In Interest of M.R.L.

• Decision Date: 14 May 1986
• Docket Number: No. 56591,56591
• Citation: 488 So.2d 788
• Parties: In the Interest of M.R.L., M.L.L. and V.L.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 788

488 So.2d 788

In the Interest of M.R.L., M.L.L. and V.L.

No. 56591.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

May 14, 1986.

Larry Buffington, Collins, for appellant.

Francis T. (Tom) Zachary, Jr., Hattiesburg, for appellee.

Before PATTERSON, C.J., ROBERTSON and SULLIVAN, JJ.

ROBERTSON, Justice, for the Court:

I.

We are today presented with the tale of three young children, approaching adolescence, who have somehow missed the maturation process. In response to a series of real or imaginary spooks, these children have not seriously encountered the school house. Because of disabilities, illness and modest financial resources, their parents have provided little in the way of nurture and guidance and preparation for life in the complex, pluralistic society of the near future. Because it had to do something, the Youth Court has placed these children in a church-operated children's home.

It is with great temerity that we approach the authority vested in the youth courts of this state to effect removal of children from the home of their parents. That authority must be exercised always in accordance with principles recognized forty years ago in Reynolds v. Davidow, 200 Miss. 480, 27 So.2d 691 (1946):

In the kaleidoscope of human relationships, the rude and realistic hand of fate jostles the facts and their actors into ever changing patterns, and through its lens the courts view constant rearrangements in designs which never repeat. There is one constant. This is the dominant and natural right of the parent to the custody and care of the child. So long as this right is not forfeited by conduct or conditions which adversely affect the welfare of the child, mere considerations of comparative well being are no concern of the state whose continuing guardianship of its infant wards may supervise but never supercede its natural guardian.

200 Miss. at 484, 27 So.2d at 691-92; see also Adams v. Powe, 469 So.2d 76, 78 (Miss.1985).

We maintain our vigilence that children may not be stripped from their parents and placed in the custody of the state for deviation from middle class American norms. To the point, we are sensitive to the fact that, under the authority legalistically granted the Youth Court in our Youth Court Act, Tom Sawyer could have been held a child in need of supervision, in which event Muff Potter may have been hanged. Still, we must do what we can.

II.

The three children whose lives we affect this day are (1) M.R.L., a boy, now 14 years of age, his birth date being August 18, 1971; (2) M.L.L., a boy, now 13 years of age, his birth date being July 25, 1972; and (3) V.L., a girl, now 11 years of age, her birth date being August 14, 1974. The middle child, M.L.L., appears the most petulant of the three.

The father of the children is a totally disabled World War II veteran whose sole sources of income are VA and Social Security benefits. Their mother is apparently somewhat younger and has a recent history of mental illness. Except for times when the mother has been hospitalized, the parents of these children have resided together in the Hattiesburg area.

Each child has been the object of a petition filed on December 14, 1984, in the Youth Court of Forrest County seeking to have such child adjudged in need of supervision. Miss.Code Ann. Sec. 43-21-105(k) (Supp.1985). On May 2, 1986, the Youth Court so adjudged each of these children. Following a dispositional hearing, custody of each child was vested with Baptist Children's Village of Clinton, Mississippi. The parents of the three children now appeal both the adjudication and disposition made on each petition.

III.

The principal question raised and argued on this appeal is whether each of these children is a "child in need of supervision" within the meaning and contemplation of our Youth Court Act. Miss.Code Ann. Sec. 43-21-105(k) (Supp.1985). The statute defines this status as follows:

(k) "Child in need of supervision" means a child who has reached his seventh birthday and is in need of treatment or rehabilitation because the child:

(i) Is habitually disobedient of reasonable and lawful commands of his parent, guardian or custodian and is ungovernable; or

(ii) While being required to attend school, wilfully and habitually violates the rules thereof or wilfully and habitually absent himself therefrom; or

(iii) Runs away from home without good cause; or

(iv) Has committed a delinquent act.

The Youth Court found each child in need of supervision and ordered placement in the Baptist Children's Village outside of Clinton, Mississippi. The children's parents appeal both the status adjudication and dispositional orders.

In considering Appellants' challenge to the evidentiary sufficiency of the State's case we must keep in mind that a child may be adjudged "a child in need of supervision" only upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the child is within the definition quoted above. Miss.Code Ann. Sec. 43-21-561(1) and (2) (1972). We are mildly concerned that the Youth Court in its ruling adjudicating these children in need of supervision makes no reference to the required standard of proof. The Youth Court prosecutor obviously misunderstood the burden, for he argued, by reference to the evidence at trial, that

[there] has been more than a preponderance of the evidence regarding the fact that the children are not supervised--have not been adequately supervised.

Because an adjudication that a child is in need of supervision confers upon the Youth Court the authority to remove him or her from the home of his parents, our law provides the most stringent burden of proof. Apropos in the present context is recent language from the Supreme Court of the United States

The function of any standard of proof is to 'instruct the fact finder concerning the degree of confidence our society thinks he should have in the correctness of factual conclusions for a particular type of adjudication'. In Re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 370, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970) (Harlon, J., concurring). By informing the fact finder in this manner, the standard of proof allocates the risk of erroneous judgment between the litigants and indicates the relative importance society attaches to the ultimate decision. [citations omitted]

Colorado v. New Mexico, 467 U.S. 310, 104 S.Ct. 2433, 2438, 81 L.Ed.2d 247, 254 (1984).

The question before us today is whether the State proved that these children were within the statutory definition of "child in need of supervision" within the meaning and contemplation of Section 43-21-105(k)--and whether that proof has been made beyond a reasonable doubt. Of course, in reviewing the evidence we do not proceed de novo. Rather, our scope of review is limited. We consider all of the evidence before the Youth Court in the light most favorable to the State. If the evidence so considered is opposed to the adjudication of the Youth Court with such force that reasonable men could not have found as the Youth Court did beyond a reasonable doubt, we must reverse. See In Interest of K.A.R., 441 So.2d 108, 110 (Miss.1983). On the other hand, if there is substantial evidence in the record supporting the adjudication of the Youth Court, evidence of such quality and weight that, having in mind the beyond a reasonable doubt burden of proof standard, the Youth Court might reasonably have ruled as it did, we must affirm. Cf. In Interest of I.G., 467 So.2d 920, 924 (Miss.1985).

The core finding of the Youth Court was that

There has been a failure to provide any supervision, care and guidance and protection of these three children, and it has placed these children beyond their ability to cope with their family life.

The Youth Court also described the children as lacking "socialization", as "environmentally deprived", and as unable to interact "with other children". "They have been left on their own."

These findings clearly comport with the requirement of the statute that the children found "in need of treatment of rehabilitation". The findings and evidence do not, however, fit as neatly within the rest of the statute as we would like. For example, the Youth Court predicated its adjudication in part upon the commission by these children of delinquent acts within the contemplation of Section 43-21-105(k)(iv). The evidence here is less than compelling. One child was charged with shoplifting which turned out to be the theft of a Hershey bar. Another was charged with the shoplifting of a $5.97 cassette tape, an offense, to be sure, but for today's ten year old the moral equivalent of the raid on Farmer Jones' watermelon patch in generations past. They were charged with throwing rocks at a neighbor's home. The children said the attack was provoked. Then there is a curious initial allusion to a charge of auto theft which turned out to be nothing more than the three children, with the oldest at the wheel, taking their father's van for an unauthorized spin around the neighborhood. Technically, of course, these may be delinquent acts. Wild exaggeration must be employed to extrapolate from these acts the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt conclusion that these children need "treatment or rehabilitation". Miss.Code Ann. Sec. 43-21-105(k) (Supp.1985).

Much of the State's evidence regarding the home environment is similarly less than compelling. For one thing, there is no evidence that the children have in any way been physically abused--the one incident where the mother drug one of the children home "by the scruff of the neck" being something that parents have of necessity done from time immemorial. In their attempt to build a case against these children and their parents, the State proved that one child cut his foot and that...