Whether the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses require application of the plain error doctrine and independent de novo review of constitutional facts in proceedings to terminate parental rights

QUESTIONS PRESENTED An Afghanistan war veteran left the service with an honorable discharge to care for her child. A few years later, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by her military service. Realizing that her life was beginning to lose stability, she put her child, with the court’s approval, in his biological father’s care so she could obtain PTSD treatment in an out-of-state shelter for female veterans. But when she returned after accomplishing precisely what the court had approved—putting her life back together to reunite with her child—the court applauded her but terminated her rights and those of her child. Almost fifty years ago, this Court held: “[t]he State registers no gain towards its declared goals when it separates children from the custody of fit parents.” Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 652, 92 S. Ct. 1208, 1213, 31 L. Ed. 2d 551 (1972), reaffirmed in Santosky, 455 U.S. at 767. Yet the Colorado Step-ParentAdoption Statute, C.R.S. § 19-5-201 et seq., allows the State to do just that: permanently separate children from their fit parents. Questions presented: 1. Whether, in order to ensure that basic constitutional guarantees define the framework of proceedings to terminate the fundamental constitutional liberty rights of children and parents, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the i Constitution require that the plain or structural error doctrine be applied to reach the merits of constitutional questions raised for the first time on direct appeal. 2. Whether the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution require that appellate courts address the merits of claims of violation of a child’s constitutional rights raised for the first time on direct appeal, where the child was not represented by counsel during the proceedings that permanently terminated his constitutional liberty right to have a relationship with his parent. 3. Whether the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses require appellate courts to conduct an independent de novo review of the constitutional facts in proceedings to terminate the fundamental constitutional liberty rights of children and parents. ii