Stanley v. Illinois
Nature of Case: The plaintiff is Peter Stanley. He said that his rights to equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment have been violated. He believes that the Illinois law that makes children of unwed father’s wards of the state upon death of the mother violated his rights.
Facts: Joan and Peter Stanley lived intermittently together for 18 years, in which they had 3 children. When Joan Stanley died, Stanley’s children were declared wards of the state and placed with court appointed guardians after a dependency hearing by the State of Illinois. Stanley claimed that he had never been shown to be an unfit parent. He believed that since married fathers and unwed mothers could not be deprived of their children without proving this, neither should he. The Illinois Supreme Court accepted the fact that Peter Stanley’s unfitness had not been proven but rejected that he was deprived of his rights under the 14th amendment.
Issue: Did the State of Illinois violate the Equal Protection Clause when it denied Peter Stanley a hearing on his fitness to keep his children?
Holding: Yes, a hearing is guaranteed by equal protection under the law, for both married fathers and unwed mothers & unwed fathers.
Rule: 1. Justice White, speaking for the majority believes that the decision in this case is similar to Bell v. Burson, in which held that the state could not deprive a person of there drivers license pertaining to a speeding violation without a hearing. He stated: "The states interest in caring for Stanley’s children is de minimis if Stanley is shown to be a fit father. It insists on presuming rather than proving Stanley’s unfitness solely because it is more convenient to presume than to prove. 2. They concluded that all Illinois parents are constitutionally entitled to a hearing on their fitness before their children are removed from their custody. Denying such a hearing to Stanley and those like him while granting it to other Illinois parents is inescapably contrary to the Equal Protection Clause. 3. The rule of law that justifies the holding of the case is: "It is cardinal with us that the custody, care, and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state may neither supply nor hinder" (Prince v. Mass.). 4. "The integrity of the family unit has found protection in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Ninth Amendment.
Adair v. U.S. and Coppage v. Kansas became two defining cases in the Lochner era, a period defined after the Supreme Court’s decision in Lochner v New York, where the court adopted a broad understanding of the due process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment. In these cases the court used the substantive due process principle to determine whether a state statute or state’s policing power violated an individual’s freedom of contract. To gain a better understanding of the court’s reasoning it is essential to understand what they disregarded and how the rulings relate to the rulings in Plessy v. Ferguson, Lochner v. New York and Muller v. Oregon.
Robert Duffley, a high school senior at Trinity High School, had withdrawn from his sophomore year early in the first semester after falling ill. Anticipating problems with his eligibility to participate in high-school sports during his senior year under certain NHIAA rules, Duffley’s principal sought a ruling from the NHIAA granting such eligibility. The NHIAA decided to allow Duffley to participate only during the first semester of his senior year. No reason was given for denying Duffley eligibility for the second semester. After unsuccessful appeals to the NHIAA executive council, Duffley filed a petition in the Superior Court, seeking equitable and injunctive relief. Duffley alleged "violation of his due process rights” and that the defendant had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in arriving at its decision, which was “unreasonable and unlawful."
The court case Cleveland Board of Education V. LaFleur challenged the maternity policy regarding teachers having to go on unpaid leave involuntarily for 4-5 months due to their pregnancy. Jo Carol LaFleur and Ana Elizabeth Nelson whom were both teachers working under the Cleveland Board of Education when these issues occurred that lead to their decision of filing a suit against the board. They mainly hoped to be able to still continue their teaching well after the 5 month mark that the policy required them to leave. Failure to comply with these rules would have lead to their dismissal of their position or re-employment is not guaranteed. The Supreme Court ruled that the Cleveland Board of Education policy violated and went against the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. This case was very significant in which it preserved the rights of teachers, especially women.
In the 1996 Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans, the voters of the state of Colorado approved a second amendment to their state Constitution through a referendum, in order to prevent homosexuals from becoming a protected minority. Before the referendum occurred, many of the major cities in Colorado passed laws prohibiting people to be discriminated against based on their sexuality, including whether or not they are homosexual. The citizens of Colorado who disapprove of homosexuality then created a petition to put the second amendment to a vote, and won with a majority of 53% of the votes. Richard Evans, with the support of many others, took the amendment to court claiming it was unconstitutional, and should be removed from the constitution, going on to win in the Colorado Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court.
Moore, W.D. The fourteenth amendment’s initial authority: problems of constitutional coherence. Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review. 2014. Vol NN:N. pp101-132.
In 1971, Norma McCorvey or Jane Roe, filled a case against the district attorney of Dallas County, Henry Wade, because he enforced a Texas law that prohibited abortion unless the abortion was needed medically, to save the mother’s life. Being a single, pregnant woman , Roe did not have the choice to have an abortion because the pregnancy was not endangering her life. Plus, Roe could not afford to travel to have the operation done safely. As a result, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, two lawyers that graduated from the University of Texas Law School, claimed a lawsuit against the abortion laws in Texas because they violated Roe’s constitutional rights. Besides Roe’s two laywers, Hallford, a licensed physician, and a childless married couple known as the Does supported Roe’s case. The lawsuit against Wade was filed in a Texas Federal Court. The Texas Federal Court heard the case on December 13th, 1971 and again, on October 11th, 1972. After the examination of Weddington and Coffee’s argument against Jay Floyd’s, the lawyer for Wade during the first argument, and Robert C. Flower’s, the lawyer for Texas in the second argument, the court ruled in Roe’s favor by claiming that the law did violate the Constitution. Consequently, Wade appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lawrence v. Texas In the case Lawrence v. Texas (539 U.S. 558, 2003) which was the United States Supreme Court case the criminal prohibition of the homosexual pederasty was invalidated in Texas. The same issue has been already addressed in 1989 in the case Bowers v. Hardwick, however, the constitutional protection of sexual privacy was not found at that time. Lawrence overruled Bowers and held that sexual conduct was the right protected by the due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The effects of the ruling were quite widespread and led to invalidation of the similar laws throughout the United States that tried to criminalize the homosexual activity of adults who were acting in privacy.
...ating her pregnancy . . . we have long upheld parental involvement statutes,” (law.cornell.edu, 2012), also from the majority opinion. Based on these beliefs and similar antecedent cases, the Court unanimously decided that the bill did not need to be shot down. Instead, they simply remanded the lower courts to determine the original legislative intent (renewamerica.com, 2012).
According to many the custody of a child should be determined with the best interest of the child in mind. However, it is not easy for a judge to make such an important decision in such a short amount of time with limited information. Smith (2004) stated that, the simple fact of being a mother does not indicate a willingness or capacity to render a quality of care different than that which a father can provide. Some might argue that what Reynolds (2004) calls deadbeat dads, or in other words fathers who refuse to pay their child support, are often times confused with Turnips, who are ex-spouses who can not afford to pay child support. One example of a turnip is a father who is in prison; he is obviously not making money while he is on the inside. Now an example of a deadbeat dad is when the father is enjoying all the finer things in life and he cannot reach far enough into his...
The goal of Juvenile Courts and the Child Welfare Agencies is to protect and make decision in the best interest of children. The ASFA law was signed by President Bill Clinton. On November 19, 1997 after it was approved by the United States Congress earlier in the month. The law was the most significant piece of legislation dealing with child welfare in twenty years. States decided to interpret the law as requiring biological families to be kept together no matter what, but the law shifted emphasis towards children health and safety concerns and away from a policy of reuniting children with their birth parents without regards to their prior abuse. ASFA lead sponsor, Republican Senator John H. Chafee of Rhode Island said, “We will not continue the current system of always putting the needs and rights of biological parents first … It’s time we recognize that some families simply cannot and should not be kept together.” This phil...
One of the issues in this case was that the Court must decide whether section 377.60, subdivision (b) contemplates a subjective or objective standard of good faith for putative spouse status. Ceja v. Rudolph & Sletten, Inc., 56 Cal. 4th 1113, 158 Cal. Rptr. 3d 21, 302 P.3d 211 (2013).
Tarlton v. Clark is a case in which the courts refused to rehear the case regarding the inmates alleged right to a conjugal visit. The courts held in Tarlton that the conjugal visits fail to reach a level which would be a constitutional right. Seeing this has not deterred inmates from claiming eighth amendment violations due to denial of conjugal visit requests. Anderson v. Vasquez was a case in which death row inmates claimed a violation of their eighth amendment rights for denial of conjugal visits, also adding that they have been denied the right to preserve sperm for artificial insemination for their spouses. While adding this extra condition may appear to present a new issue; the courts held that because the original complaint did not list the denial of artificial insemination it would not be considered as a pretext to hear the case. In doing so the courts showed that said inmates never requested to preserve their sperm through prison officials and restated that inmates do not have a constitutional right to conjugal visits
The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 and stated that “all persons born…in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.” The Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark first recognized the doctrine of birthright citizenship. In this case, the defendant argued that because he was a citizen of the U.S. because he was born in California and had lived there for twenty-one years. The U.S. District Attorney argued that while Wong Kim Ark may have been born into the U.S., he was not subject to its jurisdiction since Worn Kim Ark, through his Chinese parents, were subject to the emperor of China. Not persuaded by this argument, the U.S. Supreme Court held that children born in the U.S. to resident aliens are U.S. citizens, which created the concept of automatic birthright citizenship. This concept has been debated within the U.S. Supreme Court and in different levels of the judiciary system, but to this date there is no comprehensive approach on solving the ambiguity of what constitutes a ‘natural-born’
...icant. This one for many families today is very important. These cases are also the reason why during a census you have the opportunity to check multiple races, instead of just one. This case stirred debates of gay marriage, which is a matter of personal opinion. It is up to you whether that is a pro or a con.
This movie still involves a court case which means, Sam’s case needs to be argued for legally as well. Section 15 subsection 1 of the Charter Rights and Freedoms states that “[e]very individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection... of the law without discrimination...”. This half of section 15 states that Sam should not be discriminated against simply because he has a mental disability. Sam should have the right to parent his child just as any other parent. Some may argue that because subsection 2 states that “subsection 1 does not preclude any law... that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals...” an individual like Sam is no longer protected by section 15. Sam should still be protected under the law to equality because taking away his daughter does not improve Sam’s situation. Both Sam and Lucy were extremely upset about losing each other and this loss caused many problems. In court, Sam could not handle the Mr. Turner’s interrogation in court as well as his loss at the same time which caused him to freak out. Being put under this kind of pressure will of course cause outbreaks of all kinds from parents even without disabilities which means that this was not a valid statement from Sam when he admitted to not knowing how to parent Lucy. Sam was frantically trying to defend his case when he finally said “She deserves everything. In my heart of hearts.” he was not stating that Lucy does not need her father, he just wants the best for Lucy. Mr. Turner had a set of “attacks” and Sam simply could not handle that kind of pressure. This is not to say that Sam’s mental disability does not matter in this case at all, but Sam’s disability does not prevent him from being a good