State ex rel. S.D.
| Decision Date | 06 November 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 2002-CA-0672.,2002-CA-0672. |
| Citation | 832 So.2d 415 |
| Parties | STATE of Louisiana in the Interest of S.D. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Revettea D. Woods, Baton Rouge, LA, for Appellant.
David J. Utter, Sarah L. Ottinger, Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, New Orleans, LA, for Appellee.
Court composed of Judge STEVEN R. PLOTKIN, Judge MIRIAM G. WALTZER, Judge PATRICIA RIVET MURRAY.
The issue in this appeal is whether the juvenile judge was correct in determining that the conditions of S.D.'s1 confinement at the juvenile facility were unconstitutional.
On September 21, 2000, S.D. pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance, unauthorized use of a moveable, resisting an officer and reckless operation of a motor vehicle. The court sentenced S.D. to one year for possession of crack cocaine, one year for unauthorized use of a movable, and six months each for resisting an officer and reckless operation of a vehicle. These sentences were to be run consecutively, with S.D. getting credit for time served.
The DOC initially placed S.D. at the Jetson Correctional Center for Youth and later moved him to its facility in Tallulah, LA. On May 18, 2001, while on his way to class, S.D. became involved in an altercation with the correctional guard. As a result he received a fractured jaw. For the facts and reasons described in the excellent reasons for judgment issued by the trial court, which is attached to this opinion, we accept his opinion in toto.
The trial court did not err in finding that S.D.'s conditions of confinement were unconstitutional.
For the foregoing reasons stated the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
ATTACHMENT
STATE OF LOUISIANA
ORLEANS PARISH JUVENILE COURT
IN THE INTEREST OF S.D.
Dec. 17, 2001
JUDGMENT ON YOUTH'S MOTIONS TO MODIFY DISPOSITION
December 17, 2001
S.D. is a young man now seventeen years old. His life has been a story of violence, physical & sexual abuse, drugs and jail. His mother is dead—murdered by his father who forced him to watch as he stabbed her twenty-one times with a kitchen knife. Her death ended a nightmare of domestic violence that terrorized his infancy and toddler years. He has had no contact with his father, now serving a twenty-six year sentence at Angola, since that day.
He found a new life and a new home with a paternal uncle. A pedophile, the uncle sexually molested him. S.D. moved in with a maternal great-aunt who had been appointed his legal guardian. She regularly beat him with an electrical extension cord. He started running away. She began putting him in mental hospitals. Between his sixth and tenth birthdays, he entered the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital—a mental health facility—five times and was put on medication for depression. He began using street drugs when he was eleven.
When he was thirteen, three girls said he pointed a BB gun at them and threatened to shoot. Police arrested him for aggravated assault. A different greataunt then stepped forward and took him in as he served his probation. That was January 1998.
By August that year, with a simple robbery conviction and his probation revoked, the Department of Corrections (DOC) placed him first at the Reynolds Institute, a lock-down residential group home for youth, and then at the Bridge City Correctional Center for Youth, the juvenile equivalent of jail. Things did not go well. At a March 1999 hearing, DOC reported he had incurred 448 rule violations and been involved in "104 additional incidents." 98-176-02-Q-E, 3/25/99. In September 1999 he returned to his great-aunt's home after serving his full time.
2000 did not mark an improvement in his fortune. He had a place to stay but that was it; for anything else he was on his own. He tried selling drugs to support himself and got arrested for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. A few months later police picked him up for possession of a stolen car, reckless operation of a vehicle and resisting arrest. The D.A. accepted the charges and S.D.'s consolidated cases were allotted to this section of Juvenile Court for trial
On September 21, 2000, represented by the public defender, S.D. stood up and admitted the allegations in matter number 00-147-04-QF that he violated R.S. 40:967(C)(2), possession of a controlled dangerous substance (to wit, one piece of crack cocaine), and in matter number 00-172-05-QF, violations of R.S. 14:68.4, unauthorized use of a moveable, R.S. 14:108.1, resisting an officer, and R.S. 14:99, reckless operation of a motor vehicle. After questioning the youth under oath regarding his Boykin rights, the Court accepted the pleas as being knowingly and voluntarily made, and having a basis in fact.
After a review of S.D.'s extensive record, and upon the recommendation of the probation department and mental health evaluations, the Court found the youth to be a proper person for commitment to the custody of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections (hereinafter DOC), and committed him to its custody for a period of one (1) year for possession of crack cocaine, one (1) year for the unauthorized use of a moveable, and six months each for resisting an officer and reckless operation of a vehicle. The Court ordered that these sentences were to run consecutive to one another, for a total commitment time of three (3) years in the Department's custody.
Further, the Court ordered additional psychiatric & psychological testing of the youth, and ordered that DOC make a referral on the youth's behalf for counseling relative to grief, anger management and being a victim of sexual abuse. The Court remanded the youth on that date, granting him credit for time served.
The DOC placed the youth at the Jetson Correctional Center for Youth in Baton Rouge and in January 2001 moved him to its correctional facility at Tallulah, Louisiana, known as the Swanson Correctional Center for Youth—Madison. In early February 2001, DOC forwarded an assessment and evaluation of S.D., performed by the department's Juvenile Reception & Diagnostic Center at Jetson.
Given S.D.'s history—both personal and legal—this Court, on its own motion and pursuant to Louisiana Code of Evidence Art. 706, appointed Cecile C. Guin, Ph.D., LCSW (Licensed Certified Social Worker), Director of the Office of Social Service Research & Development, LSU School of Social Work, to serve as a Special Expert, to evaluate the youth
taking into consideration, but without limitation thereto, the condition, supervision, treatment, and rehabilitation program for the juvenile, to prepare a written report on her findings, with recommendations, if any she had, as to the appropriateness of the placement and treatment plan in meeting the individual social and mental health needs of the juvenile, the prognosis for the youth's rehabilitation, and the need or not for mental health treatment, including, if recommended, what that treatment would entail. Order of April 3, 2001.
Following her evaluation of the youth, Dr. Guin testified on May 3, 2001, regarding her findings and recommendations. Pursuant to her findings, the youth filed a Motion to Modify the Disposition and later additional motions that included allegations that since the May 2001 hearing, the youth had suffered a broken jaw at the hands of guards at the Tallulah facility. The DOC denied the allegations of abuse by its personnel and conducted an investigation.
The Court heard testimony regarding the consolidated motions from 19 witnesses over the course of four separate days: August 6, September 5, 10, & 24, 2001. At the conclusion of the testimony, the youth supplemented his consolidated motions to modify the disposition with a motion asking the Court to find the conditions of confinement in which he was placed at the Tallulah facility to be unconstitutional.
The Court denied the youth's motion to modify as it related to his request for an early release, pending further evaluations, the results of a home study on one of the youth's aunts residing in California through the California Department of Social Services, and a recommendation, after a review of this material, as to appropriate placement by Dr. Guin. On the conditions of confinement issue, the Court requested briefs from the youth and DOC and took the matter under advisement upon receipt of same. A further hearing is set for December 17, 2001 to receive the results of the California Home Study.
S.D. testified that he sees fights at Tallulah every day. Vol. 1, p. 9, ln. 28.1 He stated he had been in a gang fight as recently as July 2001. He readily admits he has been in numerous fights, for which sometimes he received a disciplinary ticket and other times he did not. The youth explained this phenomenon, stating sometimes the staff just says, "handle your business." V.1, p. 10, ln. 20.
The youth's allegations are serious, but not complicated. S.D. testified that on May 18, 2001, he was going from the "Kentucky" dorm to his classroom. On the schoolhouse steps, he encountered Cadet Mitchell, a female guard, near her post in front of the door. According to S.D., he told Mitchell he was "on detail" that day, meaning that he was exempt from attending school. V.1, p.17, ln. 21-26. He was just kidding her, he said, for in fact, he was not "on detail" at all that day.
S.D. believes that Lieutenant Colonel. M.2, who was present at the time, overheard S.D.'s statement to Mitchell, and claims Lt. Col. M. then told him to get his "f_____' ass in class." At that point, S.D. recalled that Lt. Col. M. and another youth "got into it"—meaning into some form of argument. V.1, p. 18, ln. 8-9. S.D. then made another improvident remark by telling Lt. Col. M. "why didn't you tell that to the guy you got into it with this morning." V. 1, p. 18, ln. 9-10.
Lt. Col. M. again ordered S.D. into the building and to class. A...
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