Year: 1971
Type: article
Abstract: A. CouRT DECISIONS §7.1.The "stubborn child" law.In Commonwealth v. Brasher 1 the Supreme Judicial Court considered the constitutionality of a stat-ute2 providing for punishment of "stubborn children," that is, children who stubbornly disobey their parents or other persons having authority to give the child lawful and reasonable commands.The Court held that the statute is not so vague and indefinite as to violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is not an unconstitutional intrusion into the privacy of family life.For a thorough and thoughtful discussion of the Brasher case and of judicial reaction to "stubborn child" laws in other jurisdictions, see the student comment in §7 .11infra.§7.2.Guardian of minor: Parent and child.Petition of Kauch 1 involved a father's appeal from a final decree of the probate court dismissing his petition for the guardianship and custody of his two minor children (both boys) and awarding custody to the sister of his deceased wife.Mr. Kauch and his wife were divorced in 1965 by decree of a Florida court, and she was granted custody of the children.Thereafter she moved to Massachusetts with them and continued to live here until her death in 1968.After the divorce, Mr. Kauch lived with his widowed mother in Virginia.In dismissing the father's petition, the probate judge was lavish in his praise for the type of home life which the maternal aunt and her husband would afford to the boys.He found their personal needs would be more than adequately provided for out of the income from their mother's estate, whether they lived with their maternal aunt or with their father.The boys, who were 14 and 10 years of age at the time of their mother's death, expressed love for their father but preferred to live with their aunt.For the foregoing reasons, and because he believed it to be in the best interests of the children, the probate judge awarded custody to the maternal aunt.He noted, however, that the father was "a man of good character and with a sincere love and concern for the boys."2 MoNROE L. INKER is a member of the firm of Crane, Inker & Oteri, Boston, and is an in• structor in law at Boston College Law School.
Source: bepress Legal Repository
Author: Monroe L. Inker
Language: English
Topic: Family and Matrimonial Law
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2025471778