Lassiter v. Department of Social Servs. of Durham Cty.

Justice Blackmun, with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall join,

dissenting.

The Court today denies an indigent mother the representation of counsel in a judicial proceeding initiated by the State of North Carolina to terminate her parental rights with respect to her youngest child. The Court most appropriately recognizes that the mother’s interest is a “commanding one,” ante, at 27, and it finds no countervailing state interest of even remotely comparable significance, see ante, at 27-28, 31. Nonetheless, the Court avoids what seems to me the obvious conclusion that due process requires…