Mootness Kills Camreta.

You’ll remember my prior blog post about the decision of the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Camreta v. Greene.  You’ll also remember my comment that “should the Court reach a decision on the merits, the opinion could be far reaching.”  Well, the Court didn’t and the opinion isn’t.  Ultimately, on May 26, 2011, the United States Supreme Court issued it’s opinion finding that there was no longer a case in controversy in the matter.  The lower court was reversed.

The opinion is significant on this point.  The case is interesting in that the appellant-Oregon Department of Human Services case worker prevailed at the trial court and court of appeals on the issue of qualified immunity.  So, despite the ruling that the Department had unlawfully seized the child absent a warrant, the qualified immunity ruling made the social worker the prevailing party.  In such instances, the prevailing party must demonstrate a “personal stake” in the suit to allow it to continue.  Both parties must maintain an ongoing interest in the dispute both at the trial and throughout the appeal.  

As happenstance would have it, in this case, the “child has grown up and moved across the country, and so will never again be subject to the Oregon in-school interviewing practices whose constitutionality is at issue.”  563 U.S. ____(2011)  This is significant to the opinion’s value as a precedent elsewhere.  The Court ultimately reasoned that “[w[hen a civil suit becomes moot pending appeal, we have the authority to ‘direct the entry of such appropriate judgment, decree, or order, or require such further proceedings to be had as may be just under the circumstances. *** Our ‘established’ (though not exceptionless) practice in this situation is to vacate the judgment below.”   That is just what occurred here; the United States Supreme Court reversed the finding by the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that found the Fourth Amendment violation because the child had grown and moved away.

That said, the reasoning and briefing in the Fourth Amendment analysis aspect of the case remains compelling.  There is much to be argued that social workers should not be permitted to interview children without either a warrant or the consent of the parent.  This is especially so with children as children demand particularly sophisticated methods of interview so as to protect the evidence from unfair – and at times unlawful – coercion or leading.