In Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972), the Court recognized a father's due process rights even though his three children were born out of wedlock, he had lived only "intermittently" with them and the mother over an 18 year period, and when the mother died he put the children in the care of a third person. The state sought to terminate his parental rights under a statute presuming an unwed father to be unfit. Although the father did not desire to have custody of the children, he fought to maintain his status as their father in the dependency proceedings. The Stanley court ruled the statute violated due process and that the father's parental rights could not be terminated without a showing that he was unfit. In recognizing the father's rights, the Court noted that he had acknowledged the children as his children and had lived with them for some period.