Arizona State Dept. of Public Welfare v. Barlow

• Decision Date: 17 April 1956
• Docket Number: 6081,6083,6084,6082,Nos. 6080,s. 6080
• Citation: 80 Ariz. 249,296 P.2d 298
• Parties: ARIZONA STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE; C. E. Budlong, Ted Walker, Alf B. Claridge, Robert C. Bohannon, Jr., Dr. David M. Solomon, as members of and constituting the Board of the Arizons State Department of Public Welfare; and Wayne B. Warrington, Commissioner of the Arizona State Department of Public Welfare, Appellants, v. Daniel BARLOW and Elnora Black Barlow, Orval Johnson and Naomi Johnson, Dan Calvin Jessop, and Dorothy Norvell Jessop, Jennie Mae Bistiline, Gerald Ray Williams and Fayilla Maureen B. Williams, Appellees.
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

Page 298

296 P.2d 298

80 Ariz. 249

ARIZONA STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE; C. E. Budlong, Ted Walker, Alf B. Claridge, Robert C. Bohannon, Jr., Dr. David M. Solomon, as members of and constituting the Board of the Arizons State Department of Public Welfare; and Wayne B. Warrington, Commissioner of the Arizona State Department of Public Welfare, Appellants, v. Daniel BARLOW and Elnora Black Barlow, Orval Johnson and Naomi Johnson, Dan Calvin Jessop, and Dorothy Norvell Jessop, Jennie Mae Bistiline, Gerald Ray Williams and Fayilla Maureen B. Williams, Appellees.

Nos. 6080, 6081, 6082, 6083, 6084.

Supreme Court of Arizona.

April 17, 1956.

Robert Morrison, Atty. Gen., Gordon Aldrich, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellants.

Gibbons, Kinney & Tipton, Phoenix, for appellees.

STRUCKMEYER, Justice.

Appellees, the parents of seventeen minor children, presented to this court five original petitions for writs of habeas corpus seeking to secure the custody of their children from the appellant Arizona State Department of Public Welfare. This court then being of the opinion that oral evidjence would be required to sustain the averments of the petitions, directed that return be made to the Honorable Henry S. Stevens sitting in Division 8 of the Superior Court of Maricopa County, Arizona. After an extensive hearing that court declared that the detention of the children by appellants was illegal and ordered their release to their respective parents. The present appeal followed.

On September 10, 1953, these children and others, all residents of Short Creek, Arizona, were determined by the Superior Court of Mohave County in juvenile hearings to be dependent and neglected within the meaning of Section 46-117, A.C.A.1939, as amended, now A.R.S. § 8-201, and were ordered placed in the custody of the Arizona State Department of Public Welfare. It was alleged in the applications for writs of habeas corpus that the Superior Court of Mohave County had denied certain fundamental rights to the parents, in violation of due process of law. No issue was framed either by the petition or the return nor was evidence offered or received concerning the fitness of petitioners to have custody of their children or whether it was to the children's best interest and welfare that they be detained in the custody of appellants. The Superior Court of Maricopa County found as a fact that petitioners were denied the active participation of their attorneys in the juvenile hearings in Mohave County. This finding is not challenged but the court's conclusions of law that the failure to permit the active participation of appeallees' attorneys at the juvenile hearings denied basic constitutional safeguards are assigned as error. Appellants' argument on appeal is predicated on the premises (1) that appellees were not entitled to be represented by an attorney in the juvenile hearings in Mohave County as such hearings are by statute required to be informal and (2) that in any event since appellees were accorded all the essential elements of due process of law in the habeas corpus hearing, they could not complain of the denial thereof in the juvenile hearings.

Initially it should be emphasized that the questions presented do not embrace the rights of minors in juvenile hearings and accordingly this opinion is limited to a consideration of the rights of other persons who may be affected by the determination of custody. We recognize that a proceeding involving a dependent or delinquent juvenile is neither criminal nor penal in character and that the objective thereof is, as the case may be, the protection or rehabilitation of the child. Shioutakon v. District of Columbia, D.C.Mun.App., 114 A.2d 896. Because the child has attained a favored, beneficent status in our social and legal systems does not detract from the well-settled rule that the right of parents to the custody of minor children is both a natural and a legal right. Harper v. Tipple, 21 Ariz. 41, 184 P. 1005; In re Winn. 48 Ariz. 529, 63 P.2d 198. While the right to custody is not absolute because the parent may be deprived thereof by the state in the best interest and welfare of the child, Dickason v. Sturdavan, 50 Ariz. 382, 72 P.2d 584; Fladung v. Sanford, 51 Ariz. 211, 75 P.2d 685, we are compelled to agree with the Court of Appeals of New York that 'no court can, for any but the gravest reasons, transfer a child from its natural parent to any other person'. People ex rel. Portnoy v. Strasser, 303 N.Y. 539, 104 N.E.2d 895, 896. Moreover:

'The best of intentions and the greatest zeal to care for neglected, dependent, or delinquent children do not justify the violation of the constitutional provisions as to due process that are involved in removing a child from the custody of its parent. * * *' In re Godden, 158 Neb. 246, 63 N.W.2d 151, 156.

It has been repeatedly stated under a variety of circumstances that representation by one's duly constituted attorney is fundamental to our system of administration of justice. Powell v. State of Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158; Roberts v. Anderson, 10 Cir., 66 F.2d 874; In re Tate, D.C., 63 F.Supp. 961; In re Hill, 78 Cal.App. 23, 247 P. 591; Arnold v. Fort Worth & D. S. P. R. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 8 S.W.2d 298; Camhi v. Camhi, Dom.Rel.Ct.N.Y., 25 N.Y.S.2d 559.

'What, then, does a hearing include? Historically and in practice, in our own country at least, it has always included the right to the aid of counsel when desired and provided by the party asserting the right. The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. * * * If in any case, civil or criminal, a state or federal court were arbitrarily to refuse to hear a party by counsel, employed by and appearing for him, it reasonably may not be doubted that such a refusal would be a denial of a hearing, and, therefore, of due process in the constitutional sense.' (Emphasis supplied.) Powell v. State of Alabama, supra, 287 U.S. 68 53 S.Ct. 64.

'* * * It would seem necessarily to follow that if he is entitled to a hearing, he is likewise entitled to be represented by counsel, if he desires such representation; and that he also has the right to present evidence and adduce witnesses. Otherwise, the right to an appearance before the Board may be but a futile gesture. * * *' In re Tate, supra, 63 F.Supp. 962.

In our opinion the denial of the right to effective participation of counsel constitutes a denial of due process of law so gross as to lack a necessary attribute of a judicial...