Judgment for plaintiffs, 412 F. Supp.112 (M.D. Ga. 1976), probable jurisdiction noted, 431U.S. 936 (1977).
Holding
(1) Georgia's procedures for committing a child to a state mental hospital are not constitutionally deficient because the Constitution requires that parents are presumed to act in the best interest of their children. This presumption may only be rebutted, and the state may only intervene in a parental decision, if it is proven that a parent has neglected or abused their child.
(2) The Due Process Clause requires that a "neutral factfinder" must periodically review a child's continued commitment to a state mental hospital upon parental request. However, the factfinder is not required to be trained in law, nor is the proceeding required to be an adversary hearing.
Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed Georgia's procedures for the commitment of a child to a mental hospital based on the request of a parent. The Court rejected, by a vote of 6–3, a class-action lawsuit from a group of minors, who claimed that the state's procedures were insufficient to ensure that parents did not use state mental hospitals as a "dumping ground" for children, and to ensure that minors committed to mental hospitals by their parents actually suffered from a condition sufficient to justify commitment.[1] In so doing, the Court reversed a lower court ruling holding numerous aspects of the Georgia mental health system unconstitutional.
Majority
The five-justice majority, composed of Chief Justice Burger and Justices White, Powell, Blackmun, and Rehnquist, concluded that the Due Process Clause did not afford minors committed to state mental hospitals by their parents the right to an adversarial hearing before a judicial or administrative authority. This is due to the presumption in United States constitutional law, built on the doctrine of parental rights, that parents act in the best interest of their child unless rebutted by a finding, based on compelling evidence, that they have abused their authority.
The majority rejected the "statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority ... because some parents abuse and neglect children." While the Court recognized that parents could abuse their power to commit a child to a mental hospital, these cases would be rare, and would be precluded by the procedures already in place. An adversarial hearing, Chief Justice Burger wrote, would create an unacceptable intrusion into the parent-child relationship, and would be inconsistent with the constitutional presumption of parental competence and good intentions.[2]
Finally, the Court determined that because of the potential for abuse, the due process rights of minors required that state mental hospitals provide a neutral factfinder to review, after admission, parental decisions to involuntarily commit their minor child. However, the Court did not require pre-commitment hearings, and stated that the post-commitment procedures were not required to be adversarial or formal; the due process requirement could be fulfilled by a review of the parental decision by a neutral medical professional, considering all relevant information which that professional would rely on to make medical decisions.[3]
As such, the District Court was reversed and remanded.
Concurrence
Justice Stewart, concurring only in the judgment, accepted the majority's recognition of the presumption that parents act in their children's best interest, and stated that due to this presumption, Georgia's system did not violate the Constitution. However, he did not agree that the Constitution required states to respect parents' decisions in this area, citing Prince v. Massachusetts, where the Court held that parental rights may be restricted to serve a compelling government interest.
Concurrence in part and dissent in part
Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Marshall and Stevens, agreed that due process did not require pre-commitment hearings for all juveniles committed by their parents. However, they argued that at least one post-admission hearing was required, where juveniles committed by their parents would possess the right to be "informed of the reasons for their commitment... the right to be present at the commitment determination, the right to representation, the right to be heard, the right to be confronted with adverse witnesses, the right to cross-examine, [and] the right to offer evidence of their own."[4] Brennan, Marshall, and Stevens also stated that children in state custody were entitled to adversarial pre-commitment hearings, and that the consideration that parents act in the best interest of their children does not apply to social workers, who are themselves government agents. These three justices would have reversed the lower court decision in part and affirmed it in part.
Impact
The American Journal of Law and Medicine has argued that the decision's failure to provide protections for mature minors and wards of the state was inconsistent with due process, and has urged reconsideration of the ruling.[5] Winsor C. Schmidt, Jr., writing in the Journal of Psychiatry and Law, has criticized the decision, stating that its use of medical studies was "unsophisticated and noncomprehensive.[6]"
^"Appellees, children being treated in a Georgia state mental hospital, instituted in Federal District Court a class action against Georgia mental health officials. Appellees sought a declaratory judgment that Georgia's procedures for voluntary commitment of children under the age of 18 to state mental hospitals violated the Due Process Clause..." Parham, 442 U.S. at 584.
^"Another problem with requiring a formalized, factfinding hearing lies in the danger it poses for significant intrusion into the parent-child relationship. Pitting the parents and child as adversaries often will be at odds with the presumption that parents act in the best interests of their child." 442 U. S. at 610.
^"We do no more than emphasize that the decision should represent an independent judgment of what the child requires and that all sources of information that are traditionally relied on by physicians and behavioral specialists should be consulted." 442 U. S. at 608.
^Tiano, L.V. (Spring 1980). "Parham v. J. R.: "voluntary" commitment of minors to mental institutions". American Journal of Law and Medicine. 6 (1): 125–149. PMID7435506.
^Schmidt, Winsor C. (September 1985). "Considerations of Social Science in a Reconsideration of Parham v. J.R. and the Commitment of Children to Public Mental Institutions". Journal of Psychiatry and Law. 13 (3–4): 339–359. doi:10.1177/0093185385013003-403.
