Swanson v. State
| Decision Date | 11 March 1921 |
| Docket Number | 21723 |
| Citation | 181 N.W. 921,105 Neb. 761 |
| Parties | LOUIS SWANSON v. STATE OF NEBRASKA |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
ERROR to the district court for Douglas county: WILLIS G. SEARS JUDGE. Reversed.
REVERSED.
Gray & Brumbaugh and Macfarland & Macfarland, for plaintiff in error.
Clarence A. Davis, Attorney General, and C. L. Dort, contra.
Defendant was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a female child under the age of 16 years, in that he did carnally know and have sexual intercourse with her. The case was tried to the judge of the juvenile court without a jury, though a jury was demanded. The defendant was adjudged guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for a period of 90 days in the county jail and ordered to pay the costs of prosecution.
This action was based upon section 1263, Rev. St. 1913, providing that any person, causing or contributing to the "delinquency" of a child, "shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon trial and conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars, or imprisonment in the county jail for a period not exceeding six months."
That provision of the statute was not enacted as a part of the juvenile court law. It appears as a separate act, chapter 195, Laws 1905, under a title as follows: "A bill for an act to provide for the punishment of persons responsible for or contributing to, the dependency or delinquency of children." The juvenile court law (Rev. St. 1913, secs 1244-1262), on the other hand, is found under chapter 59, Laws 1905, under the title: "A bill for an act to regulate the treatment and control of dependent, neglected and delinquent children." In 1913 the legislature adopted the Revised Statutes, as prepared and presented by the statute revision commission, and under that revision the two laws mentioned were included in the same chapter, as a part of the same act, and under the subject "Juvenile Courts."
It is contended that the statute, here in question, was enacted in 1905 as a supplement to the juvenile court act, that the general procedure of the juvenile court was intended to govern, and that such relation between the two statutes is, furthermore, borne out by the subsequent action of the legislature, combining the two enactments in the revision of 1913.
The statute, making it a misdemeanor to contribute to the delinquency of a child and prescribing punishment for violation, is essentially a criminal statute, and does not purport to dispense with a jury trial, nor with other requirements found in the general Criminal Code, nor does it expressly provide that prosecutions under it shall be conducted in the summary manner afforded by the rules of procedure in juvenile courts. The mere grouping of these two laws under one chapter did not, of course, broaden or enlarge the powers under either.
Juvenile courts are not criminal courts. Their function is not to try criminal charges and punish for criminal offenses. It is only upon the theory that they are not criminal courts that their establishment, and that their methods of procedure, can be sustained as constitutional. Children are considered wards of the state. When a child is found without proper parental care, in poverty, or neglected, or incorrigible, or surrounded by vicious and immoral influences, tending to prevent it from growing into a useful and law-abiding citizen, the juvenile court takes up the matter, not as the trial of a criminal charge, but...
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