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Constitutional Constraints

A substantial underpinning of laws affecting minors is the presumption that children are the property of their parents and, as a result, great deference is given to the parental/legal guardian role.3 In a recent United States Supreme Court case involving visitation rights of children, ``Justice Stevens reproached the plurality for suggesting that children are chattel.''4 In his dissent, Justice Stevens stated that parents often view their children with a possessory interest, writing, ``parents serve the best interests of their children but - `even a fit parent is capable of treating a child like a mere possession'.''5

When minors are faced with the challenges of homelessness, their rights are often infringed upon, if not forgotten. However, a great deal of confusion and inconsistency in granting and confirming rights to homeless minors is a result of the vagueness of the law, because ``[t]he issue of exactly what rights children have under the Constitution remains unclear.''6 There is the additonal question of who will actually protect those rights. Further questions inherent in affording minors legal rights are: ``[a]t what age should society first accord a child particular legal rights, [and] [a]t what age should society recognize a child to be autonomous for the purpose of making certain kinds of legal decisions.''7 Ironically, the very rights of a minor in question may not be represented in court, since minors often face obstacles in obtaining legal counsel for non-criminal matters.8 The deeply rooted reluctance to ``place protection of children above the liberties of biological parents and the policies of state legislators'' underlies the legislature's and judiciary's hesitance to allow minors access to the legal system.9 Also, some critics feel that granting counsel to minors would result in inconsistent application of law.10



Footnotes

...3
Crocker v. Pleasant, 727 So.2d. 1087 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999).
...4
36 Harv. Civ.Rights-Civ. Libs. L. Rev. 225, 240 (2001), citing Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S.Ct. 2054 (2000) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (suit of a mother to limit visitation rights of her children's' biological grandparents).
...5
Id. at 239, citing Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 2071 (2000).
...6
Jay C. Laubscher, Student Author, Note: A Minor of ``Sufficient Age and Understanding'' Should Have the Right to Petition For the Termination of the Parental Relationship, 40 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 565, 572 (1996).
...7
Martin Guggenheim, Article: The Right To Be Represented But Not Heard: Reflections On Legal Representation For Children, 59 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 76, 84 (1984).
...8
Laubscher, supra n. 7, at 575.
...9
36 Harv. Civ.Rights-Civ. Libs. L. Rev. 225, 251 (2001), citing Elizabeth Bartholet, Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative, 35-36 (1999).
...10
Guggenheim, supra n. 10, at 77; Alessia Bell, Student Author, Public and Private Child: Troxel v. Granville and the Constitutional Rights of Family Members, 36 Harv. Civ.Rights-Civ. Libs. L. Rev. 225, 274 (2001) (using best interest of child standard in legal proceedings has yielded ``at best inconsistent results.''

next up previous contents index
Next: Runaway and Homeless Youths Up: Introduction Previous: Prior Law Office Work   Contents   Index
LCD Law Office #2