Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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To the consternation of many children's rights activists, a decision issued by the court in 1989 and authored for the majority by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, said they had not.
The due process clause, Rehnquist wrote, "is phrased as a limitation on the state's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety."
Due process, in other words, protects us from government intrusion. It does not compel the government to act.
Justice Harry Blackmun's dissent is one of the most famous of his career:
"Poor Joshua! Victim of repeated attacks by an irresponsible, bullying, cowardly, and intemperate father, and abandoned by (child protective services), who placed him in a dangerous predicament and who knew or learned what was going on, and yet did nothing....
"It is a sad commentary upon American life, and constitutional principles — so full of late of patriotic fervor and proud proclamations about 'liberty and justice for all' that this child, Joshua DeShaney, now is assigned to live out the remainder of his life profoundly retarded. Joshua and his mother, as petitioners here, deserve — but now are denied by this Court — the opportunity to have the facts of their case considered in the light of the constitution...."
Boy at center of famous ‘Poor Joshua!’ court dissent dies
Here is the case for those that are interested.
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services
The due process clause, Rehnquist wrote, "is phrased as a limitation on the state's power to act, not as a guarantee of certain minimal levels of safety."
Due process, in other words, protects us from government intrusion. It does not compel the government to act.
Justice Harry Blackmun's dissent is one of the most famous of his career:
"Poor Joshua! Victim of repeated attacks by an irresponsible, bullying, cowardly, and intemperate father, and abandoned by (child protective services), who placed him in a dangerous predicament and who knew or learned what was going on, and yet did nothing....
"It is a sad commentary upon American life, and constitutional principles — so full of late of patriotic fervor and proud proclamations about 'liberty and justice for all' that this child, Joshua DeShaney, now is assigned to live out the remainder of his life profoundly retarded. Joshua and his mother, as petitioners here, deserve — but now are denied by this Court — the opportunity to have the facts of their case considered in the light of the constitution...."
Boy at center of famous ‘Poor Joshua!’ court dissent dies
Here is the case for those that are interested.
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services
