Law Commons^™

The Liberty Interest Of Children: Due Process Rights And Their Application, James W. Ellis, Lee E. Teitelbaum

Faculty Scholarship

Few areas pose more difficult problems in the application of due process doctrine than does regulation of parent-child relationships. Determination of the procedural requirements for intervention by the state in the lives of children, at the request or with the agreement of parents, presents novel and troublesome constitutional questions. Special problems arise in the definition of the liberty interests of minors and in determining how much process is due given an infringement of those interests. These problems cannot be resolved by resort to the categorical assumptions of either traditional theory or "children's liberation." Close examination of the interests held by …