CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal presents the question whether a Connecticut statute, which provides that in paternity actions the cost of blood grouping tests is to be borne by the party requesting them, violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment when applied to deny such tests to indigent defendants.

I

On May 21, 1975, appellee Gloria Streater, while unmarried, gave birth to a female child, Kenyatta Chantel Streater. As a requirement stemming from her child's receipt of public assistance, appellee identified appellant Walter Little as the child's father to the Connecticut Department of Social Services. See Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-169 (1981). The Department then provided an attorney for appellee to bring a paternity suit against appellant in the Court of Common Pleas at New Haven to establish his liability for the child's support.1

At the time the paternity action was commenced, appellant was incarcerated in the Connecticut Correctional Institution at Enfield. Through his counsel, who was provided by a legal aid organization, appellant moved the trial court to order blood grouping tests on appellee and her child pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-184 (1977), which later became Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-168 (1981) and includes the provision that "[t]he costs of making such tests shall be chargeable against the party making the motion." Appel

1 While the case was pending, the Court of Common Pleas was merged with the Superior Court of Connecticut. See Conn. Gen. Stat. § 51-1648 (1981).

In its entirety, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-168 (1981) states: "In any proceeding in which a question of paternity is an issue, the court, on motion of any party, may order the mother, her child and the putative father or the husband of the mother to submit to one or more blood grouping tests, to be made by a qualified physician or other qualified per

lant asserted that he was indigent and asked that the State be ordered to pay for the tests. The trial court granted the motion insofar as it sought blood grouping tests but denied the request that they be furnished at the State's expense. App. 8.

For "financial reasons," no blood grouping tests were performed even though they had been authorized. Id., at 12. The paternity action was tried to the court on September 28, 1978. Both appellee and appellant, who was still a state prisoner, testified at trial. Id., at 14-19. After listening to the testimony, the court found that appellant was the child's father. Id., at 2, 20. Following a subsequent hearing on damages, the court entered judgment against appellant in the amount of $6,974.48, which included the "lying-in" expenses of appellee and the child, "accrued maintenance" through October 31, 1978, and the "costs of suit plus reasonable attorney's fees." Ibid. In addition, appellant was ordered to pay child support at the rate of $2 per month-$1 toward the arrearage amount of $6,974.48 and $1 toward a current monthly award of $163.58-directly to Connecticut's Department of Finance and Control. Id., at 20-21.5

son, designated by the court, to determine whether or not the putative father or the husband of the mother can be excluded as being the father of the child. The results of such tests shall be admissible in evidence only in cases where such results establish definite exclusion of the putative father or such husband as such father. The costs of making such tests shall be chargeable against the party making the motion."

3 Appellant's financial affidavit, which was filed with the motion, showed that he had weekly income of $5, expenses of $5, and no assets. App. 7. The trial court later specifically found that, at the time of the motion, appellant "was indigent and could not afford to pay the costs for blood grouping tests." Id., at 23.

Although appellant admitted intimacy with appellee, he expressed doubt that he was the child's father because of appellee's alleged relationship with another man and because she had not allowed him to see the child. Id., at 17-18.

5 The minimal sum of $2 was ordered presumably because appellant was indigent and incarcerated. However, his payments to the State are sub

The Appellate Session of the Connecticut Superior Court affirmed the trial court's judgment in a per curiam opinion that is not officially reported. Relying on its prior decision in Ferro v. Morgan, 35 Conn. Supp. 679, 406 A. 2d 873, cert. denied, 177 Conn. 753, 399 A. 2d 526 (1979), the Appellate Session held that Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-168 (1981) does not violate the due process and equal protection rights of an indigent defendant in a paternity proceeding. The Appellate Session thus found no error in the trial court's denial of appellant's motion that the cost of blood grouping tests be paid by the State. App. 25-26.

Thereafter, appellant's petition for certification was denied by the Connecticut Supreme Court, 180 Conn. 756, 414 A. 2d 199 (1980); and we noted probable jurisdiction, 449 U. S. 817 (1980).

II

The Fourteenth Amendment provides in part: "No State shall... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...." .." Appellant argues that his right to due process was abridged by the refusal, under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-168 (1981), to grant his request based on indigency for state-subsidized blood grouping tests.

Due process, "unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances." Joint Anti-Facist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 162 (1951) (concurring opinion). Rather, it is "flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands." Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 481 (1972). In Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U. S. 371, 377 (1971), the Court held that "due process requires, at a minimum, that absent a countervailing state interest of overriding significance, persons forced

ject to future increase pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-171 (1981), which provides that "[a]ny order for the payment of [child] support may at any time thereafter be set aside or altered by any court issuing such order."

to settle their claims of right and duty through the judicial process must be given a meaningful opportunity to be heard." Accord, Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U. S. 545, 552 (1965); Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 313 (1950). And in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 335 (1976), we explained:

"[I]dentification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires consideration of three distinct factors: First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail."

These standards govern appellant's due process claim, which is premised on the unique quality of blood grouping tests as a source of exculpatory evidence, the State's prominent role in the litigation, and the character of paternity actions under Connecticut law.

A

The discovery of human blood groups by Dr. Karl Landsteiner in Vienna at the beginning of this century, and subsequent understanding of their hereditary aspects, made possible the eventual use of blood tests to scientifically evaluate allegations of paternity. P. Speiser & F. Smekal, Karl Landsteiner 89-93 (1975). Like their European counterparts, American courts gradually recognized the evidentiary value of blood grouping tests in paternity cases, and the modern status of such tests has been described by one commentator as follows:

"As far as the accuracy, reliability, dependability— even infallibility-of the test are concerned, there is no

longer any controversy. The result of the test is universally accepted by distinguished scientific and medical authority. There is, in fact, no living authority of repute, medical or legal, who may be cited adversely. . .

[T]here is now . . . practically universal and unanimous judicial willingness to give decisive and controlling evidentiary weight to a blood test exclusion of paternity." S. Schatkin, Disputed Paternity Proceedings § 9.13 (1975).

The application of blood tests to the issue of paternity results from certain properties of the human blood groups and types: (a) the blood group and type of any individual can be determined at birth or shortly thereafter; (b) the blood group and type of every individual remain constant throughout life; and (c) the blood groups and types are inherited in accordance with Mendel's laws. Id., §5.03. If the blood groups and types of the mother and child are known, the possible and impossible blood groups and types of the true father can be determined under the rules of inheritance. For example, a group AB child cannot have a group O parent, but can have a group A, B, or AB parent. Similarly, a child cannot be type M unless one or both parents are type M, and the factor rh' cannot appear in the blood of a child unless present in the blood of one or both parents. Id., §§ 5.03 and 6.02. Since millions of men belong to the possible groups and types, a blood grouping test cannot conclusively establish paternity. However, it can demonstrate nonpaternity, such as where the alleged father belongs to group O and the child is group AB. It is a negative rather than an affirmative test with the potential to scientifically exclude the paternity of a falsely accused putative father.

The ability of blood grouping tests to exonerate innocent putative fathers was confirmed by a 1976 report developed jointly by the American Bar Association and the American