Troxel v. Granville

Troxel v. Granville
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 12, 2000 Decided June 5, 2000
Full case name	Troxel et vir v. Granville
Citations	530 U.S. 57 (more) 120 S. Ct. 2054; 147 L. Ed. 2d 49; 2000 U.S. LEXIS 3767
Case history
Prior	In Re Custody of Smith, 137 Wn.2d 1, 969 P.2d 21 (1998); cert. granted, 527 U.S. 1069 (1999).
Holding
Parents have a fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children, and a law that allows anyone to petition a court for child visitation rights over parental objections unconstitutionally infringes on this right. Courts may not use a freestanding "best interest of the child" standard to overturn parental rights.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Plurality	O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Ginsburg, Breyer
Concurrence	Souter (in judgment)
Concurrence	Thomas (in judgment)
Dissent	Stevens
Dissent	Scalia
Dissent	Kennedy
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States, citing a constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, struck down a Washington law that allowed any third party to petition state courts for child visitation rights over parental objections.^[1][2]