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JiadaiLinSecondPaper 5 - 27 Apr 2010 - Main.JiadaiLin
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-- By JiadaiLin - 16 Apr 2010 | | | Justice Scalia begins the opinion of Michael H. v. Gerald with “The facts of this case are, we must hope, extraordinary.” In Constitutional Law, we read this case as one of several that serves as an excellent springboard for discussions about due process and individual rights. In the final moments of class on that particular morning, Professor mentioned that this case actually involves an incredibly unique set of facts that could be interesting to uncover in our own time. | |
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< | Professor was right. The edited down opinion in the casebook is actually the skeleton of a complicated and lengthy tale of four people. Perhaps this particular fact pattern appears unique because it involves a supermodel mother and her daughter, her wealthy French husband, an affair and subsequent bicoastal stints in Los Angeles, New York and the Caribbean Islands. Certainly not ordinary facts, at first glance. At a second glance, however, the issues of the case, beneath the glamour and drama, are not uncommon at all. | >
> | Professor was right. The edited down opinion in the casebook is actually the skeleton of a complicated and lengthy tale of four people. Perhaps this particular fact pattern appears unique because it involves a supermodel mother and her daughter Victoria, her wealthy French husband, an affair and subsequent bicoastal stints in Los Angeles, New York and the Caribbean Islands. Certainly not ordinary facts, at first glance. At a second glance, however, the issues of the case, beneath the glamour and drama, are not uncommon at all. | | |
Whose rights are at stake? | |
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< | In cases of conflicting parental rights, such as this, there are many rights at stake. The biological father asserts a right to visitation, the mother may want a right to choose who is the “father-figure” in her child’s life, the married-in father may want the right to play that role. It seems to me, however, that the most important right of all may actually be the most vague: the right of the child who is being fought over. It is hard to articulate exactly what particular right the child has at stake in such a case. It may be the right to both a mother and a father, but that is practically acknowledged and it is the question of how to fulfill that right that is indeed at the center of the Court’s debate. When the intense debates among the adults in the case and the among the members of the Court have settled and are stripped away, however, only then does it become clear that consequently the childhood at the center of it all has been irrevocably affected in a bad way. | >
> | In cases of conflicting parental rights, such as this, there are many rights at stake. The biological father asserts a right to visitation, the mother may want a right to choose who is the “father-figure” in her child’s life, the married-in father may want the right to play that role. It seems to me, however, that the most important right of all may actually be the most vague: the right of the child who is being fought over. It is hard to articulate exactly what particular right the child has at stake in such a case. The Court states that Victoria's basic claim is a Due Process right to maintain filial relationships with both fatherfigures in her life. This claim, according to the Court, "must fail." This seems troubling because when the intense legal and substantive debates have settled and are stripped away, it then become clear that consequently the childhood at the center of it all has been irrevocably affected in a bad way. | | | A brief overview: parental rights and the law |
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