In the Interest of D.B. et al.

ACLU and ACLU of Georgia have filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of Georgia supporting a grieving mother challenging the removal of her children without notice, a hearing, or any finding that the children faced danger because one of her children had just died by suicide. A Georgia appellate court found that the State can take children from a parent ex parte—before the parent is ever heard—whenever circumstances are "exceptional," which the court below defined to mean merely "unusual" rather than a genuine emergency. Every federal circuit and state high court to consider the question requires an actual emergency before such a removal, making Georgia's rule a national outlier. Because these removals are brief and the appeals process is slow, the practice largely evades review, and it falls hardest on the families with the least resources to challenge these kinds of removals. The brief urges the court to require a genuine emergency before the State may remove a child without first hearing from their parent.