Baldwin v. Lewis
| Decision Date | 22 April 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 17868.,17868. |
| Citation | 442 F.2d 29 |
| Parties | Richard Lee BALDWIN, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Andrew LEWIS, Acting Superintendent of Milwaukee County Detention Home, Respondent-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Robert W. Warren, Atty. Gen., William A. Platz, Asst. Atty. Gen., Madison, Wis., E. Michael McCann, Dist. Atty., Milwaukee County, Bruce C. O'Neill, Jon Peter Genrich, Asst. Dist. Attys., Milwaukee, Wis., for respondent-appellant.
Robert H. Friebert, Milwaukee, Wis., for petitioner-appellee.
Before MAJOR, Senior Circuit Judge, and CUMMINGS and PELL, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from an order of the district court releasing, on a writ of habeas corpus, the petitioner, then age 17, to the custody of his mother pending further disposition of delinquency proceedings in the Milwaukee County Children's Court. The petitioner had been in the custody of the respondent at the Milwaukee County Detention Home.
The factual background of the case here involved is set forth correctly and in detail in the district court's opinion. Baldwin v. Lewis, 300 F.Supp. 220 (E.D. Wis.1969). We can conceive no purpose being served by repeating the detailed factual situation here and note only facts bearing significantly on the decision we have reached.
The petitioner was taken into custody as an alleged delinquent child by Milwaukee detectives on April 22, 1969, without a warrant, for allegedly setting a fire in a Milwaukee high school on March 27, 1969. The record indicates that the police officers were acting upon information furnished by two high school teachers and one of petitioner's fellow classmates who was involved in the incident The petitioner appeared the next day before one James, who was a non-judicial juvenile officer, designated by the Children's Court of Milwaukee County to determine detention matters. Petitioner was ordered held in detention without bail. The petitioner appeared before a juvenile judge on April 25, 1969 and his detention without bail was continued.
A writ of habeas corpus was obtained from the Circuit Court of Milwaukee County on April 26, 1969. Hearings were held before a circuit judge in Milwaukee County on April 28 and 29, 1969. The circuit judge found that the detention hearing had been improperly conducted by the juvenile judge. The circuit judge then conducted a de novo detention hearing and concluded that the petitioner should be held in detention without bail.
On May 2, 1969, the petitioner requested the Wisconsin Supreme Court to grant him leave to commence an original action for a writ of habeas corpus. This petition was received and filed in the Wisconsin Supreme Court on May 5, 1969. The Clerk of the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin sent the following communication, printed on a post card, to counsel for the petitioner:
This card was received by petitioner's counsel on May 6, 1969, and on the same day petitioner's counsel commenced this action in the District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. On May 9, 1969, the district court ordered a response from the respondent. A return dated May 10, 1969, was filed by the respondent on May 12, 1969. A hearing was held in the district court on May 13, 1969. On May 14, 1969, the district court ordered the discharge of the petitioner from the custody of the respondent pending further disposition of his case in the Children's Court for the reason that the "petitioner is being held in custody in violation of his rights under the United States Constitution."
On May 23, 1969, the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court wrote a letter to the district judge, reading as follows:
Under date of May 28, 1969, the district judge wrote the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court confirming that the order had been entered discharging petitioner from custody and returning custody to the petitioner's mother pending further disposition of the matter in the Children's Court. The letter also advised that an opinion was in the process of preparation and that a copy would be forwarded when it was completed.
The opinion of the district court rendered on June 24, 1969, held that there had been probable cause for petitioner's being taken into custody and that he did not have a right to bail but discharged the petitioner from custody, holding that in order to satisfy the constitutional requirement of due process, detention hearings held pursuant to the Wisconsin statute must include a determination as to whether there was probable cause to believe (1) that an act had been committed which if committed by an adult would be a crime and (2) that the juvenile in custody has in fact committed such act. The court then was of the opinion that the detention hearings were deficient to meet the constitutional requirement.
A number of points of constitutional law are urged on this appeal. The appellee-petitioner, although not cross-appealing, urges that the district court's opinion did not go far enough, generally contending that the same constitutional guarantees should be applicable to a juvenile as would be to an adult charged with a crime which was the basis of the juvenile delinquency charge. On the other hand, the respondent strenuously contends that the order and opinion entered revolutionize juvenile procedure in the State of Wisconsin. We do not reach any of these points, interesting and pertinent though they may be to present day constitutional conceptualism. We find ourselves unable to cross the threshold of the requirement of exhaustion of state remedies.
The doctrine of requirement of exhaustion of state remedies by the person claiming unconstitutional deprivation of liberty by virtue of state processes is not a new one in our federal procedure.
Over and above policy factors, which caused the doctrine originally to come into being, the host of habeas corpus petitions now being presented to the federal courts would seem to suggest insistence upon strict adherence to the doctrine.1 We do not here, however, find it necessary to go beyond established guideposts in the application of the doctrine.
An early discussion of the matter here involved is found in Ex parte Royall, 117 U.S. 241, 251, 6 S.Ct. 734, 740, 29 L.Ed. 868 (1886). The Supreme Court there was of the opinion that the federal court has the power to do so, and may discharge the accused in advance of his trial if he is restrained of his liberty in violation of the national constitution. * *" The Court further, however, held that the court was not bound in every case to exercise such a power immediately upon application being made for the writ. The Supreme Court, referring to the discretion in the matter vested in the federal courts, stated that such discretion "should be exercised in the light of the relations existing, under our system of government between the judicial tribunals of the Union and of the States, and in recognition of the fact that the public good requires that those relations be not disturbed by unnecessary conflict between courts equally bound to guard and protect rights secured by the Constitution." Id.
This recognition of the importance of comity has a concomitant appreciation of the fact that the federal courts are not the only guardians of rights and privileges guaranteed by our United States Constitution. Thus, the Supreme Court in Royall stated at p. 252, 6 S.Ct. at p. 740 that the federal court "was not at liberty, under the circumstances disclosed, to presume that the decision of the state court would be otherwise than is required by the fudamental law of the land, or that it would disregard the settled principles of constitutional law announced by this court, upon which is clearly conferred the power to decide ultimately and finally all cases arising under the constitution and laws of the United States."
The first Mr. Justice Harlan, the author of the opinion, then quoted with approval from the earlier case Covell v. Heyman, 111 U.S. 176, 182, 4 S.Ct. 355, 358, 28 L.Ed. 390 (1884), as follows:
The fashioning of a doctrine of abstention, "whereby full play would be allowed the States in the administration of their criminal justice without prejudice to federal rights enwoven in the state proceedings" is traced in Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 415 et seq., 83 S.Ct. 822, 836, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963).
See also Ex parte Hawk, 321 U.S. 114, 117, 64 S.Ct. 448, 450, 88 L.Ed. 572 (1944), where the Supreme Court in a per curiam decision also enunciated the principle that the federal courts "will interfere with the administration of justice in the state courts only `in rare cases where exceptional circumstances of peculiar urgency are shown to exist.'"
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