Stokes v. Genakos

• Decision Date: 16 November 1977
• Docket Number: No. CA 76-171-T.,CA 76-171-T.
• Parties: James J. STOKES v. Nicholas GENAKOS.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

441 F. Supp. 147

James J. STOKES v. Nicholas GENAKOS.

No. CA 76-171-T.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

November 16, 1977.

Bingham, Dana & Gould, James F. McHugh, Boston, Mass., for plaintiff.

Barbara A. H. Smith, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM

TAURO, District Judge.

Petitioner seeks a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to release him from state custody. He alleges that he was deprived of his liberty without due process of law, as a result of the proceedings by which he was bound over for trial in the Superior Court from the Juvenile Court where he was initially charged. The court grants his petition, because of the failure of the juvenile court judge to make a detailed statement of the reasons for dismissing the juvenile proceedings against petitioner and binding him over for trial in the Superior Court.

I

The background facts have been stipulated by the parties. On January 18, 1969, the body of a night watchman, Armand Cerbone, was discovered by Boston police. Five months later, juvenile delinquency complaints were issued against the petitioner by reason of alleged breaking and entering and murder. Two other young men were charged with murder and breaking and entering, in adult complaints, arising out of the same incident. Petitioner was 16 years old at the time.

On June 25, 1969, petitioner appeared before the Municipal Court for Dorchester where he was committed, without bail, to the Charles Street Jail to await hearing. On July 8, 1969, petitioner appeared before the Municipal Court for a hearing on the juvenile delinquency complaints. These complaints were dismissed. Identical criminal complaints were issued. A probable cause hearing on the criminal complaints was held.

Petitioner was subsequently tried and convicted of murder in the first degree by the Superior Court and sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, his conviction was reduced to second degree murder.

Petitioner brought a petition for habeas corpus in this court in 1972, which was dismissed for failure to exhaust his state remedies.¹

In a subsequent petition for a writ of error before the full bench of the Supreme Judicial Court, all the issues now presented here were presented to the court and rejected. Stokes v. Comm., 1975 Mass.Adv.Sh. 3030, 336 N.E.2d 735.

II

Of petitioner's four arguments,² only one requires lengthy discussion. Petitioner argues that he was deprived of his liberty without due process of law because the municipal judge dismissed the juvenile complaints against him, and thus waived the jurisdiction of the juvenile court over him, without giving a statement of his reasons for doing so.³ The only comment made by the judge at the conclusion of the initial hearing was: "This young man is to be held." On the back of the two juvenile complaints, the judge wrote: "July 8, 1969 That the interest of the public requires that he shall be tried for the said offence," followed by the signature, "Jerome P. Troy, Justice." This was the only statement of reasons given by the judge for his decision to dismiss the juvenile complaints. It repeats verbatim the language of the governing statute, Mass.Gen.Laws, ch. 119, § 61.

The seminal case in this area is Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 86 S.Ct. 1045, 16 L.Ed.2d 84 (1966), in which the Supreme Court established procedural requirements for waiver hearings under the District of Columbia statute. In the course of its discussion, the Court pointed out that "the waiver of jurisdiction is a `critically important' action determining vitally important statutory rights of the juvenile." 383 U.S. at 556, 86 S.Ct. at 1055. The Court held, inter alia, that the juvenile judge must provide the juvenile with a statement of reasons for the waiver decision. After noting that the decision to waiver juvenile jurisdiction and transfer the youth to the adult session is reviewable by a motion to dismiss the indictment, the Court stated:

Meaningful review requires that the reviewing court should review. It should not be remitted to assumptions. It must have before it a statement of the reasons motivating the waiver including, of course, a statement of the relevant facts. It may not "assume" that there are adequate reasons, nor may it merely assume that "full investigation" has been made. Accordingly, we hold that it is incumbent upon the Juvenile Court to accompany its waiver order with a statement of the reasons or considerations therefor. We do not read the statute as requiring that this statement must be formal or that it should necessarily include conventional findings of fact. But the statement should be sufficient to demonstrate that the statutory requirement of "full investigation" has been met; and that the question has received the careful consideration of the Juvenile Court; and it must set forth the basis for the order with sufficient specificity to permit meaningful review.

383 U.S. at 561, 86 S.Ct. at 1057.

In reaching its conclusions about the procedural requirements for transfer hearings, the Court relied in part on the language of the District of Columbia statute, and in part on constitutional principles,⁴ thus leaving ambiguous whether all of the procedures that they outlined for transfer hearings would be constitutionally required, absent the statute in question.

Subsequently, in In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967), the Court held that certain procedures are constitutionally required before a juvenile may be adjudicated a delinquent. While so holding, the Court also suggested that its earlier decision was constitutionally based:

Although our decision in Kent turned upon the language of the statute, we emphasized the necessity that "the basic requirements of due process and fairness" be satisfied in such proceedings.

. . . With respect to the waiver by the Juvenile Court to the adult court of jurisdiction over an offense committed by a youth, we said that "there is no place in our system of law for reaching a result of such tremendous consequences without ceremony — without hearing, without effective assistance of counsel, without a statement of reasons." We announced with respect to such waiver proceedings that while "We do not mean . . . to indicate that the hearing to be held must conform with all of the requirements of a criminal trial or even of the usual administrative hearing; but we do hold that the hearing must measure up to the essentials of due process and fair treatment." We reiterate this view . . . as a requirement which is part of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution.

387 U.S. 12, 30-31, 87 S.Ct. at 1445 (footnote omitted).

Several courts have held that Kent, examined in the light of Gault, must be found to set out constitutionally required procedures for bind-over hearings.⁵ Comments in subsequent Supreme Court decisions have also given support to this view.⁶ Other courts have refused to find that the procedures set forth in Kent were constitutionally required, finding instead that the decision was based primarily on the District of Columbia statute.⁷ This court finds most persuasive the intermediate approach taken by the Fourth Circuit:

Whether Gault and Kent, taken together, form a constitutional imperative as to juvenile waiver proceedings is not self-evident. However, Kent and Gault do make it unquestionably clear that juvenile court proceedings that affect a young person's substantial rights "must measure up to the essentials of due process and fair treatment," Gault, 387 U.S. at 30, 87 S.Ct. 1445, in the same manner as must criminal proceedings affecting the substantial rights of adults.

Kemplen v. State of Maryland, 428 F.2d 169, 173 (4th Cir. 1970) (footnotes omitted). Accordingly, we turn now to the question of whether the provision of a statement of reasons for the transfer decision is part of the "essentials of due process and fair treatment." In evaluating whether a statement of reasons is a fundamental element of due process, we must consider "the need for it . . . in the light of the function such a statement would perform."⁸

We look first at the nature of the interest at stake. Under the Massachusetts statutory scheme, as in that of the District of Columbia, "the waiver of jurisdiction is a `critically important' action determining vitally important statutory rights of the juvenile." A Juvenile v. Comm., 1976 Mass. Adv.Sh. 1237, 347 N.E.2d 677, 684; Kent v. United States, supra. The original and exclusive jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court over the child gives him special rights and immunities. The proceedings against him are shielded from publicity. Although he may be incarcerated, he may not be sentenced to a jail or house of correction and, as of the time petitioner was sentenced, he could be held only until his twenty-first birthday. The juvenile court is mandated to treat the children before it not as criminals but as children in need of aid, encouragement and guidance. Adjudication as a delinquent is not accompanied by the adverse collateral consequences of a conviction, such as subsequent disqualification for public employment, and evidence of the adjudication may not be introduced at any subsequent court proceeding against the child. Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 119, §§ 53, 58, 60, 60A, 65 and 83. Hence, the transfer decision is of great importance.⁹ For petitioner, it meant the difference between facing the life sentence he is now serving and the possibility of at most five years of treatment in a juvenile facility.

Under the Massachusetts scheme, the waiver decision may be appealed by means of a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction in the Superior Court, or by a petition for relief in the nature of certiorari in the Supreme Judicial Court. See A Juvenile v. Comm., supra, 347 N.E.2d at 679; Comm. v. A Juvenile, 363 Mass. 640, 296 N.E.2d 194, 195 (1973). Appeal without a statement of reasons cannot result in...