Shone v. State of Maine

• Decision Date: 19 June 1968
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 10-54.
• Parties: Michael Edward SHONE, Petitioner, v. STATE OF MAINE and Merton Johnson, Superintendent, Maine State Correctional Center, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

286 F. Supp. 511

Michael Edward SHONE, Petitioner, v. STATE OF MAINE and Merton Johnson, Superintendent, Maine State Correctional Center, Respondents.

Civ. No. 10-54.

United States District Court D. Maine, S. D.

June 19, 1968.

Henry N. Berry, III, Portland, Me., for petitioner.

John W. Benoit, Asst. Atty. Gen., Augusta, Me., for respondents.

OPINION AND ORDER OF THE COURT

GIGNOUX, District Judge.

This is a petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (1964), et seq. The question presented is the constitutional validity of the Maine statutory procedure under which petitioner, a juvenile offender, was administratively transferred from a state juvenile institution to an adult reformatory. The Court holds that the transfer infringed no constitutional right of petitioner, and therefore denies the writ.

Petitioner, Michael Edward Shone, is presently confined at the Maine State Men's Correctional Center, South Windham, Maine. On May 15, 1967, the Ninth District Court of Maine, Division of Southern Cumberland, found after hearing that petitioner, aged 15, had committed a juvenile offense by reason of his breaking, entering, and committing larceny at the Blue Moon Cafe, Portland. The court ordered pursuant to 15 M.R.S.A. § 2611(4B) (1964) that petitioner be committed to the Boys Training Center at South Portland for the term of his minority "unless sooner discharged or otherwise disposed of by law." See 15 M.R.S.A. § 2714 (1964). Petitioner did not appeal either the finding that he had committed the offense or the disposition of his case, see 15 M. R.S.A. §§ 2661(2), 2665, nor does he here contend that his constitutional rights were in any way impaired by the procedures employed at his juvenile hearing.

Nine days after being committed to the Boys Training Center, petitioner was deemed to be incorrigible by the administrators of the Training Center and a request was made to transfer petitioner to the Correctional Center¹. On or about May 28, 1967 after the approval of the Maine Commissioner of Mental Health and Corrections had been obtained, petitioner was administratively transferred to the Correctional Center in accordance with the procedure specified by 15 M.R.S.A. § 2717 (1964).

Petitioner sought post-conviction relief in the courts of the State of Maine under 14 M.R.S.A. § 5501 (1964) et seq., on the same ground as is alleged here, namely that the statute and procedure pursuant to which he was administratively transferred from the Training Center to the Correctional Center are unconstitutional under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. His petition was denied by the single justice and the denial was affirmed by the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Shone v. State, 237 A.2d 412 (Me.1968). Petitioner thereupon filed his present petition in this Court. He has been permitted to proceed in forma pauperis and has been represented by counsel of his own choice. It is conceded that petitioner has exhausted his available state remedies as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (1964), and the parties have stipulated that his right to habeas relief be determined, without a further evidentiary hearing, upon the record of his post-conviction proceedings in the state courts.

The sole ground asserted by petitioner in support of his petition is that he was denied due process of law and the equal protection of the laws guaranteed to him by the Constitution of the United States by his administrative transfer from the Boys Training Center, to which he had been committed, to the Men's Correctional Center, in which he is now confined. He contends that 15 M.R.S.A. § 2717, insofar as it permits the transfer of an inmate of the Boys Training Center to the Men's Correctional Center without at least some procedural safeguards such as a judicial hearing, the right to counsel, and the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses is unconstitutional and void.

At the time petitioner's transfer was effected, 15 M.R.S.A. § 2717 (1964) provided²,

Any child committed to the center whose presence therein may be seriously detrimental to the well-being of the center, or who willfully and persistently refuses to obey the rules and regulations of said center may be deemed incorrigible, and upon recommendation of the superintendent may be transferred to a reformatory with the approval of the Commissioner of Mental Health and Corrections, but no child shall be transferred under the age of 15. To so transfer, the superintendent shall certify that the child is incorrigible upon the mittimus in the case with the recommendation that transfer to the appropriate reformatory be effected. Upon approval by the Commissioner of Mental Health and Corrections, the transfer may be effected any time thereafter. It shall be the duty of the officers of the reformatory to receive any person so transferred and the remainder of the original commitment shall be executed at the reformatory, except that in the event a child so transferred has, in the opinion of the superintendent of the reformatory and of the superintendent of the center, benefited from the program at the reformatory, to such an extent that return to the center would be in the best interest of the child and of the community, such child may be returned to the center. The reason for such return shall be certified by the recommending superintendents on the mittimus and certification of the return shall be made by the recommending superintendents to the Commissioner of Mental Health and Corrections, giving their reasons therefor.

Petitioner does not contend that his transfer was not properly accomplished under this section, but confines his attack to the constitutionality of the statute itself.

Although the United States Supreme Court has not yet had occasion to pass upon the precise issue which petitioner here raises, the great weight of state and lower federal authority sustains the constitutionality of administrative inter-institutional transfer statutes similar to the one here involved. See Shone v. State, supra; Wilson v. Coughlin, 147 N.W.2d 175 (Iowa 1966); Long v. Langlois, 93 R.I. 23, 170 A.2d 618 (1961); Sonnenberg v. Markley, 289 F.2d 126 (7th Cir. 1961); Arkadiele v. Markley, 186 F.Supp. 586 (S.D.Ind.1960); Trimble v. Stone, 187 F.Supp. 483, 486 n. 2. (D.D.C.1960) (dictum); Clay v. Reid, 173 F.Supp. 667 (D.D.C.) appeal dismissed 106 U.S.App.D.C. 298, 272 F.2d 527 (1959); Suarez v. Wilkinson, 133 F.Supp. 38 (M.D.Pa.1955); People v. Scherbing, 93 Cal.App.2d 736, 209 P.2d 796 (1949); Moffett v. Hudspeth, 165 Kan. 656, 198 P.2d 153 (1948); In re Robertson, 5 Terry 28, 54 A.2d 848 (Del.Gen.Sess.1947); Uram v. Roach, 47 Wyo. 335, 37 P.2d 792, 95 A.L.R. 1448 (1934); Sheehan, Petitioner, 254 Mass. 342, 150 N.E. 231 (1926); In re Schiavone, 183 N.Y.S. 884 (Sup.Ct.1920); Stagway v. Riker, 84 N.J.Law 201, 86 A. 440 (1913); Cassidy, Petitioner, 13 R.I. 143 (1880). But see United States ex rel. Stinnett v. Hegstrom, 178 F.Supp. 17 (D.Conn.1959); White v. Reid, 125 F. Supp. 647 (D.D.C.1954) and 126 F.Supp. 867 (D.D.C.1954); Mills, "Juvenile Delinquency —Also a Federal Problem," 49 ABA Journal 44, 46-47 (1963); Note, Facts and Law of Inter-Institutional Transfer of Juveniles, 20 Me.L.Rev. 93 (1968)³.

The question now is whether this authority is still valid in light of four recent Supreme Court decisions on different, but related questions: Mempa v. Rhay, 389 U.S. 128, 88 S.Ct. 254, 19 L. Ed.2d 336 (1967); In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967); Specht v. Patterson, 386 U.S. 605, 87 S. Ct. 1209, 18 L.Ed.2d 326 (1967); Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107, 86 S.Ct. 760, 15 L.Ed.2d 620 (1966). Petitioner urges that these decisions make it clear that a statute which provides for the transfer of an inmate of a juvenile institution to a "functionally different" institution without a judicial finding of fact to support the transfer and without traditional constitutional safeguards deprives the inmate of due process and equal protection of the laws. This Court, while acknowledging the impact of these decisions in their respective and distinct fields, does not feel that they require that the procedure set out in 15 M.R.S.A. § 2717 be struck down.

Petitioner's argument is two-pronged. First, he complains that he is deprived of the equal protection of the laws because under the transfer statute he is committed to the Correctional Center without a judicial proceeding, while other youths who are not in custody at the Training Center cannot be committed to the Correctional Center without at least a juvenile court hearing. Here he cites Baxstrom v. Herold, supra, which held that a procedure whereby an adult prisoner nearing the end of his sentence could be civilly committed for a period of time beyond the expiration of his prison term to a hospital for the criminally insane without the judicial determination available to a person not in custody, was a deprivation of equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in Baxstrom the period of commitment was an extension of the term of the original criminal sentence imposed. In the present case the transfer does not prolong the period of confinement; it merely changes the environment in which the original judicially imposed commitment is to be served. The Baxstrom case would be apposite to this case only if the statute permitted an extension of the duration of the original commitment by virtue of the administrative transfer, which it clearly does not⁴. Cf. Bolton v. Harris, 395 F.2d 642 (D.C.Cir. 1968).

Petitioner's second contention is that the procedure under which he was transferred deprived him of due process of law in that a "critical finding" of a "new fact" which affected the type of petitioner's sentence was made administratively without the safeguards of criminal judicial procedures. For this point he cites, Specht v. Patterson, supra, and Mempa v. Rhay, supra. In the Spec...