State v. Superior Court of King County

• Decision Date: 06 December 1922
• Docket Number: 17359.
• Citation: 210 P. 674,122 Wash. 407
• Parties: STATE ex rel. NISSEN v. SUPERIOR COURT OF KING COUNTY et al.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

210 P. 674

122 Wash. 407

STATE ex rel. NISSEN v. SUPERIOR COURT OF KING COUNTY et al.

No. 17359.

Supreme Court of Washington

December 6, 1922

Department 1.

Writ of review by the State, on the relation of Walterine Nissen against the Superior Court of King County and another, to review an order by which plaintiff was committed to the State School for Girls. Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

Egan &amp Moriarty, of Seattle, for plaintiff.

MITCHELL J.

This action relates to the welfare of Walterine Nissen, a girl between 17 and 18 years of age. The purpose of the proceeding in this court is to have reviewed an order of the superior court of King county by which the girl was committed to the State School for Girls. Upon the return to the writ it appears that at one time she was an inmate of the Women's Industrial Home and Clinic, by order and commitment of the juvenile court of King county, and that upon the closing of that institution in 1921 she was taken charge of by the Lebanon home in Seattle. Some time thereafter, by petition duly sworn to by one Francette P. Maring, and filed in the superior court, the girl was regularly complained of as being an incorrigible. When the matter first came on for hearing on the complaint she filed an affidavit of prejudice against Hon. King Dykeman, Judge of the juvenile department, in support of a motion by her attorneys that the cause be transferred to some other judge or department of the superior court for trial. An order was entered:

'That the matter of the dependency of said minor child Walterine Nissen, and the future care, custody, and control of her be finally determined by the superior court of the state of Washington in and for King county, to be regularly assigned therein for trial upon the merits.'

Under the rules for the assignment of causes in the superior court the case then came on for hearing before another judge of the superior court. Through her attorneys a jury trial was demanded and a jury fee deposited. The court refused a jury trial, and proceeded with the hearing, at the conclusion of which findings, conclusions, and judgment were entered that there was no evidence to support the charges contained in the complaint. It was further adjudged, however, that the girl was, and at all times since a date prior to her being committed to the Women's Industrial Home and Clinic has been, a ward of the juvenile court of King county, and it was further ordered that she be committed to the juvenile detention home of the county to await disposition by the juvenile court authorities of the county. Shortly thereafter the cause came on again for hearing before Hon. King Dykeman, judge of the juvenile department of the court, at which time she promptly renewed her affidavit of prejudice and motion for change of venue or for a different trial judge. The application was denied. The order entered on this hearing was that she 'be, and she hereby is, committed to the State School for Girls, to remain until she is 21 years of age unless sooner discharged according to law.' By a disturbing, unexplained irregularity this last order recites:

'This matter coming on regularly for hearing upon the petition of Martha Castberg, an officer of this court, on behalf of Walterine Nissen,' etc.

The certificate of the respondent is that the return to the writ issued out of this court contains the full, complete, and entire record upon which the orders, judgment, and proceedings in the cause were made and entered. It does not contain any petition by Martha Castberg.

We have not been favored with any argument, written or oral, on the part of the respondent. It is difficult to understand why the judge who made the final order served in the case af...