A brief description of each of the four landmark Supreme Court decisions
addressing the rights of nonmarital fathers follows. The unifying theme emerging
from these four decisions is that the biological connection between father and child
is worthy of constitutional protection if the father grasps the opportunity to develop
the biological connection into a full and enduring relationship.13
Stanley v. Illinois.14. This 1972 case involved an unmarried man who had lived
with a woman and their three children for eighteen years. When she died, even though he
was a basically fit parent, under Illinois law, he lost custody of the children, and they
immediately became wards of the state and eligible for adoption. At the time, by state
statute, unwed fathers were irrebuttably presumed to be unfit to raise their children while
unwed mothers and married, widowed, or divorced fathers were presumed to be fit
parents. Mr. Stanley challenged the statute on due process and equal protection grounds,
claiming that he was being denied the right to demonstrate his fitness as a parent and
keep the children he had raised based on his gender. The Supreme Court agreed, finding
that, although the State of Illinois had not recognized it, Mr. Stanley had exercised de
facto custody of his children, and given that fact, the presumption of his unfitness
violated the Due Process Clause. The Court held that the interest “of a man in the
children he has sired and raised, undeniably warrants deference and, absent a
powerful countervailing interest, protection”15 and that “denying such a hearing to
Stanley and those like him while granting it to other Illinois parents is inescapably
contrary to the Equal Protection Clause.”16 Although the decision did not place unwed
fathers on an equal footing with unwed mothers, it did give them the chance to prove
their fitness before having their children taken away and provided some protection to
fathers who had established relationships with their children.
Quilloin v. Walcott.17 In 1978, in the Quilloin case, an unwed father challenged
the constitutionality of a Georgia statute that required an unwed father to legitimate his
offspring in order to have standing to oppose adoption of his child. He could legitimate
his child either by marrying the mother and acknowledging the child as his own or by
obtaining a court order declaring the child to be his. Mr. Quilloin had failed to do either
and only petitioned to establish his paternity after the mother sought to have the
stepfather adopt the child. Mr. Quillion’s due process and equal protection challenges
both failed. The due process claim failed based on the fact the father had not
previously established a relationship with his child, and, therefore, the court held
that the child’s best interests superceded any unrealized interest the father might
have had. With respect to the equal protection claim, the court essentially found
that Mr. Quillion had forfeited constitutional protection of his parental status by
failing to accept any significant parenting responsibility for his child.
Caban v. Mohammed.18 This 1979 case involved an unwed father who had
helped raise his two children in an informal custody arrangement with their unwed
mother until the children were about two and four years old. The mother then married and
gave her consent for the children to be adopted by their stepfather. Under a New York
statute, unwed mothers were allowed to block adoptions by simply withholding their
consent, but an unwed father, even one with a significant relationship with their child,
could not block an adoption unless he could prove that the adoption was not in the child’s
best interests. The unwed father challenged the statute on due process and equal
protection grounds. The Court took another step towards recognizing the parental rights
of unwed fathers who have formed relationships with their children when it struck down
the statute because it treated similarly situated unwed mothers and fathers differently
solely on the basis of sex and served no important governmental interest. The court held
that a distinction may sometimes be drawn between unwed fathers and mothers
based on the fact the mother carries and bears the child and thus has a clearly
identifiable parental relationship. However, it also reaffirmed that unwed fathers
who have actively participated in a parental relationship should be presumed fit and
their unfitness needs to be proven before they can be deprived of their parental
rights.
Lehr v. Robertson.19 In a 1983 6-3 decision, the Court upheld a New York State
statute under which a genetic father of a child born to an unmarried woman was entitled
to notice of a pending adoption only if: (1) he had filed his name in “the putative father
registry”; (2) he had been adjudicated to be the father, was identified as the father on the
child’s birth certificate, or was identified by the mother as the child’s father in a sworn
written statement; (3) he had married the mother before the child was six months old; or
(4) he had lived openly with the child and the mother and held himself out as the child’s
father.20 The unwed father in this case had satisfied none of these requirements. Mr. Lehr
challenged the statute on equal protection and due process grounds. The majority opined
that:
The significance of the biological connection [between father and
child] is that it offers the natural father an opportunity that no other
male possesses to develop a relationship with his offspring. If he
grasps that opportunity and accepts some measure of responsibility
for the child’s future, he may enjoy the blessings of the parent-child
relationship and make uniquely valuable contributions to the child’s
development. If he fails to do so, the Federal Constitution will not
automatically compel a State to listen to his opinion of where the
child’s best interests lie.21 (Emphasis added.)
In this case, the majority found the father lacked a sufficiently substantial
relationship with his child and upheld the adoption. It placed little weight on the facts
that Mr. Lehr lived with the mother prior to the child’s birth, went to see her and the baby
in the hospital, visited with the child as often as the mother would permit, and had
contacted an attorney about seeking visitation prior to the time the mother and her new
husband instituted adoption proceedings without giving notice to him. He also had sought
subsequently to establish paternity, support and visitation. The dissent rejected the
majority’s position that the biological connection between an unwed father and child is
relatively unimportant and that only the quality of the father-child relationship will
trigger constitutional protection.