In re Brown
| Decision Date | 23 February 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 17997.,17997. |
| Citation | 439 F.2d 47 |
| Parties | In the Matter of Kenneth BROWN, a Minor. Kenneth Brown, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
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John D. Marsh, Christiansted, V. I., for appellant.
William H. Brown, Asst. Atty. Gen., Christiansted, V. I., for appellee.
Before HASTIE, Chief Judge, GANEY and STAHL, Circuit Judges.
Before HASTIE, Chief Judge, GANEY, FREEDMAN, SEITZ, VAN DUSEN, ALDISERT, ADAMS and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges.
Argued Jan. 26, 1970.
Before HASTIE, Chief Judge, GANEY and STAHL, Circuit Judges.
Reargued En Banc Oct. 13, 1970.
Before HASTIE, Chief Judge, GANEY, FREEDMAN, SEITZ, VAN DUSEN, ALDISERT, ADAMS and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges.
The Juvenile and Domestic Relations Division of the Municipal Court of the Virgin Islands found that Kenneth Brown, a 14-year-old juvenile had violated the Virgin Islands statute against petit larceny and committed him to the Department of Social Welfare of the Virgin Islands until he should attain the age of 18 years. The District Court denied his petition for leave to appeal and its action is before us for review.
On September 22, 1968, Claude Mahon, the complaining witness, on returning from a swim at Pelican Cove, St. Croix, noticed that his wallet had disappeared from the trousers he had left in his automobile. In an immediate search for the culprit, two of Mahon's companions encountered Kenneth Brown near the beach. After some questioning they searched him and discovered a ten dollar bill and two one dollar bills in his pocket, the same denominations as those missing from Mahon's wallet. They elicited the statement from Brown that he had obtained the money from two other boys. Accompanied by Mahon, who had by now rejoined them, they took Brown to the police. The police refrained from any questioning until the arrival of Brown's uncle, whom they had summoned. Before they began their questioning the police advised Brown of his right to remain silent and to have an attorney, but they failed to warn him that any statements he might make could be used against him. The trial judge later found that Brown had been "substantially told of his rights."
Brown was thereafter charged with petit larceny in violation of 14 V.I.Code § 1084.1 He was tried before the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Division of the Municipal Court, where he was represented by court-appointed counsel. At the close of the government's case and again at the conclusion of the trial, defendant's counsel moved for dismissal on the ground that the government had failed to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial judge found defendant guilty in circumstances which make it uncertain that he applied the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.2
Defendant petitioned the District Court for leave to appeal from the judgment of guilt and commitment thereon, claiming that the evidence before the Municipal Court was inadequate to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that the statements and other evidence taken from him were obtained without adequate notice of his constitutional rights. The petition was filed pursuant to 4 V.I.Code § 33, which in general authorizes appeals from the Municipal Court to the District Court as of right but requires that in juvenile and domestic relations cases "they may be taken only if specially allowed by the district court."3
The District Court denied the petition for leave to appeal and a subsequent petition for rehearing in which for the first time defendant called attention to the recent decision of In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967), which he claimed required a mandatory appeal as a matter of due process.
Defendant contends that it was an abuse of discretion for the District Court to deny him leave to appeal in view of his serious claims of the insufficiency of the evidence against him, the inadmissibility of his statements and the evidence seized, and the failure to apply the standard of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The District Court gave no reasons for its denial of leave to appeal, and we therefore are without knowledge of the considerations which it must have believed outweighed these serious claims, the last of which was later vindicated on due process grounds in In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). Were we now required to decide whether the District Court abused its discretion, a remand would be necessary in order to obtain a statement of the reasons for its action.4
There is, however, a more fundamental issue than the narrow question whether there was an abuse of discretion. It is whether the statutory provision on which the District Court undertook to exercise discretion violates the Bill of Rights contained in § 3 of the Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands.5 Although the Bill of Rights is conferred by act of Congress, it expresses the congressional intention to make the federal Constitution applicable to the Virgin Islands to the fullest extent possible consistent with its status as a territory.6 A claim of violation of the Bill of Rights, therefore, amounts in substance to a claim of unconstitutionality, which ordinarily is reached only if a case cannot otherwise be decided. Here, however, there are considerations which compel a decision even if the issue is treated as a constitutional one. The issue has been fully argued. A decision now which is limited to the question of abuse of discretion may bring the issue to us again in this very case. The issue is a recurrent one in general, and the District Court should not continue to engage in the delicate and often difficult function of exercising its discretion if such appeals are as of right and it has no discretion to deny them. Its function would be deranged if it were overhung by the threat of invalidity of the statutory provision, a threat which could be brought into the forefront only where leave to appeal was denied. For these important practical considerations, which affect the proper administration of justice7 and in the exercise of our supervisory jurisdiction over the courts of the Virgin Islands,8 we consider the validity of the statutory provision.
We therefore turn to the claim that the statutory provision violates defendant's right to the equal protection of the laws guaranteed to him by § 3 of the Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands,9 because it permits appeal to the District Court from judgments and orders of the Municipal Court in juvenile and domestic relations cases only when specially allowed by the District Court while the right of appeal is absolute in all other cases, civil and criminal.10
However unusual it may seem to minds accustomed to the almost unlimited availability of appeals, it has been held that due process does not require the right to appellate review.11 Once it is extended, however, there may not be imposed upon it discriminatory limitations which violate the right to the equal protection of the laws.12
The question, therefore, is reduced to the inquiry whether defendant's condition as a juvenile found guilty of petit larceny placed him in a status sufficiently different from that of an adult convicted of the same offense that he may be denied the absolute right of appeal granted to adults.
Beginning with the watershed decision of In re Gault the Supreme Court has made it clear that juveniles are within the shelter of the guarantee of due process. It has therefore held that a juvenile is entitled to the constitutional protection of adequate notice of the hearing and the nature of the offense charged against him,13 the right to have counsel at the hearing,14 the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination,15 the right to confront the witnesses against him,16 the right to adequate notice of proceedings certifying him for trial as an adult,17 and the right to have the adjudication against him based on proof of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt rather than by a preponderance of the evidence.18 While these cases were decided under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, there is no reason for withholding similar application of the equal protection clause in appropriate aspects of juvenile court proceedings.19
In the case before us, the Municipal Court acquired jurisdiction of the defendant under 4 V.I.Code § 172(1) (D), because he was "alleged to have violated * * * a territorial * * * law * * *,"20 by committing petit larceny. At the conclusion of his trial in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Division, the judge announced that "the court finds the defendant guilty as charged of having stolen the money described in the complaint."
The adjudicative process serves the same goal in both juvenile and criminal trials, the determination of responsibility and the propriety of the state's infringement of the defendant's liberty. It is true that the care and custody which is then afforded a juvenile may differ from that given an adult in both nature and duration.21 And while both these aspects of juvenile proceedings are characteristically informal and flexible, the Supreme Court's declaration that "neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults alone"22 expresses its determination to prevent the degeneration of this informality and flexibility into unguided caprice.
For this reason defendant's trial was required to adhere to the fundamental requirements of due process. What was at stake then was the integrity of the trial, and the adjudicatory process was safeguarded by those guarantees which are the hallmarks of a civilized society's treatment of those whose liberty it seeks to invade.
The informality and flexibility of the juvenile adjudication and the subsequent treatment make the right of appeal perhaps more, and certainly not less, vital...
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