Knott v. Langlois

• Decision Date: 20 July 1967
• Docket Number: No. 37-M,37-M
• Citation: 102 R.I. 517,231 A.2d 767
• Parties: Thomas Richard KNOTT, Jr. v. Harold V. LANGLOIS, Warden. P.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 767

231 A.2d 767

102 R.I. 517

Thomas Richard KNOTT, Jr. v. Harold V. LANGLOIS, Warden.

No. 37-M.P.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 20, 1967.

[102 R.I. 532] William F. Reilly, Sp. Counsel to Public Defender, Providence, for petitioner.

Herbert F. DeSimone, Atty. Gen., Donald P. Ryan, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

OPINION

JOSLIN, Justice.

In this petition for a writ of habeas corpus the petitioner, now serving a sentence of life imprisonment in the custody of the respondent warden at the adult correctional institutions, contends that the family court's waiver of its jurisdiction over him was invalid and rendered null and void his subsequent trial and conviction in and sentence by the superior court.

I

On January 26, 1963, at about 10:30 o'clock in the evening, petitioner, then aged 17 years and eight months, was apprehended and taken into custody by police officers of the city of Pawtucket for questioning in connection with two homicides, the first of which had been committed on December 22, 1961, in the city of East Providence in this state and the second in the town of South Attleboro in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on January 25, 1963. He was detained overnight and on the following morning was turned over to the East Providence police who held him until January 28, 1963. On that day, having completed their investigation and obtained his confessions to both murders, the police brought him before the family court so that it might determine whether to waive its jurisdiction. After a brief hearing, a complete transcript of which accompanies this opinion as an appendix, it relinquished jurisdiction and ordered petitioner held for trial before an adult court.

Thereafter, on February 6, 1963, Knott was indicted by a grand jury in the superior court for first degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to that indictment. A psychiatric evaluation was ordered and upon it being found that he was not mentally competent to stand trial, he was held without bail and transferred to the criminal insane ward. Almost three years later, after another psychiatric evaluation, he was found competent to stand trial. After again entering pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity he went to trial before a jury on February 7, 1966. He was found guilty as charged and thereafter his motion for a new trial was denied. On April 14, 1966, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Although a notice of intention to prosecute a bill of exceptions has been filed, the case has not yet come to this court on his exceptions.

II

The substantial question is whether the waiver of jurisdiction by the family court was preceded by that kind of a 'full investigation' which the legislature in its solicitude for children prescribed in G.L.1956, § 14-1-7 ¹, as amended by P.L.1961, chap. 73, sec. 14, whenever a juvenile 16 years of age or older, is brought before the court charged with an ofense which would, if he were an adult, render him subject to indictment.

The decision of whether to waive or not to waive is, in the language of Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 558, 86 S.Ct. 1045, 1056, 16 L.Ed.2d 84 (1966), "critically important" to any juvenile who comes before a juvenile court accused of a felony. Conceptually, a relinquishment of jurisdiction will remove him '* * * from the rehabilitative philosophy of the juvenile court to the regular criminal processes, where the notions of retribution and deterrence play an important role.' 114 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1171 at 1172. 'Criminal Offenders In The Juvenile Court: More Brickbats And Another Proposal.' Realistically, it can spell the difference between a proceeding civil in nature with the possibility of detention in a juvenile institution for rehabilitative rather than retributive purposes for a term which cannot extend beyond his 21st birthday ² and imprisonment as a criminal in an adult penal institution for a term which depending on the crime may be for as much as life.

In Kent v. United States, supra, the juvenile court in the District of Columbia had waived its jurisdiction over a juvenile accuased of rape pursuant to a statute which, like ours, required a 'full investigation' preliminarily to a decision on waiver. Perhaps because it was misled by the absence either of a statutory requirement for a hearing or of any legislatively established procedural standards or criterial for the conduct of such a hearing, if held, the juvenile court's cryptic order recited only that a 'full investigation' had been made, that jurisdiction was waived and that Kent was to be held for trial before the United States district court. There was no hearing and the court neither gave any reasons for waiving nor made any findings.

Moreover, by inaction the juvenile court in effect both refused the request of Kent's counsel for access to his client's social service file, and denied sub silentio his motion for a hearing on the question of waiver notwithstanding the fact that it was supported by an affidavit of a psychiatrist certifying that Kent was 'a victim of severe psychopathology' and supported as well by an offer of proof that he would be a suitable subject for rehabilitation if given adequate hospital treatment.

Although due process innuendoes and constitutional overtones are woven into the fabric of the Kent opinion, the court rested its decision, not on the constitution ³, but on the meaning and construction of the statutory directive that there be a 'full investigation.' That requirement, the court said 383 U.S. at 557, supra, 86 S.Ct. at 1055, '* * * read in the context of constitutional principles relating to due process and the assistance of counsel * * *' requires, as a precedent to waiver: that the juvenile court afford the minor an opportunity for a hearing on the 'critically important' decision of whether or not to waive; that in order to permit a child's counsel to function effectively it allow him access to his client's social service records; and that the decision of the court include a statement of the relevant facts as well as of the reasons or considerations motivating the determination. We subscribe to these requirements as being implicit in the legislative directive that there be a 'full investigation,' and we adopt them as the minimal essentials which must be observed by the family court in the conduct of waiver proceedings.

III

We come now to the standards we will apply when we review waiver proceedings. Here, too, the court in Kent established guidelines. It said 383 U.S. at 561, supra, 86 S.Ct. 1057:

'Meaningful review requires that the reviewing court should review. It should not be remitted to assumptions. It must have before it a statement of the reasons motivating the waiver including, of course, a statement of the relevant facts. It may not 'assume' that there are adequate reasons, nor may it merely assume that 'full investigation' has been made. Accordingly, we hold that it is incumbent upon the Juvenile Court to accompany its waiver order with a statement of the reasons or considerations therefor. We do not read the statute as requiring that this statement must be formal or that it should necessarily include conventional findings of fact. But the statement should be sufficient to demonstrate that the statutory requirement of 'full investigation' has been met; and that the question has received the careful consideration of the Juvenile Court; and it must set forth the basis for the order with sufficient specificity to permit meaningful review.'

Tested by these standards, and they are the standards we will follow on review, the decision in this case cannot stand. It may well be that the considerations underlying the family court's determination to waive were the minor's past record, ⁴ which presumably he considered before announcing his decision, or his concern that the public's need for protection demanded that a confessed murderer be confined beyond the time when the family court's jurisdiction over him would terminate by reason of his reaching the age of 21. ⁵ The trial justice, however, did not in his decision give these as the reasons for his decision. Instead, he used stereotyped language which does not identify with Knott the offense with which he was charged or its prosecutive merit, his prior record, his potential danger to the community, and the possibility of a reasonable rehabilitation. His decision recites only that '* * * taking into consideration this boy's interest and also the interest of society, it would appear to this Court at this point that the interest of justice might be better served if this Court waived jurisdiction on this particular offense * * *.'

These are conclusional, rather than factual, generalties which leave open for 'assumption' the reasons which induced the ultimate determination to waive, and consign to speculation whether the required 'full investigation' preceded the decision.

While the record also discloses the possibility that the hearing was inadequate and petitioner's representation ineffective, we do not reach these questions, but instead rest this opinion solely on the trial justice's failure to specify '* * * precisely why he concluded to waive jurisdiction,' Kent v. United States, 343 F.2d 247 at 253, and on his neglect to discuss the reasons and other considerations which motivated his determination.

IV

The respondent argues that we should not have reached the question of whether or not the Kent requirements were satisfied inasmuch as habeas corpus is not available to accomplish a review of alleged errors of law or as a substitute for a writ of error. ⁶ Those principles apply here, he says, because the alleged invalidity of the waiver order could have been challenged either by direct appeal from that order to this court under § 14-1-7, as amended by P.L.1961, chap. 73, sec. 14, or in the superior court on a motion to dismiss the indictment. The fault...