Carrindine v. Ricketts
| Decision Date | 02 February 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 30478,30478 |
| Citation | 223 S.E.2d 627,236 Ga. 283 |
| Parties | Robert Leon CARRINDINE, Jr. v. James G. RICKETTS. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
James C. Bonner, Jr., Jackson, for appellant.
Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Harrison Kohler, Atlanta, for appellee.
This court granted appellant's application for leave to appeal a judgment remanding him to custody in a habeas corpus proceeding from Butts Superior Court. The issues involved are complex and are of first impression in Georgia. For these reasons, a detailed statement of the genesis and evolution of appellant's involvement with the courts and institutional systems of the state is necessary for a complete understanding of the issues to be decided in this appeal. 1
Appellant was under 17 years of age when he was tried on April 19, 1974, before a jury in the Superior Court of Turner County under an indictment for murder. The jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter and gave him a sentence of two years in prison. The trial judge orally imposed the 2-year sentence from the bench, but never reduced it to written form. Appellant was returned to the county jail from the courtroom to await transportation to a state prison. However, or May 7, 1974, the trial judge entered an order committing appellant to the Georgia Department of Human Resources 'for care, supervision and planning as provided for in the Children and Youth Act.' Pursuant to this order, appellant was transferred to the Youth Development Center at Milledgeville, Georgia. No appeal was taken from these proceedings in Turner Superior Court.
In November, 1974, after appellant became 17 years of age, the officials at the Milledgeville institution wrote to the trial judge and informed him that they could no longer retain custody of appellant because he had reached age 17. The Milledgeville officials requested the trial judge to make some further disposition of appellant under Ga.L.1969, pp. 996, 997 (Code Ann. § 99-222). On December 11, 1974, the trial judge entered an order, in appellant's absence without a hearing and without counsel, transferring appellant 'to the 'Youthful Offender Division of the State Board of Corrections to be dealt with as provided by the Georgia Youthful Offender Act of 1972 (Ga.L.1972, p. 592).' Pursuant to this order, appellant was placed in a penal institution of the state where his sentence is being computed as an indeterminate sentence of potentially six years. Appellant, through counsel, then filed a petition for habeas corpus seeking relief from the penal custody of the state upon due process and double jeopardy grounds. The habeas trial court denied relief to appellant and the present appeal followed after application to this court.
Appellant contends the habeas trial court erred in holding that the original trial judge could transfer appellant to a penal institution by its order of December 11, 1974, without observing minimal procedural due process requirements of notice, hearing, and appellant's presence with counsel. Appellant also urges that it was unlawful to impose this subsequent penal sentence upon him after his previous commitment to the Department of Human Resources as a juvenile. The argument is made that appellant's commitment to the Youth Development Center amounted to a civil adjudication of delinquency and could not lawfully be changed into a penal sentence for a felony conviction after appellant reached age 17. The State's reply to appellant's argument is that although a commitment by a juvenile court is a civil adjudication of delinquency, appellant was tried in superior court and convicted of a crime.
We are presented here with a criminal conviction followed by a commitment order to a juvenile institution. Consequently, we must first examine the nature of a commitment order entered after the trial and conviction of a juvenile for a non-capital felony in the superior court. Under Georgia law, when a juvenile is adjudicated to be a delinquent by a juvenile court, the adjudication is not regarded as a criminal conviction. See Code Ann. § 24A-2401 and A.B.W. v. State of Ga., 231 Ga. 699, 203 S.E.2d 512 (1974). This is true even though the act proscribed may form the basis for a criminal conviction as well as for an adjudication of delinquency. A delinquent could have been committed to a correctional institution for rehabilitation if the juvenile facilities were inappropriate for that child. See, A.B.W., supra. However, assignment of the juvenile to a correctional facility was still for the purpose of rehabilitation and treatment. See, also, Long v. Powell, 388 F.Supp. 422 (N.D.Ga., 1975). 1(a)
A majority of this court has held that under Georgia law, juvenile courts have exclusive original jurisdiction over juveniles alleged to be delinquent for acts which do not constitute capital crimes. See J.W.A. v. State of Ga., 233 Ga. 683, 686, 212 S.E.2d 849 (1975). The juvenile court has only concurrent jurisdiction with the superior court over a juvenile who is alleged to have committed a capital felony. Code Ann. § 24A-301(b). Non-capital felony cases may be transferred to the superior court under circumstances prescribed by the Juvenile Code. See Code Ann. § 24A-2501. Under the Georgia Constitution, the superior court has jurisdiction to try any person who has reached the age of criminal responsibility 2 for a crime subjecting the offender to imprisonment. See Code Ann. § 2-3901.
A juvenile whose case is properly transferred to the superior court is subject to the criminal sanctions which may be imposed in that court. Thus, it is clear from the Georgia jurisdictional scheme and the nature of adjudicatory proceedings in juvenile court that an adjudication of guilt of a juvenile in superior court is a criminal adjudication.
Appellant was indicted for a capital felony and convicted of a non-capital felony in the superior court. This was a criminal adjudication, not an adjudication of delinquency. Appellant argues, however, that because he was committed to the Youth Development Center his commitment must be considered a civil adjudication of delinquency. Appellant interprets Code Ann. § 99-213 to require that any commitment to the Department of Human Resources, Division of Children and Youth (for rehabilitation in a Youth Development Center), must be regarded as a civil commitment. This is incorrect, as children may be committed to the custody of the Division for Children and Youth by two methods. The first is as the result of an adjudication of delinquency in a juvenile court. See § 24A-2302(d). The second method is by a judgment of the superior court upon conviction of a crime. See Code Ann. § 99-209(a)(5). We disagree with appellant's interpretation of Code Ann. § 99-213 that any commitment to the Division for Children and Youth must be treated as a civil commitment. That section merely provides for the manner of treatment of delinquent children committed to the Division as delinquents, not of children who are committed to the Division after a criminal conviction. By law a delinquent child is one who is adjudge to be delinquent 'under the provisions of the juvenile court statute.' Code Ann. § 99-203(q). Section 99-213 has no application to children under 17 years of age who are convicted of a felony in superior court. The Division of Children and Youth, except in specified cases, has custody of children under 17 years old who are convicted of crimes. See Code Ann. § 99-209(a)(5) as amended. This code section is discussed in the following section of this opinion. The General Assembly has expressed a statutory desire to provide separate rehabilitation and treatment for persons under 17 who are convicted of crimes but this does not change the criminal nature of the adjudication leading to their confinement. We conclude that appellant's conviction in Turner Superior Court was a criminal adjudication and not a civil adjudication of delinquency.
The next issues which must be examined relate to the length of appellant's sentence and the manner and place of confinement required by law in this case. We begin with a review of several Acts of the General Assembly dealing with the Division for Children and Youth. In 1969, the Children and Youth Act (Ga.L.1963, p. 81) was amended to provide for the incarceration of misdemeanants and felons under age 17 and the Division was designated as the exclusive agency for their incarceration. Ga.L.1969, pp. 996, 997. The Act was again amended in 1972 to provide that the Division would be the exclusive agency '(f)or the acceptance and incarceration of all misdemeanants and felons under the age of 17 years; . . . (except those guilty of capital felonies who were to be sentenced into the custody of the Department of Corrections) . . . All other persons (meaning those convicted of non-capital felonies or misdemeanors) . . . shall be committed for an indefinite period of time to the custody of the Division for Children and Youth . . .' Ga.L.1972, pp. 1251, 1252.
In 1973, the General Assembly amended the incarceration section again to provide that the Division is to be the exclusive agency ...
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