>>> Supreme Court rules against grandparent rights WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court today curbed states' power to help grandparents visit their grandchildren against parents' wishes, a decision that could touch every American family. "So long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children ... there will normally be no reason for the state to inject itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent's children," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the court's main opinion. The decision in a case from Washington state yielded six opinions from the nine-member court, but no one opinion attracted a majority of five. Parents' right to raise their children free from government interference generally trumps state laws aimed at giving grandparents broad rights to seek visitation, the court ruled by a 6-3 vote. The decision invalidated a state law that allowed "any person," relative or nonrelative, to win a court-ordered right to see a child any time such visitation was found to be in a child's best interest. All 50 states have grandparent-visitation laws but few are as expansive as Washington's. "Because we rest our decision on the sweeping breadth of (Washington's law) and the application of that broad, unlimited power in this case, we do not consider the primary constitutional question passed on by the Washington Supreme Court - whether the (Constitution's) due-process clause requires all nonparental visitation statutes to include a showing of harm or potential harm to a child as a condition precedent to granting visitation," O'Connor said. "We do not, and need not, define today the precise scope of the parental due-process right in the visitation context," she said. Joining O'Connor were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Justices David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas wrote concurring opinions. Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy each wrote dissenting opinions. In his concurring opinion, Thomas said he agreed with O'Connor "that this court's recognition of a fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children resolves this case." The court first acknowledged such a right in 1925. Stevens said in dissent that the invalidated Washington law "merely gives an individual - with whom a child may have an established relationship - the procedural right to ask the state to act as arbiter, through the entirely well-known best-interests standard, between the parent's protected interests and the child's." He said the Constitution "leaves room for states to consider the impact on a child of possibly arbitrary parental decisions that neither serve nor are motivated by the best interests of the child." The case, pitting a state's desire to promote children's best interests against parental rights, has been one of the most closely watched and emotionally charged in recent Supreme Court history. Sixty million Americans are grandparents, including six of the court's members. A recently released survey by AARP found about one in nine American grandparents above the age of 50 helps care for at least one grandchild. The survey showed that 8 percent provide day care regularly, and 3 percent function as parents, rearing a grandchild. The Washington law had been struck down by the state's highest court, a ruling that wiped out an Anacortes, Wash., couple's legal right to see their two granddaughters. Gary and Jenifer Troxel had gone into state court to seek more time with the two girls, 10-year-old Natalie and 8-year-old Isabelle. The girls' father, Brad Troxel, committed suicide in 1993. He and the girls' mother, Tommie Granville, were never married. When they separated, Troxel lived with his parents. The girls regularly visited their father at the Troxels' home. After Brad Troxel's death, Natalie and Isabelle continued seeing their grandparents regularly until their mother limited their visits. The Troxels went to court in late 1993, and two years later were awarded visitation of one weekend a month, one week during the summer and four hours on the girls' birthdays. While Granville appealed, she married Kelly Wynn. He then adopted Natalie and Isabelle. The Troxels, married for 35 years, have three other children and five grandchildren in all. Gary Troxel, a longshoreman, has been since his high school days a member of the Fleetwoods, a singing group that made such pop classics as "Come Softly to Me" and "Mr. Blue." The decision comes at a time of decline for nuclear families and a rise in the number of nontraditional families. Among those urging the justices to move slowly in weighing the competing rights in such disputes were lesbian rights groups who say "de facto" parents - those who played a significant parentlike role in a child's life - should get visitation rights. Those persons could be grandparents or a co-parent in a same-sex relationship, the justices were told. Today's decision did not discuss those kinds of cases. O'Connor, Rehnquist, Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy and Ginsburg are the court's grandparents. Thomas was raised by his grandparents. The case is Troxel vs. Granville, 99-138. --- On the Net: For the decision: http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/ Click on "this month's decisions" or http://www.supremecourtus.gov <<< for this article go: http://www.trib.com/HOMENEWS/WASH/AAScotus_Grandparents.html for Eagle 1 - Observing the World Around You - News Resource go: http://www.crayon.net/read.cgi?[EMAIL PROTECTED] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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