Lewis, In re, 34063

• Decision Date: 25 October 1957
• Docket Number: No. 34063,34063
• Citation: 316 P.2d 907,51 Wn.2d 193
• Parties: In the Matter of the Welfare of Jack Charles LEWIS. The STATE of Washington on the Relation of Jack Charles LEWIS, William Lewis, and Nancy Lewis, Relators, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF the State of WASHINGTON FOR KING COUNTY, JUVENILE COURT, Michael K. Copass, Judge, Respondent.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 193

51 Wn.2d 193

316 P.2d 907

In the Matter of the Welfare of Jack Charles LEWIS The STATE of Washington on the Relation of Jack Charles LEWIS, William Lewis, and Nancy Lewis, Relators, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF the State of WASHINGTON FOR KING COUNTY, JUVENILE COURT, Michael K. Copass, Judge Respondent.

No. 34063.

Supreme Court of Washington, Department 2.

Oct. 25, 1957.

P. R. McIntosh, Seattle, for relators.

N. P. Moats, Seattle, for respondent.

Muriel Mawer, Charles O. Carroll, Charles Z. Smith, Seattle, amici curiae.

ROSELLINI, Justice.

We are asked to review, on certiorari, proceedings involving the alleged delinquency of a fourteen-year-old boy, which culminated in an order directing that the boy should be made a ward of the court and placed in the Luther Burbank custodial school.

The relators, the boy and his parents, have raised a number of procedural objections and also challenge the constitutionality of the juvenile court act, RCW 13.04.010 et seq. A brief outline of the procedure that was followed will expedite the disposition of these questions.

On August 24, 1956, a petition was filed in the juvenile court, alleging Jack Charles Lewis to be a delinquent child. Notice and summons were served on the parents on September 4, 1956. On September 10, the matter came on for hearing. The boy and his parents appeared through their attorney, filed a motion for transfer of the action and demurred to the petition. The cause was then assigned to the presiding judge. On September 11, an order was entered appointing Miss Muriel Mawer guardian ad litem, and on September 14, N. P. Moats was appointed attorney for the petitioner, a probation officer, the prosecuting attorney's office having declined a request by the court to represent him. A motion made by the guardian ad litem for physical and psychiatric examination of the boy was denied on September 14, 1956. On September 18, the cause came on for hearing before Honorable Michael K. Copass, one of the judges of the superior court. Over the objection of the attorney for the relators, the public and the witnesses were excluded from the courtroom. Motions to quash the appointment of the special prosecutor and the guardian ad litem were denied. The demurrer to the petition was overruled, but when it was renewed after the first witness was called, the court sustained the demurrer and, with the consent of the relators' attorney, gave the petitioner five days in which to amend. The parents were ordered to reappear with the boy on October 15, 1956. On September 26, an amended petition was filed, and on October 15, the matter came on for hearing with all of the interested parties present.

The relators demurred to the amended petition on the ground that the alleged facts constituting delinquency were not stated in sufficient detail to enable them to defend against the accusations and on the ground that the verification on the petition did not show in what state and county it was signed. It having been shown to the satisfaction of the court that this was a stenographic oversight, the court allowed counsel for the petitioner to amend the petition to show that it was signed and verified in the state of Washington, County of King. The demurrer was overruled, and a motion to strike, or, in the alternative, to make more definite and certain was denied.

A number of neighbors of the relators were called who testified to the boy's habitual use of vulgar and profane language, to his various acts of intimidation of children in the neighborhood, and to conduct which indicated that young Lewis had little respect for the rights and dignity of others. A boys' club supervisor testified that, because he disrupted the games of other boys and used obscene language, it had become necessary to exclude him from the club; and there was evidence that he had been transferred from one school to another, on request of his teachers and principals, and that eventually he was removed from school and given a home instructor. His difficulties at school involved behavior problems and also the fact that he was subject to a mild convulsive disorder. The latter, however, had been brought under satisfactory control by the use of medication prescribed by a neurologist. At the time of the hearing, he was not in school and was not receiving home instruction. He had at one time been taken to the Ryther Child Center, at the suggestion of the school authorities, and had been placed on the waiting list there.

The parents testified that they had no knowlege of his use of obscene language and that no complaints had been made to them about this. They testified that one neighbor had pulled his ear and another had turned the hose on him; that the police had unjustly accused him of taking another boy's bicycle without permission and had induced him to sign a confession which he had not read. It seemed to be their opinion that all of the complaints against him were unfounded and that he was just an unusually active and aggressive boy.

The boy admitted the use of obscene language, but denied that he knew what it meant and also denied that he knew the meaning of a vulgar sign which he had made in the presence of several of the witnesses. He admitted molesting retarded child in the neighborhood and also admitted several other acts of intimidation.

No other witnesses were called to refute the testimony of those called by the petitioner.

The court concluded that the boy was in need of help and asked the parents and the guardian ad litem to draw up suggested programs whereby the boy's problems could be corrected and he could be returned to school. On the appointed day, the two programs were submitted. The parents proposed to continue dealing with the boy as they had in the past and offered nothing constructive. The guardian ad litem had contacted the school authorities and the Ryther Child Center and obtained the consent of the latter to accept him immediately as an outpatient if the parents would cooperate. She recommended that his home study program should be reinstated and should continue until such time as his emotional problems had been corrected and he was able to return to school.

The court approved this program and asked the cooperation of the parents. They persisted in their view that there was nothing wrong with the boy and expressed their unwillingness to cooperate in the program. The court thereupon ordered the boy committed to the Luther Burbank school. However, upon being informed that the parents proposed to apply for a writ of certiorari, the trial court suspended its order pending this court's determination of the matter, contingent upon the parents' following the program proposed by the guardian ad litem during this interval. This they agreed to do.

Relators first object to the exclusion of the public from the hearing, contending that the provision of RCW 13.04.090, which permits the court to exclude the public in juvenile court proceedings, violates Art. I, § 10 of the state constitution, which provides:

'Justice in all cases shall be administered openly, and without unnecessary delay.'

The purpose of excluding the public from proceedings such as these is, of course, to protect the child from notoriety and its ill effects. This court, along with by far the majority of other courts in the United States, early recognized that the purpose of statutes such as ours is not to punish the child, but to inquire into his welfare where reasonable cause exists, and to provide an environment which will enable him to grow into a useful and happy citizen, where his parents have failed in that regard. In in Re Lundy, 82 Wash. 148, 143 P. 885, 886, we said:

'The policy underlying this law is protection, not punishment. Its purpose is not to restrain criminals, to the end that society may be protected and the criminal perchance reformed; it is to prevent the making of criminals.'

This language was quoted with approval in Weber v. Doust, 84 Wash. 330, 146 P. 623, which overruled Weber v. Doust, 81 Wash. 668, 143 P. 148, and held that an officer who arrested and detained a person thought to be a delinquent child, without any complaint being filed or summons issued therefor as required by the act, was not guilty of false imprisonment if he acted in good faith and in furtherance of the purposes of the act and for the welfare of the child.

Statutes similar to ours have been universally upheld over objections based upon constitutional grounds. The Pennsylvania supreme court declared in In re Holmes, 379 Pa. 599, 109 A.2d 523, that juvenile courts are not criminal courts and constitutional rights granted to persons accused of crime are not applicable to children brought before such a court. It was further held that a child who was questioned in the same manner and spirit as a parent might have questioned his child was not 'compelled' to give a self-incriminating answer to a question.

In the following cases, it was held that the failure to provide a jury in juvenile court proceedings did not render the acts in question unconstitutional: Cinque v. Boyd, 99 Conn. 70, 121 A. 678; Ex parte Januszewski, C.C., 196 F. 123; Wissenburg v. Bradley, 209 Iowa 813, 229 N.W. 205, 67 A.L.R. 1075; and In re Gomez, 113 Vt. 224, 32 A.2d 138. It was held in People v. Lewis, 260 N.Y. 171, 183 N.E. 353, 86 A.L.R. 1001, certiorari denied, 289 U.S. 709, 53 S.Ct. 786, 77 L.Ed. 1464, that the procedural safeguards provided by constitution and statute are not necessary in juvenile court proceedings, which do not involve criminal charges. Objections that such statutes were unconstitutional in that they created new courts were held without merit in Commonwealth v. Fisher, 213 Pa. 48, 62 A. 198, 5 Ann.Cas. 92; and Lindsay v. Lindsay, 257 Ill. 328, 100 N.E. 892, 45 L.R.A.,N.S., 908, Ann.Cas.1914A, 1222. It was also held in Commonwealth v. Fisher, s...