State v. McDonald
| Decision Date | 06 November 1944 |
| Docket Number | 37619. |
| Citation | 20 So.2d 6,206 La. 732 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE v. McDONALD. |
W.W. McDonald and Albert P. Garland, both of Shreveport, for relator.
The relator William Rhule McDonald, generally known as Billy McDonald was prosecuted as a delinquent child in the Juvenile Court for the Parish of Caddo. After a plea attacking the constitutionality of Act 30 of 1924 creating the court and a motion to recuse the judge was overruled, the case was heard on the merits. The judge held that the defendant was a delinquent child and ordered him committed for an indefinite period to the Louisiana Training Institute at Monroe. An oral motion for a suspensive appeal to this Court was made on behalf of the defendant. The judge granted an appeal but refused to make it suspensive, and he ordered that the juvenile be held in the custody of the chief probation officer pending his transfer to the Louisiana Training Institute. The juvenile and his grandfather, who has had the actual custody of the juvenile for a number of years, applied to this Court for writs of mandamus and prohibition to compel the judge to grant a suspensive appeal. After considering the relators' petition, the court issued a rule to show cause, accompanied with a stay order, directed to the judge of the Juvenile Court, and the juvenile was released pending the final disposition of the proceeding.
The sole question now before the Court is whether the judge of the Juvenile Court was right in refusing to grant a suspensive appeal from his judgment condemning the juvenile as a delinquent child and committing him to the Louisiana Training INstitute at Monroe, which is a correctional and not a penal institution created and maintained under the provision of Act 127 of 1942.
In his return to the rule nisi, the respondent judge admits that appeals in all criminal cases from the Juvenile Court and other courts in the State shall be suspensive but denies that the juvenile, Billy McDonald, has been charged with any criminal offense, or that he has been convicted and sentenced for any such offense. He denies that the Constitution and Statutes of this State grant the absolute right of suspensive appeal to a juvenile from an adjudication of juvenile delinquency, but admits that the judge in his discretion may grant the right of suspensive appeal in any proper case.
Appeals from judgments of juvenile courts outside the Parish of Orleans are governed by a special provision of the Constitution. Section 54 of ARticle 7 of the Constitution of 1921 reads as follows: "Appeals from said courts (Juvenile Courts) other than the parish of Orleans, shall be allowed upon matters of law only, and shall be to the Supreme Court."
The Juvenile Court for the Parish of Caddo was created by Act 30 of 1924 section 7 of which reads as follows: "Appeals from the said Juvenile Court for the Parish of Caddo shall be allowed upon matters of law only and shall be to the Supreme Court."
The judge argues that the article of the Constitution and provision of the statute establishing the procedure of the Juvenile Court for the Parish of Caddo having failed to set forth whether such appeals shall be suspensive can not be enlarged by implication but clearly leaves the matter of suspending the execution of the judgment pending appeal to the discretion of the court.
Under the provision of sections 52 and 53 of the Constitution of 1921, art. 7, and Act 30 of 1924, the Juvenile Court for the Parish of Caddo is vested with jurisdiction of neglected or delinquent children and all persons charged with the contributing to the neglect or delinquency of such children. Section 54, art. 7, of the Constitution and section 7 of the Constitution and section 7 of the statute allows appeals from the Juvenile Court to this Court only on matters of law without limiting or defining the cases that are appealable. It was so held on rehearing in State v. Trapp, 140 La. 425, 73 So. 255, construing a similar provision contained in section 1 of article 118 of the Constitution of 1913. Hence a judgment of the Juvenile court for the Parish of Caddo, condemning a juvenile as a neglected or delinquent child and committing him to the Louisiana Training Institute, is appealable to this Court, but only on matters of law. Whether the effect of the appeal is to suspend the execution of the judgment is the question presented for decision in this case. The relators assert the question must be answered in the affirmative. But in the brief on their behalf we are not referred to any authority in support of their proposition. They base their proposition solely on the argument that the constitutional and statutory provisions providing for appeals to this Court from the Juvenile Court are not restrictive in language and hence they carry with them "by every rule of fair construction, judicial interpretation and precedent the right of suspensive appeal." They argue that since neither section 54 of article 7 of the Constitution, nor Act 30 of 1924 providing for appeals from the Juvenile Court for the Parish of Caddo, do not contain the clause "shall not suspend the judgment of said court," which appears in section 96 of article 7 of the Constitution and section 2 of Act 126 of 1921, Ex. Sess., governing appeals from the Juvenile Court for the Parish of Orleans, the implication is that it was not the intention of the framers of the Constitution nor the members of the Legislature that the right of suspensive appeal from the judgment of the Juvenile Court of the Parish of Caddo, or any other parish outside the Parish of Orleans, should be denied to anyone prosecuted in those courts. They further argue that since persons charged with criminal offenses are in certain cases permitted to appeal suspensively from a judgment of conviction in the juvenile court, the right of suspensive appeal should not be denied a juvenile who has been adjudicated and sentenced as a neglected or delinquent child in those courts.
We can not concur in relators' views of the case. The fact that adults, who are convicted and sentenced in the juvenile court for offenses involving juveniles, are entitled to appeal suspensively to this Court is not sufficient to confer the right of suspensive appeal on a juvenile or his parent or guardian where the juvenile is found to be a neglected or delinquent child and is committed as such to the...
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State in Interest of Banks
...addressed the issue of whether juveniles from the rest of the state are entitled to bail pending appeal. In State v. McDonald, 206 La. 732, 20 So.2d 6 (1944), the juvenile argued that, whereas the constitutional provision dealing with Orleans Parish denied the right to suspensive appeal, no......
- State in Interest of McDonald
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State v. Smith
...right, and that it is wholly within the power of the Legislature to grant or deny it in either civil or criminal cases. In the McDonald case, this court had under consideration question of whether a judge of the Juvenile Court for the Parish of Caddo was correct in refusing to grant a suspe......