In Re Sanders

Summary

The Michigan Supreme Court held that Michigan's 'one-parent doctrine' — under which a court may enter dispositional orders affecting a parent's rights based solely on the other parent's adjudicated unfitness — violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it strips unadjudicated parents of their fundamental right to direct the care, custody, and control of their children without any determination that they are unfit. Applying the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test and the rule of Stanley v. Illinois, the Court concluded that due process requires a specific adjudication of each parent's unfitness before the state may interfere with the parent-child relationship, overruled In re CR (the Court of Appeals decision from which the doctrine derives), and rejected the DHS's argument that the father's federal incarceration rendered the case moot. The Court vacated the trial court's orders and remanded for further proceedings. Justice Markman dissented, contending that the longstanding statutory scheme already adequately protects unadjudicated parents' due process rights and that abolishing the doctrine will delay protection for abused and neglected children.