Santosky v. Kramer

The Court's decision regarding parental rights was that they may only be terminated by showing "clear and convincing" evidence. This changed the standard, which was, in some states "fair preponderance."

The right to raise one's own children was at stake in the landmark case Santosky v. Kramer. In 1982 this case caught the attention of parents, especially in the state of New York. In 1973 Commissioner Kramer of the Ulster County Department of Social Services had three children removed from the Santosky home. Kramer insisted that if the children remained in the home they would be subjected to parental neglect. John and Annie Santosky challenged this decision in New York Family Court. Their challenge's premise was that New York state's process of deciding whether or not children should be permanently removed from the care of their parents was unconstitutional. At that time, the state of New York was in the minority of states that required only a "fair preponderance of the evidence" as the standard to support parental neglect.

A majority of states did not use the "fair preponderance of the evidence" standard. They used the "clear and convincing evidence" standard. What this means is most states, in deciding what was a fair procedure to define permanent parental neglect believed that a stricter process should be used since dissolving a family was a serious issue. The Santoskys said that New York's standard of "fair preponderance of the evidence" violated their rights to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Both the New York Family Court and the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court decided the current standard, "fair preponderance of the evidence" was valid and they upheld Commissioner Kramer's decision to permanently deny custody to the Santoskys. However, after the New York Court of Appeals would not hear the Santosky's appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned the lower court rulings.

According to the New York Times, Justice Blackmun said "before a State may sever completely and irrevocably the rights of parents in their natural child, due process requires that the State support its allegations by at least clear and convincing evidence." Justices Marshall, Brennan, Powell and Stevens agreed with Blackmun, but Justices Rehnquist, O'Connor, White and Chief Justice Burger dissented.

The dissenters said that the five justices who voted to overturn the lower court rulings did not focus on what they thought to be the correct thing--the protection of the children. In the same New York Times article Justice Rehnquist was quoted as saying this about the case: "When the interests of the child and the State in a stable, nurturing homelife are balanced against the interests of the parents in the rearing of the child, it cannot be said that either set of interests is so clearly paramount as to require that the risk of error be allocated to one side or the other." Justice Rehnquist made the argument that New York state spent over $15,000 to try and rehabilitate the Santoskys. This did not work, so the state then decided to press for permanent removal of their parental rights.

Also making statements during the Supreme Court hearings were Mr. and Mrs. John Balogh. The Baloghs were the foster parents of one of the Santosky children beginning five days after the child was born in 1974. According to the New York Times article, the Baloghs said that raising the standard of proof in custody cases "will only serve to increase the risk that neglected children will remain in the limbo of foster care."

Although Justice Blackmun and the majority of the justices on the Supreme Court voted in this case to upgrade the standard of proof in parental custody cases, they did not make any statements regarding the merits of the Santoskys. In other words, even though they voted to change the standard of proof, the courts were allowed to proceed but they had to meet the new standards if they were to permanently remove custody from the Santoskys.

Santosky v. Kramer, therefore, erased the less strict standard used by some states regarding parental custody rights--"preponderance of the evidence"--and imposed a new, more stringent standard--"clear and convincing evidence." The U.S. Supreme Court did this because the majority of justices felt the existing standard was not sufficient in protecting parents' rights to the care, management, and custody of their own children.