Terry, In re

• Decision Date: 04 May 1970
• Citation: 265 A.2d 350,438 Pa. 339
• Parties: In the Matter of Edward TERRY, a Minor, Appellant. In the Matter of Joseph McKEIVER, a Minor, Appellant.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 350

265 A.2d 350

438 Pa. 339

In the Matter of Edward TERRY, a Minor, Appellant In the Matter of Joseph McKEIVER, a Minor, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May 4, 1970.

Probable Jurisdiction Noted June 29, 1970. See 90 S.Ct. 2271.

Community Legal Services Inc., Irene H. Colton, Charles H. Baron, Philadelphia, Daniel E. Farmer, Charles H. Baron, Philadelphia, for appellants.

Arlen Specter, Dist. Atty., James D. Crawford, Asst. Dist. Atty., Chief, Appeals Division, Philadelphia, for appellee.

Before BELL, C.J., and JONES, COHEN, EAGEN, O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, and POMEROY, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ROBERTS, Justice.

Joseph McKiever ¹ and Edward Terry ² are juvenile delinquents, having acquired that status upon findings by the Juvenile Court of Philadelphia that each had violated a law of the Commonwealth. ³ The Superior Court affirmed the adjudications per curiam and we granted allocatur. Their consolidated appeal raises a single question: whether there is a constitutional right to a jury trial in juvenile court.

Appellants argue that the Constitutional of the United States, especially as interpreted by In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967) and Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968), gives them the right to insist on a jury trial. We cannot agree.

For over sixty-five years the Supreme Court gave no consideration at all to the constitutional problems involved in the juvenile court area. ⁴ Then came the landmark decision in In re Gault. ⁵ The decision is somewhat of a paradox, being both broad and narrow at the same time. It is broad in that it evidences a fundamental and far-reaching disillusionment with the anticipated benefits of the juvenile court system:

'(T)he highest motives and most enlightened impulses led to a peculiar system for juveniles, unknown to our law in any comparable context. The constitutional and theoretical basis for this peculiar system is--to say the least--debatable. And in practice, as we remarked in the Kent case, supra, the results have not been entirely satisfactory. Juvenile Court history has again demonstrated that unbridled discretion, however benevolently motivated, is frequently a poor substitute for principle and procedure. * * * The absence of substantive standards has not necessarily meant that children receive careful, compassionate, individualized treatment. The absence of procedural rules based upon constitutional principle has not always produced fair, efficient, and effective procedures. Departures from established principles of due process have frequently resulted not in enlightened procedure, but in arbitrariness.' ⁶

Continuing to paint with a broad brush, the Court announced its intention to require that the juvenile courts function with 'the procedural regularity and the exercise of care implied in the phrase 'due process. " ⁷ At this point, however, the Court narrowed the focus of its decision and quoted from its earlier holding in Kent, saying:

"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, here in conjunction with a juvenile court adjudication of 'delinquency,' as a requirement which is part of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution.' ⁸

The Court then specifically enumerated four due process rights which it held applicable in juvenile proceedings: (1) the right to adequate and timely notice of the charges; (2) the right to counsel; (3) the right to confrontation and cross-examination; and (4) the privilege against self-incrimination. Additionally, a majority of the Court specifically declined to rule on two other rights; the right to a transcript and the right to appellate review.

As can be seen from the quoted language, we are confronted with a sweeping rationale and a carefully tailored holding. If we had only the broader language it would be difficult to resist the conclusion that the Supreme Court had concluded that juvenile courts must comply with All the requirements of due process. The holdings do not, however, seem to contemplate so large a result, and our task is to decide whether the right to a jury trial ought to be operative in the juvenile court under the reasoning of Kent and Gault or under our own reading of the Constitution.

Appellants argue that the Supreme Court's 1968 decision in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968), is useful in the quest for a determination of what ought to be included in the bundle of due process rights properly applicable in juvenile courts. The Supreme Court there held that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a right of jury trial in all criminal cases which--were they to be tried in a federal court--would come within the Sixth Amendment's guarantee.' ⁹ Again, the Court spoke in sweeping language, calling the right to trial by jury fundamental to our system of justice, and installed the right to a jury trial as one of those protections in the Bill of Rights which is fully applicable as a restraint on state conduct.

But Duncan also contained language which indicates that the ruling is not necessarily controlling here. In a discussion of the proper standards for 'incorporation,' the Court indicated that a new standard had been operating in recent cases. No longer was the inquiry to focus on whether Some civilized system of justice could be constructed without utilization of a particular safeguard. Realizing that every state in the union operated under highly similar versions of the Anglo-American common law system, the Court declared that incorporation was appropriate whenever a particular procedure was fundamental to this kind of a legal system--'whether, that is, a procedure is necessary to an Anglo-American regime of ordered liberty.' ¹⁰ The Court then enumerated those protections in the Bill of Rights which had recently been made applicable to the states, and concluded that of each 'it might be said that the limitation in question is not necessarily fundamental to fairness in every criminal system that might be imagined but is fundamental in the context of the criminal processes maintained by the American States.' ¹¹ Referring specifically to the right to trial by jury, the Court stated that a 'criminal process which was fair and equitable but used no juries is easy to imagine. It would make use of alternative guarantees and protections which would serve the purposes that the jury serves in the English and American system.' ¹²

In addition to the above stated restriction on the absolution of Duncan, we must also consider the narrower portions of Gault's holdings, remembering that the Supreme Court specifically refused to apply the totality of the due process procedural safeguards to juvenile courts. Keeping these restrictions in mind, we can now determine whether the right to a trial by jury is 'fundamental' in the context of our juvenile courts, within the meaning of Duncan.

In seeking to answer this question, we must recognize that the due process procedural safeguards which Gault specifically made applicable to juvenile courts have already caused a significant 'constitutional domestication' of juvenile court proceedings. The right to adequate and timely notice, the right to counsel, the right of confrontation and cross-examination, and the privilege against self-incrimination serve to eliminate much of the danger of arbitrariness. Further, we are confident that juveniles also enjoy the right to have a transcript of the hearing, the right of appellate review, ¹³ and the right to be declared delinquent only upon evidence which demonstrates that the facts upon which the declaration is made are true beyond a reasonable doubt. ¹⁴ Together these rights insure that the juvenile court will operate in an atmosphere which is orderly enough to impress the juvenile with the gravity of the situation and the impartiality of the tribunal ¹⁵ and at the same time informal enough to permit the benefits of the juvenile system to operate.

The proper inquiry, then, is whether the right to a trial by jury is 'fundamental' within the meaning of Duncan, in the context of a juvenile court which operates with All of the above constitutional safeguards. Since the Supreme Court felt that the right was 'fundamental' in the context of the normal criminal process, which also operates with all of these safeguards, it is our view that the answer to our inquiry turns upon whether there are elements in the juvenile process which render the right to a trial by jury less essential to the protection of an accused's rights in the juvenile system than in the normal criminal process, and therefore not so 'fundamental' as to be constitutionally required.

We believe that such factors do inhere in the juvenile system. First, we believe that the judges in the juvenile courts do take a different view of their role than that taken by their counterparts in the criminal courts ¹⁶ We fully realize that this faith in the quality of the juvenile bench is not an entirely satisfactory substitute for due process, and we certainly do not rely heavily on this essentially subjective factor; but on the other hand we do not choose to ignore such considerations, and will not deprive them of all weight.

Second, the juvenile system has available and utilizes much more fully various diagnostic and rehabilitative services. And although the experts are not merely so numerous as one might hope, they still provide the juvenile courts with services specially designed to aid minors, which are far superior to those available in the regular criminal process. It is the opportunities for progress offered by this area which constitute the single best reason for preserving the juvenile...