Parham v. J.R. – Voluntary Commitment to Psychiatric Hospitals
Parham v. J.R. 442 U.S. 584, 99 S.Ct. 2493, 61 L.Ed.2d 101 (1979).
NATURE OF THE CASE: This lawsuit involved a due process dispute over mental health care for a minor child.
FACTS: J.L. (P) was a minor child undergoing treatment in a Georgia state mental health hospital. P was part of a class action suit under 42 U.S.C. §1983 and sought a declaratory judgment that Georgia’s voluntary commitment procedures for children under 18 violated due process. J.L. also requested an injunction against enforcement of the statute. J.L. received outpatient treatment for over two months at the hospital prior to his admission.
J.L.’s mother requested that he be admitted indefinitely but after two years he was returned to the mother and stepfather and attended school at the hospital on a furlough program. Eventually he was readmitted and the parents relinquished their parental rights to the county. In 1975, J.L. sued for an order of the court to place him in an environment better suited to his needs.
J.R. (P2) was borderline retarded and suffered from unsocialized aggressive reaction of childhood. Unsuccessful efforts were made to find J.R. a foster home.
ISSUE: Must a decision by parents to have a child admitted to a mental hospital be subjected to strict scrutiny including a formal adversary preadmission hearing?
RULE OF LAW: Yes. A decision by parents to have a child admitted to a mental hospital must be subjected to strict scrutiny including a preadmission hearing made by an independent fact finder.
HOLDING AND DECISION (Burger): Parents do not have an absolute right to commit their children to state mental hospitals. The traditional presumption that parents act in the best interest of their child should apply to such proceedings, but that because of the nature of the liberty interest affected, parents cannot always have absolute and unreviewable discretion to decide whether to have a child institutionalized. Parents may retain plenary authority to seek such care for their children subject to a physician’s independent examination and medical judgment. But to avoid the incidence of risk associated with such a decision a neutral finder of fact should make an inquiry to determine if the statutory requirements for admission are met. The child’s status if admitted must be reviewed periodically by a similarly independent procedure.
Due process does not require this fact finder to be trained in the law or a judicial or administrative officer. A staff physician will suffice if that party is free of their own accord to evaluate the condition of the child. Due process is not violated by an informal procedure to accomplish these goals. In this case we cannot decide whether each member of this class was properly treated by the Georgia system but we can say that the procedures used by this system are not per se unconstitutional. This ruling is limited to children wherein the natural parents want the child admitted and does not affect the cases in which the children are already wards of the state.
DISPOSITION: Reversed and remanded.
DISSENT (Brennan): The right to at least one post admission hearing can and should be affirmed now. I also disagree with the issue regarding children that are wards of the state; Georgia does not accord preconfinement hearings to wards of the State and that is improper.