Urbasek, In re

• Citation: 232 N.E.2d 716,38 Ill.2d 535
• Decision Date: 30 November 1967
• Docket Number: No. 40411,40411
• Parties: In re Robert F. URBASEK. The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Robert F. URBASEK, Appellant.
• Court: Supreme Court of Illinois

Page 716

232 N.E.2d 716

38 Ill.2d 535

In re Robert F. URBASEK The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Robert F. URBASEK, Appellant.

No. 40411.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 30, 1967.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 18, 1968.

Edward F. Vyzral and Herman R. Tavins, Chicago, for appellant.

William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and John J. Stamos, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Elmer C. Kissane and William J. Nellis, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel), for appellee.

UNDERWOOD, Justice.

The First District Appellate Court (76 Ill.App.2d 375, 222 N.E.2d 233) affirmed the judgment of the juvenile division of the circuit court of Cook County finding from a preponderance of the evidence that Robert F. Urbasek, (herein referred to as respondent) was a juvenile delinquent. We allowed a petition for leave to appeal in order that we might consider whether continued use of the standard of proof (preponderance of the evidence) heretofore prevailing in delinquency proceedings was permissible in light of the opinion of the Supreme Court in In re Application of Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527, or whether the State must now prove a charge of delinquency beyond a reasonable doubt where the acts constituting the alleged delinquent conduct would amount to a crime if charged against an adult.

The delinquency petition charged the respondent, an eleven-year-old boy, with violating a State law. Violation of a State law by a juvenile was a basis for a declaration of delinquency in Illinois at the time this action was commenced in 1965 (Ill.Rev.Stat.1965, chap. 23, par. 2001), and continues to be under our present Juvenile Court Act (Ill.Rev.Stat.1965, chap. 37, par. 702--2). The evidence introduced at the hearing revealed that the respondent was charged with murdering an eleven-year-old girl with whom he had been playing some four hours prior to the discovery of her body. The appellate court opinion includes the following description:

'On August 26, 1965, between 7:00 and 8:00 P.M., the body of Karen Mitchell was found in the locked Urbasek garage. Karen had been missing since about 3:00 P.M., and her mother had been searching for her. She had questioned Robert several times and finally insisted that Robert and his older sister allow her to look for Karen in their garage. The garage was opened, and the girl's body, with seven stab wounds, was found in the crawl space at the far end of the garage. A 6-inch knife was found near her head, and on her left wrist was 'a strapping with perforated holes and a combination lock and a piece of twine like substance around her neck.' The immediate cause of death was stab wounds of the lungs and liver.' For our purposes an extensive consideration of the evidence presented in the trial court is unnecessary because it is clear that the judge based his findings of fact upon the preponderance of the evidence standard.

While our present statutory reference to a preponderance of the evidence standard (Ill.Rev.Stat.1965, chap. 37, pars. 701--4 and 704--6) was not in effect at the time this cause was heard, there is no doubt that such standard prevailed in the majority of jurisdictions. (People v. Lewis, 260 N.Y. 171, 183 N.E. 353, 355; State ex rel. Berry v. Superior Court, etc., 139 Wash. 1, 245 P. 409, 410; Robinson v. State (Tex.Civ.App.), 204 S.W.2d 981, 982; In re Castro, 243 Cal.App.2d 402, 52 Cal.Rptr. 469, 472; In re Bigesby (D.C.App.), 202 A.2d 785, 786; United States v. Borders (N.D.Ala.), 154 F.Supp. 214, 216; In re Ronny, 40 Misc.2d 194, 242 N.Y.S.2d 844, 848; see, however, In re Johnson, 30 Ill.App.2d 439, 174 N.E.2d 907.) That standard was adopted in delinquency cases because such proceedings were almost unanimously regarded as 'civil' actions (see appendix to Pee v. United States, 107 U.S.App.D.C. 47, 274 F.2d 556, 561--562, listing 42 States that have so held).

Since the first juvenile court statute adopted in 1899 in Illinois, every State in the Union has adopted a similar system. All of these enactments were predicated on the theory that the child whose anti-social behavior caused him to be brought into court benefited from informal treatment rather than formal procedure and punishment. The praiseworthy aspirations upon which the juvenile statutes were based contemplated not only insulating adjudged delinquents from adults convicted of crimes, but also omitting from delinquency hearings many of the procedural safeguards that attend criminal trials. The reasoning advanced for conducting juvenile court proceedings according to the rules developed in civil actions was that delinquency hearings 'are not in the nature of a criminal trial but constitute merely a civil inquiry or action looking to the treatment, reformation and rehabilitation of the minor child. Their purpose is not penal but protective,--aimed to check juvenile delinquency and to throw around a child, just starting, perhaps on an evil course and deprived of proper parental care, the strong arm of the State acting as Parens patriae. The State is not seeking to punish an offender but to salvage a boy who may be in danger of becoming one, and to safeguard his adolescent life. Even though the child's delinquency may result from the commission of a criminal act the State extends to such a child the same care and training as to one merely neglected, destitute or physically handicapped. No suggestion or taint of criminality attaches to any finding of delinquency by a Juvenile Court.' In re Holmes, 379 Pa. 599, 109 A.2d 523, 525.

This philosophy generally prevailed, with a few exceptions, for more than half a century until the United States Supreme Court noted in Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 555--556, 86 S.Ct. 1045, 1054, 16 L.Ed.2d 84, 94: 'While there can be no doubt of the original laudable purpose of juvenile courts, studies and critiques in recent years raise serious questions as to whether actual performance measures well enough against theoretical purpose to make tolerable the immunity of the process from the reach of constitutional guaranties applicable to adults. There is much evidence that some juvenile courts * * * lack the personnel, facilities and techniques to perform adequately as representatives of the State in a Parens patriae capacity, at least with respect to children charged with law violation. There is evidence, in fact, that there may be grounds for concern that the child receives the worst of both worlds: that he gets neither the protections accorded to adults nor the solicitous care and regenerative treatment postulated for children.'

Kent was limited in its application to the District of Columbia, but this limitation was effectively removed by the court's admonition in In re Application of Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527, that neither the fourteenth amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults only. In Gault the court held that the essentials of due process required that a juvenile court adjudication of delinquency include adequate advance notice of the charges, the right to counsel, the privilege against self-incrimination and the right to confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses. While these requirements are met by our statute, and the respondent in the case before us was denied none of the rights, it would seem that the reasons which caused the Supreme Court to import the constitutional requirements of an adversary criminal trial into delinquency hearings logically require that a finding of delinquency for misconduct, which would be criminal if charged against an adult, is valid only when the acts of delinquency are proved beyond a reasonable doubt to have been committed by the juvenile charged.

We note that this interpretation of the Gault decision is in direct conflict with the ruling of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in In re Wylie (D.C.App.) 231 A.2d 81, which refused to depart from its earlier decision in In re Bigesby, D.C.App., 202 A.2d 785, where it held that the injection of the criminal law concept of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt into 'civil' delinquency proceedings would be 'both unnecessary and improper.' (202 A.2d at 786.) We believe, however, that the reasoning of that court does not comport with the recurrent theme of the majority in Gault which equated many aspects of a delinquency adjudication with a criminal conviction. (387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. at 1441--1442, 18 L.Ed.2d 527.) A minor...