Jones v. State
| Decision Date | 01 September 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 60,60 |
| Citation | 311 Md. 398,535 A.2d 471 |
| Parties | Gary JONES v. STATE of Maryland. , |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Victoria S. Keating, Asst. Public Defender (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for appellant.
Valerie J. Smith, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.
Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, COLE, RODOWSKY, McAULIFFE, ADKINS and BLACKWELL, JJ.
The question presented is whether the parental notification provisions of Md.Code (1984 Repl.Vol., 1987 Cum.Supp.), § 3-814(b) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article apply to a seventeen year old juvenile arrested and charged with first degree murder. If they do, we must determine whether noncompliance with these provisions renders the juvenile's confession involuntary in this case.
Section 3-814 is one of thirty-five sections of the Juvenile Causes Act. It provides that a "child" may be taken into custody by any of the following methods:
"(1) Pursuant to an order of the court;
(2) By a law enforcement officer pursuant to the law of arrest;
(3) By a law enforcement officer or other person authorized by the court if he has reasonable grounds to believe that the child is in immediate danger from his surroundings and that his removal is necessary for his protection; or
(4) By a law enforcement officer or other person authorized by the court if he has reasonable grounds to believe that the child has run away from his parents, guardian, or legal custodian."
Subsection (b) of § 3-814 provides:
Subsection (c) of § 3-814 authorizes the court to issue a writ of attachment when the child's parent, guardian, or custodian, although directed by the court to do so, fails to bring the child before the court.
Section 3-801 of the Act, entitled "Definitions," provides in subsection (a): "In general.--In this subtitle, the following words have the meanings indicated, unless the context of their use indicates otherwise"; in subsection (d): " 'Child' means a person under the age of 18 years"; and in subsection (i):
Section 3-804, which defines the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, provides in subsections (a) and (e):
"(a) The court has exclusive original jurisdiction over a child alleged to be delinquent, in need of supervision, in need of assistance or who has received a citation for a violation.
....
(e) The court does not have jurisdiction over:
(1) A child 14 years old or older alleged to have done an act which, if committed by an adult, would be a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment, as well as all other charges against the child arising out of the same incident, unless an order removing the proceeding to the court has been filed under Article 27, § 594A." 1
On February 20, 1985, as Baltimore City school teacher Nellie Hines was exiting her automobile, she was approached by two young males who grabbed her purse. When she resisted, she was shot in the stomach. She died on March 9, 1985, as a result of the gunshot wound.
On March 19, 1985, fifteen year old Charles Wheatley testified before the Baltimore City Grand Jury in connection with these crimes. He also made a statement to the police in which he implicated his seventeen year old cousin Gary Jones and one Tony Hopson as the robbers and slayers of Ms. Hines. Immediately thereafter, the police brought Gary Jones to the police station. At 4:25 p.m., he was placed in an interview room and given Miranda warnings.
Josephine Jones was in an outer office of the police station at that time. She was the grandmother and guardian of both Gary Jones and Wheatley, each of whom lived with her. Whether Josephine was present at the station in connection with Wheatley's interrogation or with Gary Jones's arrest and interrogation was not clear from the evidence. There was also conflicting evidence as to whether the police intentionally prevented Ms. Jones from seeing Gary and as to precisely when she was apprised of his arrest.
When first interrogated by the police on March 19, Gary denied complicity in the crimes. An hour later, he acknowledged being with Hopson when Hopson robbed and shot Hines; he also acknowledged receiving money from Hopson taken from the victim's purse. After his statement was reduced to writing, Jones made numerous corrections, several of them of typographical errors, before signing it.
In a statement of charges filed on March 19, Jones was charged with first degree murder and armed robbery; based on this charging document, a District Court Commissioner found probable cause to detain Jones. Subsequently, he was indicted for these and related offenses by the Grand Jury of Baltimore City and went to trial before a jury. In a motion to suppress his inculpatory statement, Jones maintained that the parental notification and release provisions of § 3-814(b) of the Juvenile Causes Act applied to him; that the police had deliberately failed to comply with these provisions; and that the noncompliance was a factor to be weighed in determining the voluntariness of his statement. The court (Bothe, J.), in denying the motion, concluded that § 3-814(b) was not applicable to Jones because he was charged with crimes beyond the jurisdiction of the juvenile court; that § 3-814(b) "obviously contemplates a juvenile act or an act being handled by the Juvenile Court"; and that Jones's statement was not, therefore, inadmissible solely for failure of notification to Jones's guardian that he had been arrested and charged with criminal offenses. The court found that Jones's statement was admissible under "the general rules of voluntariness," and it was put in evidence before the jury.
Jones was acquitted of first degree murder and armed robbery; he was convicted, however, of robbery. In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed. It said that the parental notification statute was intended as a safeguard "dealing with juvenile causes" and had no application to a case not within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. We granted certiorari to consider the significant issue raised in the case.
Jones argues before us that a literal interpretation of the first sentence of § 3-814(b) compels the conclusion that its notification provisions applied to him, since he was a child (i.e., a person under eighteen) who had been taken into custody. This literal interpretation, he maintains, is fully consonant with legislative intent, because a contrary interpretation makes the child's entitlement to § 3-814(b)'s notification requirements contingent upon the arresting officer's ability to predict the ultimate charges that will be lodged against the child. Thus, he contends, unless his view of § 3-814(b) is accepted, a juvenile who is merely charged with an offense beyond the jurisdiction of the juvenile court may be detained and questioned without parental notification, though ultimately only a delinquent act, for which parental notification would have been required, may be charged. In support of his position Jones relies upon Crawford v. State, 240 Ga. 321, 240 S.E.2d 824 (1977), a case in which the court stated that the requirements of Georgia's juvenile law concerning detention were applicable to a nonjuvenile detention, "because law enforcement officers cannot be certain when they question a juvenile what kind of case may develop." 2 240 S.E.2d at 827.
Since, according to Jones, the provisions of § 3-814(b) are applicable to him, he asserts that violation of this subsection is a factor to be taken into account in assessing the voluntariness of his statement. He claims that this factor has weight in addition to, and is not subsumed in, the factors of youthfulness and denial of parental access recognized by our cases in applying the totality of the circumstances test in the determination of the voluntariness of a juvenile's confession. Jones maintains that the trial court, in violation of our holding in Lodowski v. State, 307 Md. 233, 252-53, 513 A.2d 299 (1986), failed to make clear factual findings with regard to noncompliance with § 3-814(b) and never separately weighed this factor in assessing the voluntariness of his confession.
The cardinal rule of statutory construction is to ascertain and effectuate legislative intent. In re Ramont K., 305 Md. 482, 484, 505 A.2d 507 (1986); In re Stephen K., 289 Md. 294, 298, 424 A.2d 153 (1981). The primary source of legislative intent is the language of the statute itself. In re Arnold M., 298 Md. 515, 520, 471 A.2d 313 (1984). This language must be construed without resort to subtle or forced interpretations. Id., 298 Md. at 521, 471 A.2d 313. When construing a provision that is part of a single statutory scheme, the legislative intent must be gathered from the entire statute, rather than from only one part. In re Stephen K., supra. Hence, the language of § 3-814(b) must be harmonized both with its immediate context and with the larger context of the entire Juvenile Causes Ac...
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