State ex rel. City of Minot v. Gronna

• Decision Date: 05 June 1953
• Docket Number: No. 248,248
• Citation: 59 N.W.2d 514,79 N.D. 673
• Parties: STATE ex rel. CITY OF MINOT et al. v. GRONNA et al.
• Court: North Dakota Supreme Court

Page 514

59 N.W.2d 514

79 N.D. 673

STATE ex rel. CITY OF MINOT et al. v. GRONNA et al.

No. 248.

Supreme Court of North Dakota.

June 5, 1953.

Rehearing Denied June 20, 1953.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The state may assume direction, control and custody of the person of an infant who seems likely to go wrong, as where he engages in the commission of lawless acts or habitually associates with dissolute or immoral persons.

2. It is not the province of the courts to prescribe what conditions or exigencies will warrant the state in assuming direction, control or custody of such infants, as this is a legislative function.

3. Laws for the care, custody and control of wayward, delinquent or neglected children are within the police power of the state.

4. The legislature may provide that a minor who is deprived of effective parental care and control or who commits lawless acts and violates criminal statutes or penal ordinances shall be considered a ward of the state over whom the state may exercise its sovereign power of guardianship and to effect such power the legislature may make reasonable regulations for the minor's protection and welfare.

5. The prerogative of the state arising out of its power and duty as parens patriae to protect the interests of infants may be exercised by courts vested with chancery or equity jurisdiction, and has always been so exercised.

6. The district court is vested by the Constitution of North Dakota with original jurisdiction in all causes in equity.

7. The title of the bill for the enactment of the juvenile court law of North Dakota, Chapter 212, Laws 1943; NDRC 1943, 27-16, stated it to be a Bill for an Act Relating to the Juvenile Court and the Protection, Control, and Custody of Children and amending and reenacting certain laws, which are specified in the title and which constituted all the then existing laws of the state relating to juvenile courts. The act provided that the district courts of the several counties of the state shall have original jurisdiction in all cases coming within its provisions; that the court for convenience shall be called the 'juvenile court' and that as far as possible said court shall be held in chambers; that the word 'child' used in the law 'unless the subject matter otherwise requires' shall be construed to mean a person less than eighteen years of age; that such court except as otherwise provided in the act shall have original jurisdiction in all proceedings concerning any child residing in or who is temporarily within the county, who has violated any city or village ordinance or any law of this state or of the United States (or who commits any other wayward or lawless act or is found in any situation specified in the law); that all children within the provisions of the law for the purposes thereof shall be considered wards of the state and their persons subject to the care, guardianship and control of the court as provided in the law; that if any such child is arrested with or without a warrant such child instead of being taken before the justice of the peace, police magistrate or county court of increased jurisdiction shall be taken immediately to the juvenile court where all proceedings with reference to said child shall be conducted as provided in the juvenile court law; that when any child fourteen years of age or older is charged with the commission of an offense the judge of the juvenile court may in his discretion permit such child to be proceeded against in accordance with the laws or ordinances that may be in force governing such offense. The act also provided that 'all Acts and parts of Acts in conflict with the provisions of this chapter are hereby repealed.'

8. It is held for reasons stated in the opinion:

(a) Said Chapter 212, Laws 1943, was intended to embody and did embody all the provisions of law relating to juvenile courts, and is a complete law on the matters to which it relates.

(b) Said Chapter 212, Laws 1943, is mandatory. It was the intention of the legislature that the provisions thereof should be applied in all cases of children falling within the provisions of the law.

(c) By said Chapter 212 the legislature intended to establish and did establish a new system and method of dealing with juvenile offenders and invoked the equity jurisdiction of the district court for that purpose.

(d) That it was not the purpose of the juvenile court law to provide an additional court for the punishment of crime; that it was the legislative purpose and intent as evidence by the law to provide that the acts of a person under eighteen years of age which if committed by an adult would constitute the violation of a criminal statute or a penal ordinance and render the perpetrator subject to prosecution and punishment in an action brought in a court exercising criminal or penal jurisdiction shall not render the perpetrator subject to such prosecution and punishment but shall instead constitute such perpetrator a ward of the state and as such subject to the equity jurisdiction of the district court.

(e) The effect and purpose of the juvenile court law is to constitute every child under the age of eighteen years who has violated any ordinance of a city or law of the state or of the United States a ward of the state and subject in the first instance alone to the equitable jurisdiction of the juvenile court; but when any such 'child fourteen years or older' is charged with the commission of an offense the judge of the juvenile court is vested with discretionary power and may permit such child to be proceeded against in accordance with the laws or ordinances that may be in force governing such offense; but the question whether the jurisdiction of the juvenile court shall be waived and the child 'permitted to be proceeded against in accordance with the laws or ordinances' it is charged that he has violated is a question exclusively for the juvenile court.

9. In ascertaining the intent and general purpose as well as the meaning of a constitution or a part thereof it should be construed as a whole, and all doubt as to the constitutionality of a statute including doubts arising from the constitution as well as from the statute should be resolved in favor of the validity of the statute and the statute will be upheld unless it clearly appears that it violates some provision of the constitution.

10. The juvenile court law of North Dakota, Laws 1943, Chapter 212, NDRC 1943, 27-16, does not violate the provision of Sec. 113 of the Constitution of North Dakota that 'the legislative assembly shall provide by law for the election of police magistrates in cities, incorporated towns and villages who in addition to their jurisdiction under all cases arising under the ordinances of said cities, towns and villages shall be ex officio justices of the peace of the county in which said cities, towns and villages may be located.'

11. The provision in section 113 of the Constitution that police magistrates in cities shall have 'jurisdiction of all cases arising under the ordinances' of said cities does not confer upon cities power to enact ordinances, nor does said provision affect or limit the lawmaking power of the legislature concerning or affecting ordinances of cities.

12. Cities hold and exercise their powers subject to legislative control and the legislative authority over the political and governmental powers of a city is supreme except as limited by the state and federal constitutions.

13. Under the Constitution of North Dakota cities are creatures of statute and of statute alone. The legislature has the power to define the powers of cities and to prescribe the manner of their exercise. The state may withhold, grant or withdraw powers as it sees fit. However great or small its sphere of action a city remains the creature of the state holding and exercising powers subject to the sovereign will. A statute of general character and statewide application and concern supersedes and repeals and invalidates provisions in existing city ordinances in conflict with such statute.

14. Under the Constitution of North Dakota a city has no inherent power to enact ordinances. It has no authority to do so unless and until authority to do so has been granted by law and the grant of power to enact ordinances does not operate as a surrender of legislative power but the legislature may at any time it sees fit so to do withdraw in whole or in part the power it has granted to enact ordinances or it may enact a general law in conflict with the provisions of an ordinance that has been enacted by a city under a former grant of power and in such case the provisions of an ordinance in conflict with the statute are superseded and rendered invalid.

15. When Chapter 212, Laws 1943, took effect it operated to repeal any former statutes and to supersede and invalidate any city ordinances which were incompatible or in conflict with the provisions of said Chapter 212.

Bosard & McCutcheon, Minot, for petitioners.

Duane R. Nedrud, Minot, for respondents.

CHRISTIANSON, Judge.

The City of Minot, the Chief of Police of the city and the Police Magistrate of the city have applied to this Court for a supervisory writ to review and annul the action of the Honorable A. J. Gronna, Judge of the District Court of Ward County, in issuing writs of habeas corpus upon the petition of Arthur Helland and upon the petition of Thomas Smith for such writ and the making of orders discharging and releasing the said Arthur Helland and Thomas Smith from the custody of the Chief of Police of the City of Minot.

The material facts are undisputed. In the evening of August 11, 1952, Arthur Helland and Thomas Smith were arrested by an officer of the police department of the City of Minot and charged with disorderly conduct, an offense under the ordinances of the City of Minot. On the morning of August 12, 1952, the police officer having them in charge brought them before the police magistrate of...