of $6,974.48, which included the "lying-in" expenses of appellee and the child, "accrued maintenance" through October 31, 1978, and the "costs of suit plus reasonable attorney's fees." Ibid. In addition, appellant was ordered to pay child support at the rate of $2 per month—$1 toward the arrearage amount of $6,974.48 and $1 toward a current monthly award of $163.58—directly to Connecticut's Department of Finance and Control. Id., at 20-21.⁵

The Appellate Session of the Connecticut Superior Court affirmed the trial court's judgment in a per curiam opinion that is not officially reported. Relying on its prior decision in Ferro v. Morgan, 35 Conn.Supp. 679, 406 A.2d 873, cert. denied, 177 Conn. 753, 399 A.2d 526 (1979), the Appellate Session held that Conn.Gen.Stat. § 46b-168 (1981) does not violate the due process and equal protection rights of an indigent defendant in a paternity proceeding. The Appellate Session thus found no error in the trial court's denial of appellant's motion that the cost of blood grouping tests be paid by the State. App. 25-26.

Thereafter, appellant's petition for certification was denied by the Connecticut Supreme Court, 180 Conn. 756, 414 A.2d 199 (1980); and we noted probable jurisdiction, 449 U.S. 817, 101 S.Ct. 350, 66 L.Ed.2d 212 (1980).

II

The Fourteenth Amendment provides in part: "No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. . . ." Appellant argues that his right to due process was abridged by the refusal, under Conn.Gen.Stat. § 46b-168 (1981 ), to grant his request based on indigency for state-subsidized blood grouping tests.

Due process, "unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances." Joint Anti-Facist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 162, 71 S.Ct. 624, 643, 95 L.Ed. 817 (1951) (concurring opinion). Rather, it is "flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands." Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 2600, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972). In Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 377, 91 S.Ct. 780, 785, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971), the Court held that "due process requires, at a minimum, that absent a countervailing state interest of overriding significance, persons forced to settle their claims of right and duty through the judicial process must be given a meaningful opportunity to be heard." Accord, Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U.S. 545, 552, 85 S.Ct. 1187, 1191, 14 L.Ed.2d 62 (1965); Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 313, 70 S.Ct. 652, 656, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950). And in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 903, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976), we explained:

"[I]dentification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires consideration of three distinct factors: First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail."

These standards govern appellant's due process claim, which is premised on the unique qualify of blood grouping tests as a source of exculpatory evidence, the State's prominent role in the litigation, and the character of paternity actions under Connecticut law.

A

The discovery of human blood groups by Dr. Karl Landsteiner in Vienna at the beginning of this century, and subsequent understanding of their hereditary aspects, made possible the eventual use of blood tests to scientifically evaluate allegations of paternity. P. Speiser & F. Smekal, Karl Landsteiner 89-93 (1975). Like their European counterparts, American courts gradually recognized the evidentiary value of blood grouping tests in paternity cases, and the modern...