State v. Shrode

• Decision Date: 16 February 1949
• Docket Number: 17853.
• Citation: 83 N.E.2d 900,119 Ind.App. 57
• Parties: STATE v. SHRODE et al.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

83 N.E.2d 900

119 Ind.App. 57

STATE v. SHRODE et al.

No. 17853.

Appellate Court of Indiana, in Banc.

February 16, 1949

Oscar C. Crawford and Frederick W. Harrison Dep. Attys. Gen., for appellant.

Lorin H. Kiely, of Evansville, for appellee.

ROYSE Presiding Judge.

This case questions the jurisdiction of a juvenile court over a child who has been committed by such court to the Indiana Boys' School. The facts may be summarized as follows:

Robert M. Shrode was born May 4, 1930. On March 26, 1945 he was made a ward of the Juvenile Division of the Probate Court of Vanderburgh County and placed in the custody of White's Training School. He subsequently ran away from that school. On August 30, 1945 said court placed him in the custody of the Gilbault School for Boys. He ran away from this school. On September 19, 1945 said court committed this boy to the care and control of the Board of Managers of the Indiana Boys' School until he attained the age of 21 years, or until sooner discharged by said Board of Managers. Again he ran away, was apprehended, and on October 14, 1946 ordered returned to said last mentioned institution. At about this time the Board of Managers of the Indiana Boys' School, pursuant to authority granted by the Department of Public Welfare of Indiana, transferred him to the Indiana Reformatory at Pendleton.

On December 16, 1947 appellee Eugene Shrode, who is the natural father of Robert M. Shrode, filed his verified petition in the Juvenile Division of the Probate Court of Vanderburgh County to modity the judgment of said court in said matter and restore said child to his parent. After pleas in abatement had been overruled the Attorney General filed a demurrer to the petition. The grounds stated in the demurrer are: The court had no jurisdiction of the subject matter or the person; that when the boy was committed by the court to the Indiana Boys' School, he was sentenced and committed to the Board of Managers thereof until he reached the age of twenty-one years or sooner discharged, and that the action giving the court jurisdiction of this boy as a delinquent child only continued until said boy was committed to a correctional or other state institution, and it was further provided by this law giving jurisdiction in the first instance that any child committed to any state institution shall be committed until said child obtains the age of twenty-one years or is sooner released by the board of control of such institution, and that whatever jurisdiction the court had over the said Robert M. Shrode was lost when he was committed to the Indiana Boys' School and citing Sections 7 and 16 of Chapter 356 of the Acts of 1945, §§ 9-3207, 9-3216, Burns' 1942 Replacement Supp that there was a defect of parties defendant to the petition, to-wit: Russell D. Moore, the general superintendent of the Indiana Reformatory in whose custody the boy now is, and Albert H. Jessup, Superintendent of the Indiana Boys' School in whose custody the boy was committed by the Juvenile Court, and that neither of said superintendents or the board of trustees of said institutions have been made parties to this action, and any order made against either of the said superintendents before they are properly and legally brought into court and made parties hereto would be illegal and void, without jurisdiction and without right; that the petition does not contain sufficient facts to constitute a cause of action or a cause to re-open the judgment in the case of Robert M. Shrode, for the petition itself shows that the court had committed the boy to the Board of Managers of the Indiana Boys' School until he reached the age of twenty-one years or sooner discharged and by so doing, the Juvenile Court lost all jurisdiction in the case; that the sole power of transfer from a correctional school to a penal institution is vested in the State Department of Public Welfare under Section 5(n) of the Welfare Act, § 52-1104(n), Burns' 1933 Supp.; that no legal grounds for the Juvenile Division of the Probate Court in Vanderburgh County to re-open the judgment entered by the said court when it committed the said Robert M. Shrode to the Indiana Boys' School, is shown by the petition; that the boy is still 17 years of age and before the court can modify the judgment, the petition must show facts giving the court right so to do; that no facts are shown by the petition giving the court such right, but the petition affirmatively shows that the court had lost jurisdiction over said Shrode when it committed said boy to the Indiana Boys' School. A memorandum was filed with the demurrer quoting the provisions of §§ 7 and 16 of the Acts of...