If you want to protect your parental rights as a father you need to register at the Responsible Father Registry.
Please read my blog post at http://www.southcarolinaadoptionlaw.com/2009/12/articles/biological-father-1/john-doe-rip-responsible-father-registry-is-law-1-januarly-2010/ and Responsible Father Registry Q & A to help you more fully understand the Responsible Father Registry.
The text below is extracted from www.justia.com and gives a great summary of a U.S. Supreme Court Case involving unwed fathers' rights and the putative father registry. After reading this case, I doubt the new South Carolina Responsible Father Registry will have any serious U.S. Constitutional challenges.
U.S. Supreme Court
Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248 (1983)
Lehr v. Robertson
No. 81-1756
Argued December 7, 1982
Decided June 27, 1983
463 U.S. 248
Syllabus
Appellant is the putative father of a child born out of wedlock. Appellee mother of the child married another man (also an appellee) after the child was born. Subsequently, when the child was over two years old, appellees filed an adoption petition in the Ulster County, N.Y. Family Court, which entered an order of adoption. Appellant never supported the child or offered to marry appellee mother, did not enter his name in New York's "putative father registry," which would have entitled him to notice of the adoption proceeding, and was not in any of the classes of putative fathers who are entitled under New York law to receive notice of adoption proceedings. After the adoption proceeding was commenced, appellant filed a paternity petition in the Westchester County, N.Y. Family Court. Appellant learned of the pending adoption proceeding several months later. Shortly thereafter, his attorney sought a stay of the adoption proceeding pending the determination of the paternity action, but by that time the Ulster County Family Court had entered the adoption order. Appellant filed a petition to vacate the adoption order on the ground that it was obtained in violation of his rights under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Ulster County Family Court denied the petition, and both the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held:
1. Appellant's rights under the Due Process Clause were not violated.
(a) Where an unwed father demonstrates a full commitment to the responsibilities of parenthood by "com[ing] forward to participate in the rearing of his child," Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U. S. 380, 441 U. S. 392, his interest in personal contact with his child acquires substantial protection under the Due Process Clause. But the mere existence of a biological link does not merit equivalent protection. If the natural father fails to grasp the opportunity to develop a relationship with his child, the Constitution will not automatically compel a State to listen to his opinion of where the child's best interests lie.
(b) Here, New York has adequately protected appellant's inchoate interest in assuming a responsible role in the future of his child. Under New York's special statutory scheme, the right to receive notice was completely within appellant's control. By mailing a postcard to the putative father registry, he could have guaranteed that he would receive notice of any adoption proceedings. The State's conclusion that a more open-ended notice requirement would merely complicate the adoption process, threaten the privacy interests of unwed mothers, create the risk of unnecessary controversy, and impair the desired finality of adoption decrees cannot be characterized as arbitrary. The Constitution does not require either the trial judge or a litigant to give special notice to nonparties who are presumptively capable of asserting and protecting their own rights.
2. Nor were appellant's rights under the Equal Protection Clause violated. Because he has never established a substantial relationship with his child, the New York statutes at issue did not operate to deny him equal protection. Cf. Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U. S. 246. Appellee mother had a continuous custodial responsibility for the child, whereas appellant never established any custodial, personal, or financial relationship with the child. In such circumstances, the Equal Protection Clause does not prevent a State from according the two parents different legal rights. Caban v. Mohammed, supra, distinguished.
54 N.Y.2d 417, 430 N.E.2d 896, affirmed.
STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and BRENNAN, POWELL, REHNQUIST, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. WHITE, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined.
Link to the Full Text of Case: http://supreme.justia.com/us/463/248/case.html
Though the statute does not require a search of the Responsible Father Registry until 1 July 2010, it was my belief that attorneys would be able to search the registry starting 1 January 2010. This would have been helpful because it would have immediately eliminated the need to serve John Doe in adoptions case.
I spoke with the general counsel of the South Carolina Department of Social Services concerning whether or not we could immediately start searching the registry. It is my understanding from my conversation with her that we will not be able to access the registry until 1 July 2010. John Doe lives a few more months.
Please read my blog post on the Responsible Father Registry and my blog post of the change in the notice requirement implemented in the Responsible Fathers Registry for a more full picture of how the registry law is going to work.
Is John Doe dead? Jenny Horne, a co-sponsor, of the new Responsible Father Registry law says yes in an article she wrote in The Summerville Journal Scene:
The Responsible Birthfather Registry Act will require fathers who wish to be notified of a termination of parental rights proceeding to take the affirmative step of registering with a confidential state database. This registry can then be checked by DSS [or the adoptive parents' lawyer in private adoptions] during the termination of parental rights (“TPR”) proceedings before a child is adopted into a permanent and loving home. This new registry does away with the antiquated practice of placing Joe Doe notices in the local newspapers.
If the mother of a child who is being placed for adoption is unmarried, the courts generally require the adoptive parents to serve any potential unknown father by adding John Doe as a defendant and serving John Doe via a newspaper in the county in which the child was conceived. This method of terminating the rights of a potential unknown father is fraught with legal uncertainty and a potential challenge by the father as illustrated in Brown v. Malloy; this case is a fact intensive case in which the father challenged the termination of his rights and the adoption of his child. All four issues raised by the father in the case concern the John Doe notice.
The Responsible Father Registry should be in place on 1 January 2010 and will require a potential father to register with the Registry to ensure he preserves his parental rights; eliminating the need for John Doe notices.
The Responsible Father Registry law makes clear the only notice that the father is required to receive concerning the mother's pregnancy is the sexual intercourse itself; his "sexual intercourse or his consent to artificial insemination with the biological mother is deemed to be notice to the unmarried biological father of the biological mother's pregnancy." In essence, if a man has sex with a woman and wants to preserve his parental rights to a child that may have been conceived from that intercourse, he must register with the Registry. This will eliminate any legal uncertainty concerning the father's rights and places the responsibility for preserving his rights squarely on his own shoulders. John Doe is dead.
Continue Reading...
Under certain circumstances, the adoptive parents are required to give an unmarried father notice of the adoption proceeding. The statute list seven categories of fathers whom the adoptive parents are required to send notice of the adoption proceeding.
The Governor signed into law the Responsible Father Registry on the 2 June 2009. This new law changes the notice requirement slightly. The notice requirement is effective in its present form through 1 July 2010; on 1 July 2010, the new notice requirement replaces the need to notify unmarried fathers from whom a consent and relinquishment is not required with the need to notify unmarried fathers who have registered with the Responsible Father Registry. The adoptive parents are still required to notify the following unmarried fathers under the new law without the need for the father to register:
Under the new law, the attorney for the adoptive parents will make a request of the department to determine if an unmarried father has taken responsibility for the child by registering with the Responsible Father Registry. If the department determines that a father has taken responsibility for the child, the department will furnish the attorney with the name of the father. The adoptive parents will then be responsible for notifying the father of the adoption proceeding.
Under South Carolina's notice statute, the parental rights of an unmarried father who is required to be notified are terminated if he does not request a hearing within thirty days after receiving the required notice. Though the statute does not directly state the father's rights are to be terminated it does require the adoptive parents to including the following language in the notice—failure to file a response within thirty days of receiving notice constitutes consent to the adoption of the child and forfeiture of all rights and obligations of the person...with respect to the child. Because the statute requires the adoptive parents to include the language in the notice, South Carolina courts have implied that the father's rights have been forfeited and he has consented to the adoption of the child if he does not request a hearing within thirty days.
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