Constitutional Limits on the Best Interest of the Child Standard: Under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, a fit parent's decisions regarding child custody and upbringing are conclusively presumed to serve the child's best interests (Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57). Trial judges possess no subject-matter jurisdiction to replace a fit parent's judgment with subjective judicial discretion absent an affirmative evidentiary finding of parental unfitness proven by clear and convincing evidence (Santosky v. Kramer).
The National Family Law Policy Center evaluated and published their review of the newest Texas Senate Bill 816 sponsored by Senator Campbell affecting the Best Interest of the Child Statute.
The Policy Center's evaluation states that the "new text in the proposed bill appears to improve conditions for parents," however, "it perpetuates presumptions that have been found to be unconstitutional, it provides vague criteria which judges will interpret to allow them to continue business as usual, and it provides no real procedural protections for the fundamental rights of parents or children."
This is the first legislative bill Fact Sheet the Policy Center has published and one of the Policy Center's stated goal "is for Legislators to realize the importance of adapting family codes to the constitutional realities of the 21st Century and to provide statutory procedural protections for family law disputes between fit parents." |
"We educate legislators, judges, executive actors, attorneys, and parents through publications, conferences, research, educational seminars, amicus briefs, and other means, on constitutional family law issues that inform and that place limits on family law policies."
The National Family Law Policy Center is a private nonprofit corporation.
The Policy Center is the next phase of Ron and Sherry Palmer's strategic plan to fundamentally change the family laws in this country.
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