United States v. Bland, Crim. No. 697-71.

• Decision Date: 28 July 1971
• Docket Number: Crim. No. 697-71.
• Citation: 330 F. Supp. 34
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. Jerome T. BLAND.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

330 F. Supp. 34

UNITED STATES v. Jerome T. BLAND.

Crim. No. 697-71.

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

July 28, 1971.

James E. Sharp, Gregory C. Brady, Asst. U. S. Attys., Donald S. Smith and Thomas A. Flannery, Washington, D. C., for the United States.

Peter R. Kolker, Washington, D. C., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

AUBREY E. ROBINSON, Jr., District Judge.

The defendant, Jerome T. Bland, is charged with armed robbery of a post office and related offenses, alleged to have occurred on February 8, 1971, at a time when he was sixteen years old. Defense counsel has moved to dismiss the indictment in this case for lack of jurisdiction over this sixteen-year-old defendant contending that the statutory basis for charging this defendant as an adult, D.C.Code § 16-2301(3) (A) (Supp. IV, 1971), fails to afford the defendant due process of law as required by the Constitution. The Government responds that the decision to prosecute this defendant is within the unreviewable discretion of the prosecutor.

The specific statute setting up the Family Division of the new Superior Court provides:

§ 16-2301. DEFINITIONS

As used in this subchapter —

* * * * * *

(3) The term "child" means an individual who is under 18 years of age, except that the term "child" does not include an individual who is sixteen years of age or older and —

(A) charged by the United States attorney with (i) murder, forcible rape, burglary in the first degree, robbery while armed, or assault with intent to commit any such offense, or (ii) an offense listed in clause (i) and any other offense properly joinable with such an offense.

It is effective as of February 1, 1971, as part of the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970, Pub.L. No. 91-358, 84 Stat. 473.

Had this sixteen-year-old been arrested for this offense prior to February 1, 1971, he would have received the full panoply of protections of the District of Columbia Juvenile Court system, and that system could have waived jurisdiction resulting in his trial as an adult only after a hearing with effective assistance of counsel and a statement of reasons specific enough to permit this Court to review the decision to waive jurisdiction. See Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 86 S.Ct. 1045, 16 L.Ed.2d 84 (1966).

This new statute now permits the United States Attorney to make the decision as to whether or not certain sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds will be tried as adults in criminal court or treated as children in the Family Division of the new Superior Court, unfettered by the requirements of a "full investigation," a waiver hearing and statement of reasons, consistent with due process.

By its ruling today, this Court is not trespassing on the prosecutorial discretion of the United States Attorney as to whether or how Jerome T. Bland should be charged nor is it expressing any opinion as to the merits of whether Jerome T. Bland should be tried as an adult or treated as a child by the Family Division. This Court is ruling on the validity of an Act of Congress, which Act purports to lower the jurisdictional age limit for juvenile treatment of those arrested for certain serious crimes but in actuality streamlines the juvenile system at the expense of the individual's right to due process safeguards by placing unlimited discretion in the hands of the United States Attorney on a matter of "critical importance." Kent, supra at 556, 86 S. Ct. 1045.

Congress, faced with statistics¹ indicating that the existing Juvenile Court system was not working well, took on the task of reorganizing that system. Two of the problems of the then existing system that Congress intended to remedy with the provision challenged here were that the Juvenile Court was overburdened with too many juveniles in difficulty with the law and there were too many sophisticated sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds who were still being treated as juveniles, thereby wasting the efforts of the Juvenile Court because they were beyond juvenile rehabilitation and were influencing those children in the Juvenile Court that might still be helped if removed from that influence.

Upon consideration of these problems and those statistics indicating greater incidence of serious crimes committed by juveniles aged sixteen to eighteen, the Senate District Committee rejected the simple reaction of lowering to sixteen the jurisdictional age limit for the proposed Family Division.² That Committee also rejected the proposal of the Justice Department but that proposal, with only a change in the specified offenses, ultimately became the law. The Justice Department Staff Memorandum recommended against the eighteen year old age limit set out in the Uniform Juvenile Court Act³ and the HEW Guide,⁴ two documents upon which most of the Family Division legislation was based. The Justice Department position was that:

neither the Uniform Act, HEW Guide or State law is a wholly valid precedent for the District of Columbia. Of all the jurisdictions to which these precedents might apply only the District is a wholly urban jurisdiction where all the youths involved may be considered against an urban background. Consequently, this definition of child was drafted, not with reference to other laws, but with specific reference to the problems of the District as seen in its Juvenile Court.

The jurisdictional age for all juveniles was not lowered to 16 because there are still first offenders charged with minor offenses who may benefit from juvenile treatment up to the age of 18, and treating them as adults may be harsh and unnecessary. At the same time, experience has shown that in certain crime categories, juvenile treatment is unworkable. Accordingly, the jurisdictional age has been lowered with respect to these crimes.⁵

The Senate District Committee, however, "did not take so dim a view of juveniles in the sixteen- to eighteen-year-old group generally as to presume sophistication in every case involving serious misconduct. * * *"⁶ It therefore proposed its amendment that excepted from the jurisdictional definition of "child" not just the juvenile involved in one of the enumerated grave offenses, but, in addition, before such a young person could be excluded from the Family Division it would have to be ascertained that such person had "previously had the benefit of special juvenile disposition after being charged with serious misconduct committed after attaining the age of 15."⁷

The House District Committee reported its bill this way:

Because of the great increase in the number of serious felonies committed by juveniles and because of the substantial difficulties in transferring juvenile offenders charged with serious felonies to the jurisdiction of the adult court under present law, those "difficulties" being the requirement set by the Supreme Court that a hearing on this "critically important" action determining important statutory rights of the juvenile, must measure up to the essentials of due process and fair treatment, Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 556, 562 86 S.Ct. 1045, 16 L.Ed.2d 84 (1966) provisions are made in this subchapter for a better mechanism for separation of a violent youthful offender and recidivist from the rest of the juvenile community.

Present law provides that a child age 16 and older who is charged with a felony may be transferred to adult court. Under the definitions in this bill, a person, 16 years of age or older, who is charged by the United States Attorney with an enumerated violent crime is automatically subject to the jurisdiction of the adult court. However, if the United States Attorney declines to prosecute for the felony, the arresting officer will take such action as necessary to place the case within the jurisdiction of the Family Division. The case may not thereafter be transferred to the Criminal Division for adult treatment.

The pending bill, in providing for transfer for criminal prosecution (16-2307), sets the age at which a child charged with a felony may be transferred from the Family Division to the Criminal Division at age 15 rather than at age 16 under present law. But the procedural safeguards in the proposed bill are such as to insure that those children who can be rehabilitated in the facilities available for care and treatment of child offenders will not be transferred to the Criminal Division for prosecution. Emphasis added.⁸

The above leaves no doubt that the House of Representatives intended to remove from the reorganized juvenile system those who were beyond the help of juvenile treatment, but generally with procedural safeguards to insure the validity of such a determination.⁹ Succumbing to the pressures generated by the growing crime wave, however, it proposed a short-cut method for removing those young people arrested for certain serious crimes.

Making the assumption that one who commits one of the enumerated serious offenses has attained that degree of sophistication that would prevent effective juvenile correctional treatment, the House of Representatives (and eventually the entire Congress) then made an assumption contrary to the basic presumption of innocence in our system of jurisprudence.¹⁰ They presumed that anyone arrested for a crime has committed that crime and, because of the seriousness of the crime charged, is therefore a matured criminal. The dissenters from the House District Committee's report, Congressmen Diggs, Fraser and Adams, had clearly enunciated this infirmity: "The charge, as determined by the prosecutor alone, will determine his treatment as an adult, a clear repudiation of the presumption of innocence principle."¹¹

The legislative history of the Act demonstrates that Congress wanted to create a streamlined parens patriae system for juveniles in the District of Columbia with a means for eliminating those who were beyond its help. The Senate wanted at least the slight additional standard of prior juvenile disposition. The...