Law Commons^™

Moving Beyond Lassiter: The Need For A Federal Statutory Right To Counsel For Parents In Child Welfare Cases, Vivek S. Sankaran

Articles

In New York City, an indigent parent can receive the assistance of a multidisciplinary legal team—an attorney, a social worker, and a parent advocate—to defend against the City’s request to temporarily remove a child from her care. But in Mississippi, that same parent can have her rights to her child permanently terminated without ever receiving the assistance of a single lawyer. In Washington State, the Legislature has ensured that parents ensnared in child abuse and neglect proceedings will receive the help of a well-trained and well-compensated attorney with a reasonable caseload. Yet in Tennessee, its Supreme Court has held that …

Child Welfare's Scarlet Letter: How A Prior Termination Of Parental Rights Can Permanently Brand A Parent As Unfit, Vivek S. Sankaran

Articles

In many jurisdictions, once a parent has her rights terminated to one child, the State can use that decision to justify the termination of parental rights to another child. The State can do so regardless of whether the parent is fit to parent the second child. This article explores this practice, examines its origins, and discusses its constitutional inadequacies.

Timely Permanency Or Unnecessary Removal?: Tips For Advocates For Children Who Spend Less Than 30 Days In Foster Care, Christopher Church, Monique Mitchell, Vivek Sankaran

Articles

Removal and placement in foster care is child welfare’s most severe intervention, contemplated as “a last resort rather than the first.” Federal law, with an overarching goal of preventing unnecessary removals, bolsters this principle by requiring juvenile and family courts to carefully oversee the removal of children to foster care. Expansive research reminds the field that removal, while often necessary, is not a benign intervention. Physically, legally, and emotionally separating children from their parent(s) can traumatize children in lasting ways. Yet review of federal data concerning children in foster care reveal a troubling narrative: each year, tens of thousands of …

Contemporary Practice Of The United States Relating To International Law, Daugirdas Kristina, Julian Davis Mortenson

Articles

In this section: • Congress Overrides Obama’s Veto to Pass Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act • U.S. Federal Court of Appeals Upholds United Nations’ Immunity in Case Related to Cholera in Haiti • U.S.-Russian Agreements on Syria Break Down as the Syrian Conflict Continues • Russia Suspends Bilateral Agreement with United States on Disposal of Weapons-Grade Plutonium • The United States Makes Payment to Family of Italian Killed in CIA Air Strike • United States Ratifies Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance

Cohabiting With Property In Washington: Washington's Committed Intimate Relationship Doctrine, Tom Andrews

Articles

Washington has followed a community property system since at least 1869—twenty years prior to statehood. However, Washington rejected the doctrine of common law marriage quite early in 1892. For over one hundred years, in order to receive the advantages of the community property laws, a Washington couple has needed to have their relationship blessed with a ceremonial marriage or have a valid common law marriage in another state.

Accompanying these requirements for the formal establishment of a community property regime was the so-called "Creasman Presumption," which provided that "property acquired by a man and a woman not married to each …

Whither The Functional Parent? Revisiting Equitable Parenthood Doctrines In Light Of Same-Sex Parents’ Increased Access To Obtaining Formal Legal Parent Status, Jessica Feinberg

Articles

Until relatively recently, the law did not provide avenues through which both members of a same-sex couple could gain recognition as the parents of the children they were raising together. Instead, generally only the member of the same-sex couple who was the child’s biological parent was recognized as the child’s legal parent, and the nonbiological parent was considered a legal stranger to the child. Historically, nonbiological parents in same-sex relationships could not gain legal parent status because the traditional avenues for establishing legal parent status in the United States have been based upon biology, marriage, and adoption. Since joint biological …

Backdating Marriage, Peter Nicolas

Articles

Many same-sex couples have been in committed relationships for years, even decades. Yet until 2004 no same-sex couples in the United States had the right to marry in any state and until the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges the right was unavailable to same-sex couples nationwide. Due to this longstanding denial of the right to marry, most same-sex relationships appear artificially short when measured solely by reference to the couple's civil marriage date.

This circumstance has important legal consequences for many same-sex couples, as a number of rights associated with marriage are tied not merely to …