Alandris D. Griffin v. Angela M. Phillips, et al.

Whether a State may extinguish or suspend the fundamental liberty interests of an unadjudicated, fit biological parent—protected under the Fourteenth Amendment—based solely on a warrantless child seizure after the parent reported parental kidnapping to federal and state authorities and before any state custody proceeding existed.

Whether state officials violate Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738A, and the Due Process Clause when they remove a child from a parent without a custody order, without warrant or exigent circumstances, and then assert exclusive state jurisdiction created by their own unilateral seizure of a citizen from a different state.

Whether a federal court may decline jurisdiction over a federal parentalkidnapping and interstate interference claim—filed before any state action—on the ground that later-filed state dependency proceedings divest the federal court of authority, notwithstanding Article III, the Supremacy Clause and this Court’s limits on abstention.