State v. Monahan

• Decision Date: 22 March 1954
• Docket Number: No. A--74,A--74
• Citation: 48 A.L.R.2d 641,15 N.J. 34,104 A.2d 21
• Parties: , 48 A.L.R.2d 641 STATE v. MONAHAN et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 34

15 N.J. 34

104 A.2d 21, 48 A.L.R.2d 641

STATE v.MONAHAN et al.

No. A--74.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Dec. 21, 1953.

Decided March 22, 1954.

Ira D. Dorian, Newark, for appellant(Thomas F. Hueston, Elizabeth, attorney).

H. Russell Morss, Jr., County Pros. of Union County, Elizabeth, for respondent.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

JACOBS, J.

Prompted by mid-Twentieth Century sociological precepts, our Legislature has directed that children under 16 who commit any offenses which would be criminal if committed by adults, shall not be triable in criminal proceedings but shall be dealt with exclusively by our specialized juvenile courts.The legal issue presented to us is whether this clear statutory mandate may be judicially disregarded to enable a first degree murder trial in the County Court of a 15-year-old boy who participated in a robbery with his father during which his father killed two persons.

In April, 1953Eugene Monahan and his 15-year-old son Michael were indicted for the murder of William Diskin and Sebastian Weilandics.Eugene Monahan has been tried, convicted and sentenced to death and his appeal is pending before this court.The State concedes that the victims were killed by the father and not the son but asserts that since the homicides occurred during a robbery in which the son participated, the son was equally triable for murder in the first degree, punishable by death unless there is a recommendation of life imprisonment.SeeN.J.S. 2A:113--1, N.J.S.A.;N.J.S. 2A:113--2, N.J.S.A.A motion was made for transfer of the proceeding against the son to the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on the ground that under N.J.S. 2A:85--4, N.J.S.A., andN.J.S. 2A:4--14, N.J.S.A., it was cognizable exclusively in that court.The motion was denied and an appeal was taken.Cf.R.R. 1:10--1(b);R.R. 2:2--3(a)(3);R.R. 2:2--4; R.R. 2:12;R.R. 3:5--5(b)(6)(a).Although several preliminary procedural matters have been raised by the State, we shall pass them and proceed with the determination of the meritorious issue presented.It is of public concern, it has been fully briefed and argued, and its expeditious determination is required in the interests of complete justice.SeeState v. Tune, 13 N.J. 203, 209, 98 A.2d 881(1953);City of Newark v. Pulverman, 12 N.J. 105, 108, 95 A.2d 889(1953);Hendrikson v. Koppers Co., Inc., 11 N.J. 600, 605, 95 A.2d 710(1953).

The principle of removing or mitigating the criminal responsibility of children has ancient origins.In the early case of State v. Aaron, 4 N.J.L. 231, 244(Reprint 269, 277)(Sup.Ct.1818), Chief Justice Kirkpatrick restated the settled common law doctrine, adapted from earlier Roman law, that since a child under seven 'cannot have discretion to discern between good and evil'he is incapable of committing crime; between the ages of seven and 14 he is subject to a rebuttable presumption of incapacity; and after 14 he is presumptively capable.SeeClark & Marshall, A Treatise on the Law of Crimes, (5th ed.1952), pp. 125--128.Although the common law rule precluded criminal convictions of many young offenders, there are instances in which it failed to do so, with shocking consequences.Blackstone cites cases in which children of very tender age were drastically condemned as adult criminals; he refers to the hanging of an eight-year-old for maliciously burning some barns; to the hanging of a ten-year-old who had killed one of his companions; and to the burning of a girl of 13 who had killed her mistress.4 Bl.Comm. (13th ed.1800), 23.Similar illustrations in our own State are not lacking.In 1818 a boy of 11 was tried for murder (State v. Aaron, supra), and in 1828 a boy of 13 was hanged for an offense which he committed when he was 12.State v. Guild, 10 N.J.L. 163(Sup.Ct.1828).During most of the Nineteenth Century, child and adult offenders were treated alike although intermittent steps were taken towards their separate confinement.It was not until the turn of the century that modern concepts really began to take form; they embodied the upward movement in the child's age of criminal responsibility, the extended recognition of society's obligation as Parens patriae to care for delinquent children, and the creation of independent juvenile courts.See Elliott, Conflicting Penal Theories in Statutory Criminal Law 32 (1931); Sussmann, Juvenile Delinquency 12 (1950); Young, Social Treatment in Probation and Delinquency (2d Ed.1952), 48.

The first juvenile court in this country was established in Cook County, Illinois, by an 1899 act which provided that the child offender was to be considered a ward of the state under control of the juvenile court; proceedings were there to be conducted informally with rehabilitative supervision rather than retributive punishment in mind, and without public indictment, trial by jury and other incidents of criminal causes.Thereafter the other states adopted legislation which was comparable though specific provisions varied.Attacks on the legislation based on the absence of indictment, trial by jury and the other constitutional guarantees applicable to criminal proceedings were quickly rejected.SeeCommonwealth v. Fisher, 213 Pa. 48, 62 A. 198(Sup.Ct.1905);Lindsay v. Lindsay, 257 Ill. 328, 100 N.E. 892, 45 L.R.A., N.S., 908(Sup.Ct.1913);People v. Lewis, 260 N.Y. 171, 183 N.E. 353, 86 A.L.R. 1001(Ct.App.1932), certiorari denied289 U.S. 709, 53 S.Ct. 786, 77 L.Ed. 1464(1933);Petition of Morin, 95 N.H. 518, 68 A.2d 668(Sup.Ct.1949).Cf.Mack, The Juvenile Court, 23 Harv.L.Rev. 104, 109(1909).In the Fisher case(213 Pa. 48, 62 A. 200)the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania pointed out that the juvenile court proceeding is not 'the trial of a child charged with a crime, but is mercifully to save it from such an ordeal, with the prison or penitentiary in its wake, if the child's own good and the best interests of the state justify such salvation.'In the Lindsay case(257 Ill. 328, 100 N.E. 894)the Supreme Court of Illinois noted that the 'prerogative of the state, arising out of its power and duty, as Parens patriae, to protect the interest of infants, has always been exercised by courts of chancery' and has not been questioned for generations.In the Lewis case(260 N.Y 171, 183 N.E. 354) the New York Court of Appeals stated that there is no doubt about the power of the legislature'to say that an act done by a child shall not be a crime.'And in the recent Morin case (95 N.H. 518, 68 A.2d 670)the Supreme Court of New Hampshire, in rejecting an attack on its statute relating to delinquent children, said:

'We think it sufficiently plain that the act in question is designed to permit the exercise of the powers of the state as 'parens patriae,' for the purpose of rehabilitating minor children, and not of punishing them for the commission of a crime.'It is generally held that the purpose of such statutes is not penal, but protective.It is not that the child shall be punished for breach of a law or regulation, but that he shall have a better chance to become a worthy citizen.'State v. Lefebvre, 91 N.H. 382, 384, 20 A.2d 185, 187.See also, State v. Burt, 75 N.H. 64, 66, 71 A. 30, Ann.Cas.1912A, 232.Similar statutes have been universally upheld over objections based upon constitutional grounds.Cinque v. Boyd, 99 Conn. 70, 121 A. 678;People v. Lewis, 260 N.Y. 171, 183 N.E. 353, 86 A.L.R. 1001, certiorari denied289 U.S. 709, 53 S.Ct. 786, 77 L.Ed. 1464;Commonwealth v. Fisher, 213 Pa. 48, 62 A. 198, 5 Ann.Cas. 92;Ex parte Januszewski, C.C., 196 F. 123;Lindsay v. Lindsay, 257 Ill. 328, 100 N.E. 892, 45 L.R.A.,N.S., 908, Ann.Cas.1914A, 1222;Wissenburg v. Bradley, 209 Iowa 813, 229 N.W. 205, 67 A.L.R. 1075;In re Gomez, 113 Vt. 224, 32 A.2d 138.See alsoThomas v. United States, 74 App.D.C. 167, 121 F.2d 905, 907; annotations 60 A.L.R. 1342;67 A.L.R. 1082.'

See also the oft-quoted case of Cinque v. Boyd, 99 Conn. 70, 121 A. 678(Sup.Ct.Err.1923), where the court sustained the Connecticut act establishing juvenile courts and cited supporting decisions in Arkansas, California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.Cf.Ex parte Newkosky, 94 N.J.L. 314, 315, 116 A. 716(Sup.Ct.1920);In re Olcott, 141 N.J.Eq. 8, 9, 55 A.2d 820(Ch.1947).

During colonial days and the early Nineteenth Century, our State dealt with child and adult offenders in identical fashion.See Justice and the Child in New Jersey, Report of the New Jersey Juvenile Delinquency Commission, 35 (1939).In 1850 legislative steps were first taken towards the separate confinement of children (L.1850, p. 125;L.1852, p. 476) although it was not until 1867 that the State Reform School for Juvenile Delinquents at Jamesburg was opened.Shortly thereafter the State Industrial School for Girls at Trenton was established.Finally there was legislative recognition that children do not have that degree of intellectual and emotional development which should subject them to adult responsibility and that child and adult offenders should therefore be differentiated before trial rather than after conviction.In 1903 county courts for juvenile offenders, consisting of the judges of the Courts of Common Pleas, were created.L.1903, c. 219.In 1912courts manned by special juvenile court judges were set up in first class counties.L.1912, c. 353.In 1928 the Juvenile and Probation Study Commission, headed by Vice-Chancellor Bentley, recommended the adoption of new legislation based on the Standard Juvenile Court Act which had been prepared for the National Probation Association by a committee of judges from various states; pursuant thereto a comprehensive statutory revision was adopted in 1929 establishing juvenile and domestic relations courts and defining their jurisdiction over children under 16 years.L.1929,...