M.L.B. v. S.L.J.

Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.

By order of a Mississippi Chancery Court, petitioner M. L. B.'s parental rights to her two minor children were forever terminated. M. L. B. sought to appeal from the termination decree, but Mississippi required that she pay in advance record preparation fees estimated at $ 2,352.36. Because M. L. B. lacked funds to pay the fees, her appeal was dismissed.

Urging that the size of her pocketbook should not be dispositive when "an interest far more precious than any property right" is at stake, Santosky v. Kramer (1982), M. L. B. tenders this question, which we agreed to hear and decide: May a State, consistent with the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, condition appeals from trial court decrees terminating parental rights on the affected parent's ability to pay record preparation fees? We hold that, just as a State may not block an indigent petty offender's access to an appeal afforded others, see Mayer v. Chicago (1971), so Mississippi may not deny M. L. B., because of her poverty, appellate review of the sufficiency of the evidence on which the trial court found her unfit to remain a parent. . . .

Mississippi grants civil litigants a right to appeal, but conditions that right on prepayment of costs. Relevant portions of a transcript must be ordered, and its preparation costs advanced by the appellant, if the appellant "intends to urge on appeal," as M. L. B. did, "that a finding or conclusion is unsupported by the evidence or is contrary to the evidence." . . .

M. L. B. . . . urges in this Court, that

"where the State's judicial processes are invoked to secure so severe an alteration of a litigant's fundamental rights--the termination of the parental relationship with one's natural child--basic notions of fairness [and] of equal protection under the law, . . . guaranteed by [the Mississippi and Federal Constitutions], require that a person be afforded the right of appellate review though one is unable to pay the costs of such review in advance." . . .

In Ortwein v. Schwab (1973) (per curiam), the . . . appellants . . . sought court review of agency determinations reducing their welfare benefits. Alleging poverty, they challenged, as applied to them, an Oregon statute requiring appellants in civil cases to pay a $ 25 fee. We summarily affirmed the Oregon Supreme Court's judgment rejecting appellants' challenge. . . . We expressly rejected the Ortwein appellants' argument that a fee waiver was required for all civil appeals simply because the State chose to permit in forma pauperis filings in special classes of civil appeals, including appeals from terminations of parental rights. . . .

Choices about marriage, family life, and the upbringing of children are among associational rights this Court has ranked as "of basic importance in our society," rights sheltered by the Fourteenth Amendment against the State's unwarranted usurpation, disregard, or disrespect. See, for example, Zablocki v. Redhail (1978) and Loving v. Virginia (1967) (marriage); Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson (1942) (procreation); Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), and Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) (raising children). M. L. B.'s case, involving the State's authority to sever permanently a parent-child bond, demands the close consideration the Court has long required when a family association so undeniably important is at stake. We approach M. L. B.'s petition mindful of the gravity of the sanction imposed on her . . .

Guided by this Court's precedent on an indigent's access to judicial processes in criminal and civil cases, and on proceedings to terminate parental status, we turn to the classification question this case presents: Does the Fourteenth Amendment require Mississippi to accord M. L. B. access to an appeal--available but for her inability to advance required costs--before she is forever branded unfit for affiliation with her children? . . .

[W]e do not question the general rule, stated in Ortwein, that fee requirements ordinarily are examined only for rationality. The State's need for revenue to offset costs, in the mine run of cases, satisfies the rationality requirement. States are not forced by the Constitution to adjust all tolls to account for "disparity in material circumstances."

But our cases solidly establish two exceptions to that general rule. The basic right to participate in political processes as voters and candidates cannot be limited to those who can pay for a license. Nor may access to judicial processes in cases criminal or "quasi criminal in nature," turn on ability to pay. . . . [W]e place decrees forever terminating parental rights in the category of cases in which the State may not "bolt the door to equal justice." . . .

Respondents and the dissenters urge that we will open floodgates if we do not rigidly restrict Griffin to cases typed "criminal." But we have repeatedly noticed what sets parental status termination decrees apart from mine run civil actions, even from other domestic relations matters such as divorce, paternity, and child custody. To recapitulate, termination decrees "work a unique kind of deprivation." In contrast to matters modifiable at the parties' will or based on changed circumstances, termination adjudications involve the awesome authority of the State "to destroy permanently all legal recognition of the parental relationship." . . . We are therefore satisfied that the label "civil" should not entice us to leave undisturbed the Mississippi courts' disposition of this case.

For the reasons stated, we hold that Mississippi may not withhold from M. L. B. "a 'record of sufficient completeness' to permit proper [appellate] consideration of [her] claims." Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Mississippi and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.


Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Scalia joins, and with whom the Chief Justice joins . . ., dissenting.

Today the majority holds that the Fourteenth Amendment requires Mississippi to afford petitioner a free transcript because her civil case involves a "fundamental" right. The majority seeks to limit the reach of its holding to the type of case we confront here, one involving the termination of parental rights. I do not think, however, that the new-found constitutional right to free transcripts in civil appeals can be effectively restricted to this case. The inevitable consequence will be greater demands on the States to provide free assistance to would-be appellants in all manner of civil cases involving interests that cannot, based on the test established by the majority, be distinguished from the admittedly important interest at issue here. The cases on which the majority relies, primarily cases requiring appellate assistance for indigent criminal defendants, were questionable when decided, and have, in my view, been undermined since. Even accepting those cases, however, I am of the view that the majority takes them too far. I therefore dissent. . . .

Given the many procedural protections afforded petitioner, I have little difficulty concluding that "due process has . . . been accorded in the tribunal of first instance." Due process has never compelled an appeal where, as here, its rigors are satisfied by an adequate hearing. Those cases in which the Court has required States to alleviate financial obstacles to process beyond a hearing--though sometimes couched in due process terms--have been based on the equal protection proposition that if the State chooses to provide for appellate review, it "'can no more discriminate on account of poverty than on account of religion, race, or color.'" There seems, then, no place in the Due Process Clause--certainly as an original matter, and even as construed by this Court--for the constitutional "right" crafted by the majority today. . . .

If this case squarely presented the question, I would be inclined to vote to overrule Griffin and its progeny. Even were I convinced that the cases on which the majority today relies ought to be retained, I could not agree with the majority's extension of them.

The interest at stake in this case differs in several important respects from that at issue in cases such as Griffin. Petitioner's interest in maintaining a relationship with her children is the subject of a civil, not criminal, action. While certain civil suits may tend at the margin toward criminal cases, and criminal cases may likewise drift toward civil suits, the basic distinction between the two finds root in the Constitution and has largely retained its vitality in our jurisprudence. . . .
The Constitution provides for a series of protections of the unadorned liberty interest at stake in criminal proceedings. . . . This Court has given content to these textual protections, and has identified others contained in the Due Process Clause. These protections are not available to the typical civil litigant. Even where the interest in a civil suit has been labeled "fundamental," as with the interest in parental termination suits, the protections extended pale by comparison. A party whose parental rights are subject to termination is entitled to appointed counsel, but only in certain circumstances. His or her rights cannot be terminated unless the evidence meets a standard higher than the preponderance standard applied in the typical civil suit, but the standard is still lower than that required before a guilty verdict.

The distinction between criminal and civil cases--if blurred at the margins--has persisted throughout the law. The distinction that the majority seeks to draw between the case we confront today and the other civil cases that we will surely face tomorrow is far more ephemeral. If all that is required to trigger the right to a free appellate transcript is that the interest at stake appear to us to be as fundamental as the interest of a convicted misdemeanant, several kinds of civil suits involving interests that seem fundamental enough leap to mind. Will the Court, for example, now extend the right to a free transcript to an indigent seeking to appeal the outcome of a paternity suit? To those who wish to appeal custody determination? How about persons against whom divorce decrees are entered? Civil suits that arise out of challenges to zoning ordinances with an impact on families? Why not foreclosure actions--or at least foreclosure actions seeking to oust persons from their homes of many years?

The majority seeks to provide assurances that its holding will not extend beyond parental termination suits. . . . I have my doubts that today's opinion will be so confined. In the first place, it is not clear whether it is an equal protection or a due process opinion. Moreover, the principle on which it appears to rest hardly seems capable of stemming the tide. . . .

In brushing aside the distinction between criminal and civil cases--the distinction that has constrained Griffin for 40 years--the Court has eliminated the last meaningful limit on the free-floating right to appellate assistance. . . . I respectfully dissent.