United States v. King

• Decision Date: 29 June 1973
• Docket Number: No. 72-2222.,72-2222.
• Citation: 482 F.2d 454
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph Wayne KING, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

482 F.2d 454 (1973)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph Wayne KING, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 72-2222.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued April 10, 1973.

Decided June 29, 1973.

Certiorari Denied December 3, 1973.

A. Duane Schwartz, Asst. U. S. Atty., for defendant-appellant; George J. Long, U. S. Atty., Louisville, Ky., on brief.

Stuart L. Lyon, Louisville, Ky., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before PECK, McCREE and MILLER, Circuit Judges.

Certiorari Denied December 3, 1973. See 94 S.Ct. 594.

WILLIAM E. MILLER, Circuit Judge.

Defendant was charged with violations of various federal statutes, inter alia 18 U.S.C. §§ 842(h), 844(a), 844(f) and 844(i), arising from an incident in Louisville, Kentucky when a high school was damaged by the use of stolen explosives. At the time of the alleged offense the defendant was 17 years of age, and he consented to be tried as a juvenile delinquent under the provisions of the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 5031-5037. After a trial before the district court without a jury, the court found the defendant to be a juvenile delinquent and committed him for the duration of his minority under the Act, 18 U.S.C. § 5034.¹ In the court below the defendant challenged the constitutionality of the Act upon the ground that it required him as a condition to being tried under the Act rather than as an adult offender to waive any right to be tried by a jury. Although he consented to be tried under the Act, he effectively preserved (at least we so assume since it is not questioned by the appellee) the right to raise the constitutional issue on appeal. We are urged to hold that the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act is unconstitutional insofar as it requires a juvenile to waive a jury trial as a condition to receiving the benefits of the Act.

This contention is supported, as far as we have been able to discover, only by the ruling of a 3-judge district court in Nieves v. United States, 280 F. Supp. 994 (S.D.N.Y.1968). It was held in that case that a juvenile charged with violating statutes regulating marijuana who sought to gain the privileges granted by the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act but was thereby required to waive a trial by jury was faced with an impermissible choice. The waiver was thus found to be invalid. The ruling in Nieves was predicated upon the sixth amendment inasmuch as the court equated a proceeding under the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act with a criminal prosecution. However, as pointed out by the district court in the present case, Nieves was decided before the decision of the Supreme Court in McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 91 S.Ct. 1976, 29 L.Ed.2d 647 (1971). In that case the Court sustained the constitutionality of the Juvenile Delinquency statute of Pennsylvania which was challenged on the ground that it dispensed with jury trials in proceedings under the Act. It is true that McKeiver directly dealt only with the question in terms of the impact of the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment upon the states, but an examination of the principal opinion, as well as the concurring opinions, indicates that the Court regarded the juvenile delinquency law under consideration, which was not significantly different from the federal statute, as not being of a criminal nature so as to invoke all of the protections required in a criminal prosecution. On the contrary, the Court regarded juvenile delinquency proceedings to be of a distinctive character not requiring all of the formalities of the criminal adjudicative process. The Court specifically recognized its prior rulings requiring certain specific safeguards for the defendant in state juvenile delinquency proceedings, including Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 68 S.Ct. 302, 92 L.Ed. 224 (1948), (dealing with admissibility of a confession taken from a 15-year old boy on trial for first degree murder); Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 86 S.Ct. 1045, 16 L.Ed.2d 84 (1966), (involving the question of waiver of jurisdiction by a juvenile court after a full investigation as permitted by the applicable statute); In Re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967), (holding that due process required in state delinquency proceedings, adequate notice, the right to counsel, the right of confrontation and the right of cross-examination); and In Re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970), (holding that the due process clause requires in state delinquency proceedings proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which the delinquent is charged). Nevertheless, the Court made clear that these rulings dealt with selective aspects of the due process clause and were not determinative of the right to trial by jury in juvenile delinquency proceedings. We think it is clear from the result reached in McKeiver and the rationale of the various opinions in that case that the Supreme Court would apply the same principles to the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act and hold that its requirement for waiver of jury trial is not prohibited by any provision of the Bill of Rights, including the sixth amendment.²

This conclusion is fortified by the character of the Federal Act which was enacted as far back as 1948. A "juvenile" is defined under the Act as any person who has not attained his eighteenth birthday; and "juvenile delinquency" is defined as the violation of a law of the United States committed by a juvenile and not punishable by death or life imprisonment. 18 U.S.C. § 5031. Unless the Attorney General in his discretion has expressly determined otherwise, a juvenile alleged to have committed one or more acts in violation of a federal law not punishable by death or life imprisonment shall be proceeded against as juvenile delinquent "if he consents to such procedure." In that event he shall be proceeded against by information and no...