Childress v. State

• Decision Date: 06 November 1915
• Citation: 179 S.W. 643
• Parties: CHILDRESS v. STATE.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

179 S.W. 643

CHILDRESS v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

November 6, 1915.

Appeal from Juvenile Court, Anderson County; J. H. Wallace, Judge.

John Childress was committed to the reformatory as a delinquent child, and he appeals. Affirmed.

J. B. Burnett, of Clinton, for appellant. W. H. Swiggart, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

GREEN, J.

In this case John Childress, a minor under 16 years of age, was committed as a delinquent child to the state reformatory for a period of 12 months, after due proceedings under chapter 58, Public Acts of 1911. It appeared that he was guilty of the crime of larceny, and was properly found to be a delinquent child on a hearing before the county judge of Anderson county sitting as a juvenile court under the said statute.

The case has been brought to this court, and Childress seeks to escape the judgment below by attacking the validity of chapter 58, Public Acts of 1911. It is insisted that said act violates section 14, of art. 1 of the Constitution, to the effect:

"That no person shall be put to answer any criminal charge but by presentment, indictment or impeachment."

The statute mentioned outlines certain proceedings to be had before the juvenile courts thereby established with reference to dependent, neglected, and delinquent children, and provides for the disposition, care, education, protection, etc., of such children. Any child under the age of 16 years who violates any law of the state is declared to be a delinquent child, and the juvenile courts are authorized to commit such a child to the state reformatory or otherwise dispose of the child as set forth in said act.

Such proceedings before a juvenile court do not amount to a trial of the child for any criminal offense. If it be found that the child has violated a law of the state, then he may be adjudged a delinquent child within the meaning of the act. The court, however, does not undertake to punish the child for the crime committed, but undertakes to remove him from bad influences and to make such disposition of the child as to eradicate evil propensities by education, wholesome training, and moral instruction.

As pointed out by the court in Ex parte Januszewski (C. C.) 196 Fed. 123, the commission of a crime by a child may set the juvenile court in motion, but the court does not try the delinquent minor for the crime. The crime being evidence of delinquency, the court undertakes to remedy the delinquency.

Our statute provides that a child who shall have committed a misdemeanor or felony and has been adjudged to be a delinquent child, if thereafter found by the court to be incorrigible and incapable of reformation, or dangerous to the community, is then to be remanded to the proper courts for the trial of criminal offenses. So the proceedings in a juvenile court are entirely distinct from proceedings in the courts ordained to try persons for crime.

Statutes like chapter 58 of the Public Acts of 19...