Protecting children from the harmful behavior of adults.

• Author: Shedlosky, Eric C.

1. INTRODUCTION

   From the outside, Detective Gary Brandl concluded that Judith Scruggs's home was well cared for, well kept, and cute for the area of town. (1) However, upon opening the front door, he was faced with the timeless grade school lesson: you can't judge a book by its cover. (2)

   The police were called to the Scruggs's home after Judith's twelve-year-old son, Joseph Daniel, was found hanging by a necktie in his bedroom closet. (3) Despite the pleasant exterior of the Scruggs's home, the conditions in which the family lived shocked investigators. (4) Surprisingly, from the outside, there were none of the usual indicators of disarray: the home's structure was in good repair, the utilities were working, there was no evidence of drug or alcohol abuse, and the neighbors even appeared friendly. Instead, the shocking conditions were caused by Judith Scruggs's failure to implement basic housekeeping practices. (5) In investigating Joseph Daniel's suicide, state officials generalized the Scruggs's home as disturbingly dirty, cluttered, and unsafe. (6) They reported that the house was besieged by a foul and offensive odor, a stench that Detective Brandl colorfully related to a mixture of "fermented garbage" and "as if you stuck your head in a dirty clothes hamper." (7) The piles of clutter, junk, and debris that permeated the entire house stunned officials. (8) In making their way through the apartment, investigators could not help but step on mirrors, glass, and other breakables hidden beneath the mess that completely hid the floor. (9) They observed that the furniture, counters, and tables were unusable because they were all covered with dirty clothing, old food, disposable food containers, trash, unwashed kitchenware, and other clutter. (10) They reported that they saw no clear space in the kitchen where food could be prepared or consumed because all the flat surfaces, including the ironing board, were covered with junk. (11) In short, the Scruggs's home was "disgusting," "filthy," and generally "a safety hazard." (12)

   Four months after Joseph Daniel's death, Judith was arrested and charged with two counts of risk of injury to a child (13) and one count of cruelty to persons. (14) In bringing these charges, the State attempted to make it clear that it was not prosecuting Judith for causing her son's suicide. (15) Instead, the prosecution was attempting to hold her responsible for creating and maintaining a dangerous home environment and for negligently depriving her son of proper physical care. (16) Despite the State's efforts to separate these charges from Joseph Daniel's death, the media and the public often failed to recognize any distinction. (17)

   Judith was convicted of one count of risk-of-injury-to-a-minor for providing a home environment that was likely to injure her son's mental and emotional health. (18) The court explained that Judith's conviction was about more than merely a messy home (19)--it was rooted in her having placed Joseph Daniel in a situation that was likely to injure his mental health. (20) In response to the continuing inaccuracies as to the foundation of the charges, the court noted that Judith's conviction was not based on an assertion that the law "regulates the frequency of vacuuming or prescribes specific housekeeping practices," but rather that the law "requires a parent to provide a home that does not cause risk of harm to a child's mental health." (21)

   Under Connecticut's risk-of-injury-to-a-minor statute, Judith could have been sentenced to a term of up to ten years in prison. (22) However, at the request of the state prosecutor, the Connecticut Superior Court granted her a suspended sentence and five years of probation. (23) Although the prosecutor did not explain why he decided not to seek jail time after making the controversial decision to prosecute Judith, (24) scholars suspect it was because criminal punishment would have had little purpose. (25) Nonetheless, the prosecutor commented that probation was necessary because "the law requires parents and caregivers to protect their children, to keep them safe, [and] to make sure they are not subject to risks to their heath." (26) In short, Judith had unacceptably thrown her parental responsibilities "to the wind." (27)

   Judith's trial and the public debates that ensued from her conviction raised an important question regarding the appropriate roles of parents and the state in raising and protecting children. Should parental autonomy be protected as an ultimate authority in the rearing of children? Or does the state have an interest in the nurturing and development of children that justifies an assertion of primacy over parents? Traditionally, parents were deemed to have a paramount interest in raising their children and the state's guidance was considered to be an inadequate substitute. (28) However, parental autonomy has since been qualified and limited through a shift in institutional policy that has directed the general focus of protection from the preservation of families to the wellbeing of children. (29) In escalating the state's interest in ensuring the wellbeing of children, the law has maneuvered into an awkward position of "attempting to maintain a commitment to strong parental rights" (30) while simultaneously providing the state the authority to "undermine or trump" decisions made by parents. (31)

   This Comment argues that the state has an interest both in protecting the physical health of children and in protecting the less tangible considerations of a child's wellbeing, such as emotional welfare, psychological development, and ability to flourish as a member of society. For the state to intervene successfully in areas historically addressed exclusively within the walls of the family home, it must overcome the cultural sanctity of parental autonomy and further society's transition towards an interventionist culture. While this cultural shift could be encouraged by a variety of methods, this Comment suggests that one strategy available to the state is the imposition of criminal liability, rather than civil remedies, in situations where an adult places a child's physical, psychological, or emotional wellbeing at risk. This Comment further argues that imposing criminal liability through such risk-of-injury statutes will permit the state to better protect children from the harmful behavior of adults in addition to altering the public's perception of the state's role in protecting children.

2. THE PARENTAL RIGHTS DOCTRINE AND THE INTERESTS OF THE STATE

   1. ESTABLISHING PARENTAL AUTONOMY

      The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized family integrity to be a fundamental liberty interest protected by the U.S. Constitution. (32) The Court has recognized that implicit to the family integrity interest is the right to self-determine one's own family life, and in the case of parents, to manage the upbringing of their children. (33) The Court first articulated the concept of parental liberty interests in Meyer v. Nebraska. (34) In Meyer, the Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protected parents' liberty interests in having their children taught in a foreign language. (35) Meyer thus struck down a state statute that prohibited instructing students who had not yet passed the eighth grade in any language other than English in any school. (36) A few years later, the Court reaffirmed the developing concept of parental autonomy in Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. (37) In Pierce, the Court restated the parental rights doctrine of Meyer and held unconstitutional a state statute that prohibited parents from sending their children to private schools in place of the government provided public schools. (38) The Court reasoned that the State's interest in the upbringing of children was limited as compared to that of parents, noting that because "[t]he child is not the mere creature of the State, those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare [their children] for additional obligations." (39) In applying the Pierce reasoning in subsequent cases, the Court has commented that:

      The law's concept of the family rests on a presumption that parents possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life's difficult decisions. More important, historically it has recognized that natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the best interest of their children. (40) Accordingly, as long as parents adequately care for their children and their decisions continue to "prepare [them] for additional obligations," (41) there is no reason for the state to intervene in the "private realm of the family." (42)

      One of the most significant contemporary decisions concerning parental autonomy and the State's right to regulate the upbringing of children is Wisconsin v. Yoder. (43) In Yoder, the State of Wisconsin criminally prosecuted a group of Amish parents under the State's compulsory schooling law for failing to send their children to high school. (44) The Amish parents argued that application of the State's compulsory schooling law "violated their free exercise of religion rights under the First Amendment and their Fourteenth Amendment fight to raise and educate their children in accordance with their own beliefs" (45) because they considered the high school education to involve "an impermissible exposure of their children to a 'worldly' influence in conflict with their beliefs." (46) Relying on the parents' First Amendment argument, the Court held that the application of the State's compulsory schooling law to this particular set of parents was unconstitutional because it violated their rights to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs. (47) Although the Court specified that its holding was grounded in the Free Exercise Clause and was narrowly...