Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614 (1973)

MR. JUSTICE WHITE, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS joins, dissenting.

Appellant Linda R.S. alleged that she is the mother of an illegitimate child and that she is suing

on behalf of herself, her minor daughter, and on behalf of all other women and minor children who have sought, are seeking, or in the future will seek to obtain support for so-called illegitimate children from said child’s father.

Appellant sought a declaratory judgment that Art. 602 is unconstitutional and an injunction against its continued enforcement against fathers of legitimate children only. Appellant further sought an order requiring Richard D., the putative father, "to pay a reasonable amount of money for the support of his child."

Obviously there are serious difficulties with appellant’s complaint insofar as it may be construed as seeking to require the official appellees to prosecute Richard D. or others, or to obtain what amounts to a federal child support order. But those difficulties go to the question of what relief the court may ultimately grant appellant. They do not affect her right to bring this class action. The Court notes, as it must, that the father of a legitimate child, if prosecuted under Art. 602, could properly raise the statute’s underinclusiveness as an affirmative defense. See McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184 (1964); Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U.S. 106 (1949). Presumably that same father would have standing to affirmatively seek to enjoin enforcement of the statute against him. Cf. Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U.S. 305 (1966); see also Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968). The question then becomes simply: why should only an actual or potential criminal defendant have a recognizable interest in attacking this allegedly discriminatory statute and not appellant and her class? They are not, after all, in the position of members of the public at large who wish merely to force an enlargement of state criminal laws. Cf. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972). Appellant, her daughter, and the children born out of wedlock whom she is attempting to represent have all allegedly been excluded intentionally from the class of persons protected by a particular criminal law. They do not get the protection of the laws that other women and children get. Under Art. 602, they are rendered nonpersons; a father may ignore them with full knowledge that he will be subjected to no penal sanctions. The Court states that the actual coercive effect of those sanctions on Richard D. or others "can, at best, be termed only speculative." This is a very odd statement. I had always thought our civilization has assumed that the threat of penal sanctions had something more than a "speculative" effect on a person’s conduct. This Court has long acted on that assumption in demanding that criminal laws be plainly and explicitly worded so that people will know what they mean and be in a position to conform their conduct to the mandates of law. Certainly Texas does not share the Court’s surprisingly novel view. It assumes that criminal sanctions are useful in coercing fathers to fulfill their support obligations to their legitimate children.

Unquestionably, Texas prosecutes fathers of legitimate children on the complaint of the mother asserting nonsupport and refuses to entertain like complaints from a mother of an illegitimate child. I see no basis for saying that the latter mother has no standing to demand that the discrimination be ended, one way or the other.

If a State were to pass a law that made only the murder of a white person a crime, I would think that Negroes as a class would have sufficient interest to seek a declaration that that law invidiously discriminated against them. Appellant and her class have no less interest in challenging their exclusion from what their own State perceives as being the beneficial protections that flow from the existence and enforcement of a criminal child support law.

I would hold that appellant has standing to maintain this suit and would, accordingly, reverse the judgment and remand the case for further proceedings.