In Re Ann Lutnes

Whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits a state court from exercising continuing jurisdiction over fundamental parental liberty interests when the mandatory post-deprivation hearing required by statute to establish that jurisdiction never lawfully occurred.

Whether a writ of mandamus lies to compel a state court to conduct the post­ deprivation hearing required by statute and to rule upon a timely jurisdictional challenge before adjudicating fundamental parental rights, where the trial court refused to rule on that challenge and the state’s highest court dismissed the only available extraordinary remedy on procedural grounds caused by clerk obstruction.

Whether exhaustion of state remedies is excused under McCarthy v. Madigan, 503 U.S. 140 (1992), when court personnel prevented compliance with the procedural conditions required to maintain the state extraordinary writ proceeding.