Annual Survey of Virginia Law: Legal Issues Involving Children

The past few years of legal developments involving children have been marked in part by an increase in the number of major decisions from the United States Supreme Court which have had a direct impact on children. Some of those decisions have had a very dramatic effect, as noted in previous surveys, such as juvenile death penalty cases, cases addressing issues involving abused or neglected children, an opinion defining the associational rights of children, two cases further extending the rights of illegitimate children, decisions addressing the educational rights of handicapped children, and three important decisions narrowing the first amendment and other expression rights of public school children. The past year has been one of unusual activity by the Supreme Court, both in the number of cases decided and in the complexity and impact of the issues presented. For example, during the recently concluded 1990 Term alone, the Court issued decisions in no less than ten cases of varying importance that impact on children, sometimes in a very profound fashion.