The Constitutional Problem
The Issue Isn't Family Court. It's Constitutional Law.
What is Due Process, anyways?
Due process is a fundamental constitutional principle requiring that legal matters be resolved according to established rules and principles ensuring the fair and equal treatment of individuals. Enshrined in the Fifth Amendment (applying to the federal government) and the Fourteenth Amendment (applying to state governments), it mandates that no person shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
In other words…
Due process is the constitutional requirement that government must act fairly, follow the law, and respect established procedures before it can limit anyone’s rights. It is the core protection that prevents arbitrary or abusive use of state power.
Generally, that means:
Procedural Guarantees: Procedural Due Process ensures that the methods used by the government are fair and applied equally. Key guarantees include:
Notice: The right to be informed of legal proceedings and the specific grounds for government action.
An Opportunity to be Heard: The right to present a defense, offer evidence, and call witnesses in a timely hearing.
Confrontation: The right to know opposing evidence and cross-examine adverse witnesses.
Legal Representation: A right to counsel in criminal cases where liberty is at stake; in some civil contexts, courts may appoint counsel when fundamental rights are involved.
Substantive Guarantees Fundamental Rights: Protects liberties deeply rooted in history, such as the right to marry, privacy, parental rights, and family autonomy.
Protection from Vagueness: Guarantees that laws are clear enough for an average person to understand what is prohibited; laws that are too vague can be declared void.
Reasonableness: Ensures the government has a compelling or legitimate reason for infringing upon an individual's rights.
Neutral Decision-Maker: The right to have a case heard by an unbiased judge or tribunal.
Across the nation, individuals, parents and families report unpredictable and dramatically different experiences and outcomes in state family courts, especially when it comes to their most important rights and liberties - their children, homes, finances, health, and in some cases even their freedom.
Beneath these constitutional irregularities lies a single structural problem: state family courts operate without the consistent constitutionally required safeguards and oversight necessary to protect the fundamental rights they affect.
This is not about individual judges, court‑appointed professionals, or isolated personal accounts. It is a systemic civil‑rights failure affecting millions of families across the country, with consequences that are destabilizing households and altering the course of people’s lives.
This failure of due process is not a family‑court problem. It is the defining civil‑rights issue of the 21st century — a call for constitutional protections in the very courts that govern our families. It is the demand that due process be upheld where the stakes are highest.
KEY CONSTITUTIONAL FAILURES
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Hearings are skipped or replaced with informal processes
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Evidence is not reviewed or admitted
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Findings are not made
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Judicial power is delegated to private actors
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ADA accommodations are denied
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Appellate review is inaccessible
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Oversight is internal and ineffective
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Immunity doctrines prevent accountability
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No right to jury
Due process is not optional. It is the foundation of every liberty we have and our relationship with our government.
When due process collapses, families and individuals lose their rights, their children, their safety, their property, their voice, and their trust in government.
This is not a family law dispute, it is a constitutional crisis.
Different Stories. Same Constitutional Problem.
The "Trees" people fight about all grow from the same poisoned soil.
Procedural Due Process Failures
Skipped or no hearings
No written or formal findings
No evidentiary protocols, or review
Unmonitored Ex parte orders
Contempt incarceration without safeguards
Quasi-criminal state intervention without safeguards
Takings of children, property and liberty without safeguards
Substantive Due Process Violations
Interference with family integrity
Arbitrary state action
Coercive control misused
Parental alienation misused
Arbitrary evidentiary consideration
No meaningful substantive or procedural appellate review
Lack of rules and oversight, compounded by immunity doctrines encourage illegal conduct by court officials
Equal Protection Disparities
DV survivors treated inconsistently
Disabled litigants penalized
Low-income litigants disadvantaged
ADA Title II Violations
Failure to accommodate trauma, disability, neurodiversity
Denial of accessible hearings
Unlawful Delegation of State Power
GALs exercising judicial authority
Evaluators making binding recommendations
Coordinators enforcing orders
Treatment providers determining outcomes
ROOT CAUSES
Four Structural Failures
These conditions make due-process violations predictable, repeatable, and statewide.
I Misaligned Incentive Structures
State courts are underfunded, overloaded, and structurally incentivized to move cases quickly. When efficiency is prioritized over rights, due process becomes optional.
II Delegation to Private Actors
Courts have quietly outsourced judicial power to GALs, evaluators, and coordinators who are not bound by constitutional constraints; creating a system with no accountability.
III Oversight Vacuum
State courts regulate, investigate, and discipline themselves. No other branch of government has this level of insulation from external accountability.
IV Constitutional Illiteracy
Most people—including lawyers—don't understand what due process requires. When the public doesn't know their rights, the system drifts without resistance.
What Due Process Actually Means
You have a federally protected right to due process: the procedures owed individuals before the State may materially interfere in their liberty interests.
This is not a "family-law issue." It is a civil-rights violation.
"Families are suffering not because of individual judges or gendered narratives, but because state courts have drifted outside constitutional boundaries due to misaligned incentives, unchecked delegation, lack of oversight, and widespread constitutional illiteracy. The Due Process Project exists to expose these structural failures, document their impact, and restore constitutional safeguards through data, education, legislation, and federal civil rights intervention."
Help Document the Pattern
Your data helps build a statewide pattern to drive federal civil rights enforcement; not through ugly family law stories, but through constitutional evidence.