High court strikes down law requiring grandparent visitation.

Byline: Jan Crawford Greenburg

WASHINGTON _ In an emotionally charged case that raised sweeping questions about parental rights, the Supreme Court Monday said a Washington state law that gave "any person," including grandparents, court-ordered visitation with children infringed on a parent's constitutional right to raise those children without state interference.

But the issue, which had enormous implications for American families, deeply split the justices. Six agreed that the grandparents' court-ordered visitation in the case violated the mother's rights, but they could not agree on why the law went too far _ or even whether it should be struck down entirely as unconstitutional.

Those divisions greatly temper the impact of the case, because the court provides no clear standard that can apply in other situations. Acknowledging the "changing realities of the American family," as one opinion put it, the court nonetheless gave little guidance on how states can respond.

The ruling does suggest, however, that some state laws permitting grandparents and others to seek visitation may still be possible, so long as they are more narrowly written than the state of Washington's "breathtakingly broad" statute.

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