DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services (No. 87-154)

Specifically, Lochner was indicted for sheltering liberty of contract, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, under this clause. However, Bernstein shows that substantive due process was rooted the “long-standing” idea that people have natural rights and government had limited power. In the famous pre-Civil War case, Scott v Sanford, the notion of substantive due process was first conceived and accepted. Banning slavery in the territories was considered taking property without due process. If certain legislation are allowed to be ruled ‘not valid as legislation’ then due process of law suggests more than a procedural review of the law but also challenging a law’s validity and its right to exist. Perhaps the crux of “substantive” part of due process issue lies somewhere in boundaries drawn between the role of legislature and judge. Bernstein states that “enforcing the principles of due process of law required judges to carefully scrutinize the purpose of legislation and the mean employed to achieve legislative ends (Bernstein,10).” Through precedents, careful reasoning and scrutiny of doctrine, justices invalidated New York’s hours legislation. In addition, though freedom of contract does not appear in the Constitution and though narrowly construed and controversial, the idea of freedom of contract was already part of a larger argument. Bernstein states that freedom of contract came from the idea that government had no right to enforce class legislation claims and hours legislation in bakeries served as class legislation. Prior to Lochner, the Supreme Courts had used the due process clause to enforce naturals rights from the states. Freedom of contracts was not just a convenient “construct”of these natural rights but a right that surfaced as a

The originally Bill of Rights protected the rights of citizens from infringement by the federal government, but made no mention of the states. The Fourteen Amendment, adopted shortly after the Civil War, protected citizenship and individual rights from infringement by state governments. Under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, the United States Supreme Court began to apply the most important rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights against the states. This process began in the early 1900s and is known as the doctrine of selective incorporation. Duncan versus Louisiana was the landmark case in which the court incorporated the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial against the states.

“I just knew the phone would ring some day and Joshua would be dead,” stated social worker Ann Kemmeter regarding Joshua DeShaney and the ongoing abuse he endured from his father. Joshua’s father brutally and repeatedly abused his four-year-old son Joshua (Wichenbach). The State of Wisconsin was aware of this abuse, but still did nothing to intervene and stop the mistreatment of this child (Wichenbach). The State’s inaction led to the Supreme Court case DeShaney v. Winnebago Department of Social Services, in which Joshua’s mother, Melody, sued the Winnebago Department of Social Services claiming, “the social worker deprived Joshua of his liberty without due process of law” (Alexander). In order to fully understand the DeShaney case, one must conduct thorough background research, delve into the court case itself, and analyze the impact the case has yet today.

The Due process in the 14th amendment is the same as the due process in the fifth but it regards the states. “It acts as a safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the Government outside the sanction of law” (Madison 2010). The due process clause has been upheld and seen in many Supreme Court cases. The most influential and infamous was Roe v. Wade which said the right of privacy under the due process clause of the14th Amendment extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion. Due process upholds citizens’ rights and does not let the government take them away. This clause is important so the people can be protected from the government, which has been a fear for

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is perhaps the most sweeping and has likely impacted the general jurisprudence of the Supreme Court the most of any other amendment. This is because, where all other right-protecting amendments protect something specific, the fourteenth amendment was designed to ensure that states guaranteed due process rights, applied the law equally, and protected the “privileges [and] immunities of citizens of the United States.”

In the case, DeShaney v. Winnebago County Social Services, the mother of an abused child, Ms. DeShaney (Petitioner) sued Winnebago County Department of Social Services and several of their employees, (Defendant) for failing to protect the child from physical abuse by his father. In 1984, four-year-old Joshua DeShaney became comatose and then severely retarded due to traumatic head injuries inflicted by his father who beat him over an extended period of time. The county department of social services received complaints that the boy was being abused by his father and took various steps to protect him. They did not, however, remove Joshua from his father's custody. Ms. DeShaney subsequently sued the Winnebago County Department of Social Services,

The facts in this case are regarding the petitioner, Joshua DeShaney and the respondent, the county department of social services. In 1979, Joshua DeShaney was born and in 1980, a Wyoming court granted his parents a divorce and awarded custody to his father, Randy DeShaney. In January of 1982, Randy DeShaney’s second wife complained that he had previously “hit the boy, causing marks, and was a prime case for child abuse” (DeShaney v. Winnebago County). This would turn out to be the first of many complaints against Randy DeShaney regarding the abuse of Joshua DeShaney. Winnebago County Department of Social Services interviewed the father, and when asked if he abused his son, he denied such accusations and they did not pursue him any further. In January 1983, one year later, Joshua was admitted to a local hospital with bruises and abrasions, because of which, the physician suspected child abuse and notified the DSS. The DSS subsequently placed Joshua in temporary custody of the hospital but decided there was insufficient evidence of child abuse. They then recommended that Randy DeShaney enroll his son in preschool, provided Joshua’s father with counselling, and encouraged

Issue: The issue in this case is whether the state violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.

In order to fully understand the outcomes of this case, it is necessary to briefly review the legal issues that prompted the appellants and respondent to pursue legal action. The initial factor was the apprehension of a six week old infant named Leticia Grace Woods, on October 20th, 1976, by C.A.S. of central Manitoba. Upon removing her from her mother’s custody, in an effort to protect her, she was placed in a foster home as stipulated in the Child Welfare Act, C.C.S.M., c. C80. After several months in foster care, Mrs. Woods’,

Due process was also stated in the fifth amendment, however the difference with the fourteenth amendment was that it was not the state’s job to not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The Fourteenth Amendment was not included with the ten amendments of the Bill of Rights, but the Fourteenth Amendment is the amendment that applied in this case. This amendment states that no U.S. citizen should be denied equal protection of laws, nor should any person be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process.

The majority was Samuel Miller, Stephen Field, Joseph Bradley, William Woods, Stanley Matthews, Horace Gray, and Samuel Blatchford, who believed nothing was violated. John Harlan was the only minority, who believe that due process allowed indictment by grand jury. Matthews, the voice for majority, said that Hurtado’s right were not violated because the two amendments were not suppose to work together as stated in the Constitution. Matthews also quoted Edward Coke’s argument, which was if there is a capital case, it does not follow the rules of due process and does not demand 12 jurors to decide the case. The Court agreed that Harlan's dissent opinion was in the history of due process allow the right to be indicted by a grand

William Rehnquist, Byron White, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas- those who were not included in the plurality decision- wrote or joined opinions in which they partially concurred and partially dissented from the decision.

The Chief Justice that presided over this case was C.J. Rehnquist, the other presiding Justices were J. O'Connor, J. Stevens, J. Souter, J. Breyer, JJ. Thomas, J. Kennedy, J. Scalia, and JJ. Ginsburg. Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion over the case with Justices O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas filed concurring opinions. Whereas, Justices Breyer, Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion. Before I go into the opinion that Rehnquist delivered I would like to go in to some of the opinions that the other Justices' had stated as to their dissenting opinions.

It was not until after the Civil War that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments were enacted and began protecting individuals against the states. The Fourteenth Amendment has been the principal means by which this protection has been accomplished. It reads, in part, “No State shall...deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” The Supreme Court had interpreted this guarantee of liberty to embrace the fundamental liberties in the Bill of Rights, meaning that the state governments must observe and protect them to the same extent as the federal government this is also known called incorporation. The amendments in the Bill of Rights are said to be incorporated against the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. There has been an ongoing debate on the Supreme Court about the extent of incorporation, and whether the entire Bill of Rights, or only some of it’s guarantees, should be incorporated against the states.