Services Against Our Will: Texas Family Code § 264.203 Is Unconstitutional

Authors

Beau T. Sinclair
Christina M. Davis

Publication Date

3-1-2013

Document Type

Article

Abstract

There exists a well-known and ever-increasing problem throughout Texas: Texas Child Protective Services. The Texas Child Protective Services ("CPS") system is flawed, yet often, efforts are not made to correct the identifiable flaws. Perhaps progress can be made by ensuring that the statutes upon which CPS is built are, themselves, not flawed. At the most basic level, statutes must be constitutional; an unconstitutional statute will inevitably lead to application problems. One of CPS's major flaws is its at-times inappropriate insistence that families participate in "services." Upon closer inspection of this flaw, the statute that allows judges to order participation in such services at CPS's request, section 264.203 of the Texas Family Code, is unconstitutional because the statute allows for state infringement of several fundamental rights without setting out any sort of a burden of proof to be met. Even if section 264.203 was not considered unconstitutional on its face, certainly it would be unconstitutional as applied.

DOI

10.37419/TWLR.V19.I4.3

First Page

935

Last Page

946

Recommended Citation

Beau T. Sinclair & Christina M. Davis, Services Against Our Will: Texas Family Code § 264.203 Is Unconstitutional, 19 Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev. 935 (2013).
Available at: https://doi.org/10.37419/TWLR.V19.I4.3