Arredondo v. State of New Mexico

McCONNELL, Circuit Judge.

Few decisions by state officials are as wrenching as the decision to remove a child from a home based on suspicion of parental abuse. The competing constitutional interests are so powerful that courts have struggled to find adequate superlatives. On one hand, the state’s interest in shielding children from abuse is “transcendent,” Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 855, 110 S.Ct. 3157, 111 L.Ed.2d 666 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted), “compelling,” Globe Newspaper Co. v. Super. Ct. for Norfolk County, 457 U.S. 596, 607, 102 S.Ct. 2613, 73 L.Ed.2d 248 (1982),…