United States v. Cole Cameron Cummings, AKA Coleman Cameron Cummings

We must decide whether the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act, which criminalizes the retention of a kidnapped child in a foreign country, is unconstitutional.

I

Cole Cameron Cummings married Dana Hopkins in 1989, and they had three children, all of whom were born in the United States and resided with their parents in the State of Washington. In 1995, Cummings and Hopkins divorced, and a Washington state court ordered the children to reside primarily with Hopkins. Cummings thereafter married a German citizen and, together with his new wife, exercised his visitation rights with the children while still residing in Washington. In August 1997, the new Mrs. Cummings left Washington for the Federal Republic of Germany to work.

In November 1997, the oldest child (“child # 1”) was placed in Cummings’s temporary custody after being struck in the face by his stepfather, Hopkins’s new husband. Washington State Child Protective Services received complaints that the remaining children were abused in the Hopkins home. Believing that his other two children were at risk of physical abuse, in March 1998 Cummings picked up his second oldest child (“child # 2”) for a weekend visitation.…