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).
Discovery Supplementation
Today is a quick procedural note on how you can ensure that your constitutional arguments can be introduced into your hearing. Because it does you no good to know all about your rights and not know how to actually get them into your Court argument.
If you have already responded to discovery but didn’t know your rights at the time, find out if you are still within the timeframe to supplement your responses. If you are then you should be able to supplement your discovery. Find any responses that you made where you could have added your rights arguments and the bases for these rights (i.e., some of the cases you find these arguments in). If you don’t supplement your discovery, you might find yourself barred from asserting some of your arguments.
Once you do this, you will probably also want to amend your pleadings.
Then look into incorporating these pleadings by reference. If you are not sure what this is, that’s a good thing to ask an attorney.
This really is how easy it is to assert your family rights in your pleadings.
Have a good night and see you back here tomorrow.
Read our book for how to develop your arguments and for citations of specific cases that you can use in your arguments to the court when you are arguing for the proper protection of your family rights.
[CLICK HERE to get the Parental Rights book “NOT in The Child’s Best Interest.]
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Fix Family Courts Editorial Team
Strategic Parental Rights Strategists, Instructors, Constitutional Scholars & Authors
Divorce Solutions and Child Custody Solutions
Co-authors: “Not in the Child's Best Interest” & “Protecting Parent-Child Bonds: 28th Amendment”
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