Patterson, In re

• Decision Date: 25 June 1962
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: In the Matter of Doneral PATTERSON, a Person Under the Age of Twenty-one Years. Doneral Patterson, Appellant; The Superior Court of the State of California, In and For the County of Sacramento, sitting as the Juvenile Court, Respondent. Civ. 10492.

Page 807

22 Cal.Rptr. 807

In the Matter of Doneral PATTERSON, a Person Under the Age of Twenty-one Years.

Doneral Patterson, Appellant;

The Superior Court of the State of California, In and For the County of Sacramento, sitting as the Juvenile Court, Respondent.

Civ. 10492.

District Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

June 25, 1962.

As Modified July 24, 1962.

Opinion vacated 27 Cal.Rptr. 10, 377 P.2d 74.

S. Carter McMorris, Sacramento, for appellant.

Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., by Doris Maier, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Raymond M. Momboisse, Deputy Atty. Gen., Sacramento, for respondent.

PIERCE, Justice.

Doneral Patterson, a minor aged 17, appeals from a judgment of the Superior Court of Sacramento County sitting as a Juvenile Court declaring him to be a ward thereof and committing him to the care and custody of the Youth Authority.

The judgment was made December 18, 1961, and the alleged acts of the minor as set forth in the petition occurred on November 12, 1961. The new Juvenile Court Law, therefore, enacted in 1961 and effective September 15, 1961 (Stats.1961, Ch. 1616, Welfare and Inst.Code, § 500 et seq.), is the law applicable.

The petition was filed December 1, 1961. It alleges that on November 12, 1961, said minor had entered a Del Paso Heights residence 'with the intent to commit the crime of theft, thereby violating Section 459 of the Penal Code of California.' Doneral was taken into custody on November 30, 1961. Opal Patterson, his mother, and only available parent, was given telephonic notice of the detention hearing before the Juvenile Court Referee. This hearing was held December 1, 1961, on which date the court by order adopted his recommendation that Doneral be committed to the custody of the County Probation Officer to be detained in the Juvenile Hall pending hearing of the petition. Also on said December 1, 1961, the county clerk issued a written notice of the hearing before the court on December 18, 1961. This notice was personally served on the said mother.

The hearing was held before the court on the date set. The proceedings taken at said hearing will be discussed hereinafter. After the hearing the court made its findings: That Doneral was 17 years of age and within the provisions of Welfare and Institutions Code section 602 in that on the date above mentioned he had committed the acts of burglary alleged in the petition. The court issued judgment as set forth above.

The appeal is upon three grounds: (1) That the court lacked jurisdiction because of defective notice of the detention hearing to the parent of appellant; (2) That appellant had not been adequately apprised of his right to counsel; (3) That insufficient and improper evidence was introduced to establish the charge against appellant.

The first contention lacks merit. Welfare and Institutions Code section 630 expressly provides that notice to a parent of a detention hearing may be given orally. Notice by telephone satisfies this requirement. It also satisfies due process. (Drummey v. State Bd. of Funeral Directors, 13 Cal.2d 75, 80, 87 P.2d 848; Litchfield v. County of Marin, 130 Cal.App.2d 806, 813, 280 P.2d 117.) Since minors under 18 may now be taken into custody without a warrant, removed from their home and deprived of their freedom (Welf. & Inst.Code, sec. 625), promptitude in the holding of the detention hearing rather than formality in the matter of notification best serves the minor's interests.

The second and third contentions of appellant do have merit. We will discuss them in order of statement. The problem of a minor's right to counsel in juvenile court hearing was probably the topic of greatest concern to all agencies whose studies preceded and prompted the ultimate rewriting of California's Juvenile Court Law in 1961.

Preindicating other activity in the field of juvenile justice reform, the editors of Stanford Law Review in May of 1958 published a study of 'The California Juvenile Court.' (10 Standford Law Review 471.) This study included a section on 'Right to Counsel' and reported a disagreement among California juvenile court judges and others on the role the attorney should be allowed to take in juvenile court proceedings, stating the arguments pro and con. The article pointed out that the juvenile court law then in effect did not mention a right to counsel, that state constitutional and Penal Code provisions were limited to proceedings in the criminal courts and that appellate court decisions left the question of the extent of a minor's right to counsel in the juvenile court unclear.

These editors answered, argument by argument, the reasons urged to deny the right to counsel: (1) The argument that attorneys would only obstruct the court by treating it as an adversary proceeding was answered by the statement 'it would seem improper to exclude all attorneys * * * on the ground that some attorneys are obstructionists.' (2) The urged reason that the 'probation officer and the judge act as the youth's defense counsel' (being, as it has been said, in a position in parens patriae to the minor) drew the reply that properly functioning counsel could render valuable assistance; that probation officers are sometimes unaware of the law or might have personal standards which would hamper an unprejudiced defense of the youth; that judges are often far too busy to search out and discover mistakes of probation officers; that attorneys could assist both in the discovery of the truth and in the formulation of plans of rehabilitation. (3) The article stated that the argument that parents would often incur unnecessary expense 'seems obviously insufficient to justify the conclusion that there should be no right to counsel.' And (4) the argument that the juvenile court's finding is not a criminal conviction was answered in the language of Mr. Justice White, now of the Supreme Court, them Presiding Justice of the Second District Court of Appeal, Division One, in In re Contreras, 109 Cal.App.2d 787, 789-790, 241 P.2d 631, 633:

'While the juvenile court law provides that adjudication of a minor to be a ward of the court shall not be deemed to be a conviction of crime, nevertheless, for all practical purposes, this is a legal fiction, presenting a challenge to credulity and doing violence to reason. * * *

'It is common knowledge that such an adjudication when based upon a charge of committing an act that amounts to a felony, is a blight upon the character of and is a serious impediment to the future of such minor. Let him attempt to enter the armed services of his country or obtain a position of honor and trust and he is immediately confronted with his juvenile court record. And further, * * * the minor is taken from his family, deprived of his liberty and confined in a state institution. True, the design of the Juvenile Court Act is intended to be salutary, and every effort should be made to further its legitimate purpose, but never should it be made an instrument for the denial to a minor of a constitutional right or of a guarantee afforded by law to an adult.'

The Special Study Commission on Juvenile Justice appointed by the Governor in September, 1957, made its report on November 30, 1960, following a comprehensive study which had included questionnaires to, and personal interviews with, juvenile court judges, probation officers and law enforcement administrators throughout the state. This report includes exhaustive treatment of the subject of the minor's right to counsel, with expression of divergent views and practices of juvenile court judges, and also a review of appellate court decisions, including: In re Contreras, supra (where it was held an abuse of discretion to issue a judgment committing a minor to the Youth Authority based partly on inadmissible evidence in a contested proceeding where the minor was not represented by counsel); People ex rel. Weber v. Fifield, 136 Cal.App.2d 741, 289 P.2d 303, (holding that the juvenile court had no right to refuse to allow an attorney to represent the minor but was not required generally to advise the minor of his right to an attorney), and People v. Dotson, 46 Cal.2d 891, 299 P.2d 875, apparently limiting the rule just stated by saying (on page 895, 299 P.2d on page 877) that denial of due process results 'when by * * * lack of representation of the minor undue advantage is taken of him or he is otherwise accorded unfair treatment resulting in a deprivation of his rights.'

The commission's conclusions regarding the hostile attitude of some juvenile court judges towards the presence of attorneys include this statement: '* * * [T]here is no evidence to support the loose assertion that the presence of counsel will destroy the protective philosophy of the juvenile court or seriously alter the informality of proceedings. Where counsel has been employed in the juvenile court, informal hearings have neither been abandoned nor has the protective philosophy of the court been seriously damaged.'

The Study Commission's expression of its belief that the minor's right should include not only the right to counsel but the right to be both advised of this right and the right to have counsel appointed for him was bulwarked by a quotation from Shioutakon v. Dist. of Columbia, 98 U.S.App.D.C. 371, 236 F.2d 666, 670:

'Our concern for the fair administration of justice impels us to hold that, in this and in similar cases in the future, the juvenile must be advised that he has a right to engage counsel or to have counsel named in his behalf. And, where that right exists, the court must be assured that any waiver of it is intelligent and competent.' (Emphasis added.)

The California Law Revision Commission was authorized by Resolution Chapter 202 of the Statutes of 1957, p. 4589 to make studies on the subject under discussion. Its report of October, 1960, included the following recommendation (p. E-43):

'In order to insure that the right to counsel is protected, the juvenile...