US Supreme Court rules to protect vulnerable families from unjust govt searches, seizures

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Monday in Thompson v. Clark, a case in which police officers in New York entered a home without a warrant and arrested a man for alleged child abuse that was later determined not to have occurred, as the 911 caller accusing Larry Thompson was a member of his family who had a history of mental illness:

“The government is well equipped under the Constitution to further its interest in protecting children from abuse without violating the rights of innocent parents. The Supreme Court’s decision will give both parents and children a fair shot at justice without subjecting them to substantial and embarrassing hardships. When officials unlawfully seize children, they can inflict terrible harm—stigmatizing families, dashing their sense of privacy, and traumatizing the very ones they aim to protect. The Fourth Amendment is designed in part to prevent vulnerable families from suffering these harms, while still allowing child-welfare officials to continue their critical work to protect children from true abuse and neglect.”

ADF filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of the Home School Legal Defense Association, the world’s largest homeschool advocacy organization, in support of Thompson’s Fourth Amendment rights. The brief explains how it is often innocent families who suffer from unjust searches and seizures as part of child-welfare investigations, “yet 80% of these raids uncover no wrongdoing.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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