explaining that “the interest of parents in their relationship with then-children is sufficiently fundamental to come within the finite class of liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment” (quoting Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 774, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted))
How later courts described this case
- explaining that “the interest of parents in their relationship with then-children is sufficiently fundamental to come within the finite class of liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment” (quoting Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 774, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted))
- holding that a state in which civil litigants have a general statutory right to appeal from state court decisions, it is inconsistent with the due process and equal protection clauses to condition a mother’s right to appeal from the court’s civil order terminating her parental rights on her ability to prepay record preparation fees
- holding that mother had due process right to appeal termination of parental rights while noting the distinction between “loss of custody, which does not sever the parent-child bond” and “parental status termination [which] is irretrievably destructive of the most fundamental family relationship” (internal quotation marks omitted)
- holding that the Supreme Court’s decisions regarding "access to judicial processes ... reflect both equal protection and due process concerns” and that "A ‘precise rationale’ has not been composed” for analyzing those cases "because cases of this order cannot be resolved by resort to easy slogans or pigeonhole analysis”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Kennedy,
concurring in the judgment.
The Court gives a most careful and comprehensive recitation of the precedents from Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956), through Mayer v. Chicago, 404 U. S. 189 (1971), and beyond, a line of decisions which invokes both equal protection and due process principles. The duality, as the Court notes, stems from Griffin itself, which produced no opinion for the Court and invoked strands of both constitutional doctrines.
In my view the cases most on point, and the ones which persuade me we must reverse the judgment now reviewed, are the decisions addressing procedures involving the rights and privileges inherent in family and personal relations. *129 These are Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371 (1971); Lassiter v. Department of Social Servs. of Durham Cty., 452 U. S. 18 (1981); and Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U. S. 745 (1982), all eases resting exclusively upon the Due Process Clause. Here, due process is quite a sufficient basis for our holding.
I acknowledge the authorities do not hold that an appeal is required, even in a criminal case; but given the existing appellate structure in Mississippi, the realities of the litigation process, and the fundamental interests at stake in this particular proceeding, the State may not erect a bar in the form of transcript and filing costs beyond this petitioner’s means. The Court well describes the fundamental interests the petitioner has in ensuring that the order which terminated all her parental ties was based upon a fair assessment of the facts and the law. See Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 335 (1976). With these observations, I concur in the judgment.