Mayoue: Supreme Court Not Prepared to Address 'Enormity of the Question' of Grandparents' Rights
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Three hours from now, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case involving grandparents visitation rights. The case stems from a Washington state couple's fight to visit their grandchildren, against the wishes of the child -- children's mother.</s>CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: The case before the Supreme Court not only pits parents against grandparents, it could potentially redefine what is a family. Here to talk about this emotionally-charged debate is family law attorney John Mayoue. He joins us this morning on</s>EARLY EDITION. JOHN MAYOUE, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: Good morning.</s>LIN: John, all 50 states have some sort of law addressing grandparents' rights, so why is it that the U.S. Supreme Court is taking up the Washington state case?</s>MAYOUE: Well, it's very unusual. The Supreme Court historically has stayed out family-law matters, and so no one really knows, but they have the opportunity to define the family, so to speak, to talk about what kind of family we want raising our children in this country.</s>LIN: What's the confusion today, then?</s>MAYOUE: Well, you think about where we were two or three decades ago, the "Ozzie and Harriet," the sort of wistful thought of an intact family raising children, well, that really is not reflective of society, today. We have grandparents, live-in lovers, stepparents, persons that are not even biologically related to children that are raising them, and we need to have some understandings to which standards we're going to use to determine which rights they have. We've actually moved a little bit more to a concept of a psychological model. That is, we're not solely determined by biological relation, but, in fact, the nature and quality of the relationship that you and I might have to the child, and that's very different from where we've been.</s>LIN: So, what is your understanding of what grandparents' rights are, generally speaking, across state lines?</s>MAYOUE: Well, every state recognizes that there are certain circumstances under which we're going to permit grandparents to visit, but they vary widely, and you have to remember that these cases arise in the context of parents objecting to the grandparents' visitation, and so we have to determine, is it in the best interests of the children? If it's in the best interests of the children, do we have to go further and show that it would harm the children for them not see their grandparents.</s>LIN: How far is the Supreme Court likely to rule, because they can actually pump this case and make a very broad ruling and kick it back to the states if they want to?</s>MAYOUE: I think the likelihood of that is great, because the enormity of the question is something I'm not sure they're really prepared to address, and that's not a slur against the Supreme Court. But you think of the daunting task of defining for the 21st century what a blended family might be in the context of 1.4 million grandparents raising grandchildren, in the context of live-in lovers, of same-sex couples raising children. It would be very difficult for them to impose upon the state, I think, a definition that's going to work for all of these situations.</s>LIN: Very quickly, I may be reaching a bit on this, but if the Supreme Court were to rule on this issue, would it have any likely effect on the Elian Gonzalez case, the case of the Cuban boy?</s>MAYOUE: It's not likely, but they could, in fact, broaden the concept of family to give the Gonzalez boy rights that he might not, or his relatives in this country might not otherwise have, but again, I think it's somewhat unlikely. I think the Supreme Court is likely to decide this case on very narrow grounds.</s>LIN: That's very interesting, the likelihood that a six-year-old boy might have legal rights to determine his own future, versus the relatives and the father in Cuba.</s>MAYOUE: Absolutely.</s>LIN: All right, thank you very much, John Mayoue, for joining us.</s>MAYOUE: You're welcome.