1. Issue
Amid extensive Department of Social Services involvement, Joshua DeShaney was beaten to the point of irreparable brain damage by his father. Did the DSS violate Joshua’s right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment, which no State shall deprive any person of life or liberty without due process of law, when they failed to prevent the abuse that led to Joshua’s profound mental retardation and a life of assisted care? Does the State have an affirmative duty to protect?
2. Prior Route
Originated in the Eastern District Court of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Division No.85 C 310. The lawsuit was dismissed. Case was then appealed to the Seventh Circuit Courts where again it was dismissed. Finally, the case made it to the Supreme Court and was decided on February 2nd, 1989.
3. Facts
In 1982, the DSS was notified of the potential child abuse of Joshua DeShaney, born 1979, at the hands of his father, Randy DeShaney. Joshua made several hospital trips covered in strange bruises. The DSS increased their involvement and uncovered more evidence of abuse, but failed to relieve Randy DeShaney of custody. On March 8th, Joshua was beaten to the point of coma and irreparable brain damage caused by repeated head trauma, ensuring a life of assisted living. Joshua’s mother, who did not live with Joshua, sued Winnebago County claiming that by failing to protect Joshua from his father the State violated Joshua’s Fourteenth Amendment right to due process.
4. Argument
Justice William Rehnquist delivered the majority opinion of the court, in which five of his fellow Justices joined him. Justice Rehnquist noted that the state's failure to provide Joshua Deshaney with adequate protection from his abusive father did not violate Joshua's rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Foremost, under the Due Process Clause, the state has no inherent duty to protect citizens against private, non-state actors. The Clause is a limitation on state capabilities, and although it entails the state's inability to deprive an individual of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, it does not force the state to protect individuals from that deprivation at the hands of non-state actors. Secondly, Justice Rehnquist found that, although the state may have been aware of the dangers Joshua Deshaney faced, they can assume no responsibility for what happened to Joshua while he was in his father's home, out of State custody. Lastly, the Court held that the State, in voluntarily attempting to provide Joshua Deshaney with protection against a danger it did not incite, assumed a duty under tort law to provide that necessary protection. However, the Due Process Clause does not transform every civil wrong, or tort committed into a constitutional, criminal violation.
5. Conclusion
The Supreme Court decided with a 6 to 3 majority vote, affirmed the lower court’s decision finding the Department of Social Services actions to not violate the due process rights of Joshua DeShaney. Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in his court opinion that the court held that the due process clause protected against the states actions. The court decided that a Department of Social Services was not in violation of constitutional law for lack of safekeeping of Joshua DeShaney. Randy DeShaney was the abuser and the Department of Social Services was not liable.
6. Dissent
Justice William Brennan wrote the first dissent. He argued that Wisconsin’s child protection laws created a regime in which DSS was the only option for intervening in cases of child abuse, which he argued created the same custodial "deprivation of liberty" that was required for a Due Process violation according to Rehnquist's opinion. The second, and more notable dissent was written by Justice Harry Blackmun and joined by Justice Thurgood Marshall. Blackmun, in what as known as the “Poor Joshua lament”, decries the decision on moral terms and argues that State had a fundamental duty to protect Joshua once they learned of the severe danger he was exposed to.
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