Victor B., In re

• Decision Date: 01 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 159,159
• Citation: 336 Md. 85,646 A.2d 1012
• Parties: In re VICTOR B. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 85

336 Md. 85

646 A.2d 1012

In re VICTOR B.

No. 159, Sept. Term, 1993.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Aug. 29, 1994.

Margaret L. Lanier, Asst. Public Defender, argued (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender and Edwin H. Convey, Asst Public Defender, both on brief) and Geraldine K. Sweeney, Asst. Public Defender, argued, Baltimore, for appellant.

Mary Ann Ince, Asst. Atty. Gen., argued and on brief (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, CHASANOW, KARWACKI, BELL and RAKER, JJ.

RAKER, Judge.

The issue in this case is whether the criminal rules of procedure under Title 4 of the Maryland Rules apply to an adjudicatory proceeding in a juvenile cause. A Master in the Division for Juvenile Causes of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City ruled that the appellant's failure to file a pre-hearing motion to suppress evidence as required by Maryland Rule 4-252 constituted a waiver of the issue. We hold that juvenile delinquency proceedings are governed exclusively by Chapter 900 of the Maryland Rules of Procedure.

I.

On May 6, 1993, a Master in the Division for Juvenile Causes of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City held an adjudicatory hearing on a delinquency petition filed by the State against the appellant, Victor B., alleging one count of possession of cocaine with intent to manufacture and distribute and one count of possession of cocaine in violation of Maryland Code (1957, 1992 Repl.Vol.) Art. 27, §§ 286 & 287. Although the appellant objected to the testimony pertaining to the controlled dangerous substance, the Master would not consider the objection because appellant had not filed a motion to suppress the evidence before the hearing.

According to Officer Hensley, on September 16, 1992, he and another officer observed the appellant walking on the street in Baltimore City. They saw him place a brown paper bag between the steps and a trash can. While the other officer detained the appellant, Officer Hensley retrieved the brown paper bag which contained controlled dangerous substances.

At the appellant's adjudicatory hearing, when Officer Hensley began to describe the contents of the brown paper bag, appellant objected on the grounds that the bag belonged to him and that he had not abandoned it. The Master initially overruled the appellant's objection because "[t]here's been no notice of [a] suppression motion." The Master, never reaching the merits of the suppression issue, stated: "I don't think that the evidence is clear whether this, in fact, has been abandoned or not." Following argument on the issue, the Master concluded that the general rules of the circuit court apply to juvenile proceedings when the Chapter 900 rules have no applicable or comparable provision. Thus, because no preliminary motion to suppress had been filed by the appellant as required in a circuit court criminal case by Rule 4-252, the Master ruled that the issue was waived and declined to consider the motion.

Following the Master's ruling, the adjudicatory hearing resumed and Officer Hensley testified that the paper bag contained twenty-four ziplock bags of a substance later analyzed to be cocaine. The court resolved the issues of chain of custody, accuracy of the laboratory analysis, Officer Hensley's expertise in the field of narcotic investigation, identification, packaging, distribution and street level sale of narcotics in Baltimore City by stipulation between the parties.

The Master found the evidence sufficient to sustain the charge of possession with intent to manufacture and distribute controlled dangerous substances. After a dispositional hearing, the Master filed his recommendations with the circuit court that the appellant be found delinquent and be placed on indefinite probation with a special condition that he be required to actively seek employment.

The appellant filed a timely exception in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City asserting that the admissible evidence was insufficient to support the finding that he had committed a delinquent act. At the hearing before the circuit court, counsel for the appellant objected to the application of Title 4 to proceedings in the juvenile division. The circuit court, overruling the appellant's exception, agreed with the Master that the rules in Title 4 apply to juvenile proceedings when the juvenile rules of Chapter 900 are silent:

Nothing is contained in Rule 900 or the Court's Article with respect to how matters, such as motions to suppress, are to be handled. Both the 900 Rules and the Court's Article have very specific provisions in certain areas, and then there are these gaps. And it would seem to me logically, in order to fill in the gaps, if it's not specifically mentioned, Rule 1-101, by not excluding juvenile causes, seems to suggest that Title 4 does apply unless there is something to the contrary.

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[E]ven though this is the Division of Juvenile Causes, it is the Circuit Court. I am a Circuit Court Judge. This is the Circuit Court. I'm assigned to this division and, therefore, this rule applies to my Court, just like it would if I were sitting in the adult felony rotation.

Dissatisfied with this ruling, the appellant appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. Prior to review by the intermediate appellate court, we granted certiorari on our own motion.

The appellant argues that Chapter 900 of the Maryland Rules of Procedure contain the exclusive rules governing juvenile proceedings. More particularly, he asserts there is nothing within these rules requiring him to file a pre-adjudicatory motion to suppress. The essence of his argument is that because juvenile proceedings are civil in nature, the criminal rules of Title 4 do not apply to juvenile proceedings. The appellant concludes that the juvenile court erroneously ruled that he was required to raise his motion to suppress prior to the adjudicatory hearing.

The State argues that because the juvenile rules do not deal with motions to suppress in juvenile proceedings, the juvenile court could look only to Title 4 for guidance. It follows, the State contends, that the rules in Title 4 are applicable to juvenile proceedings when there is no guidance within the juvenile rules themselves. The State alternatively suggests that even if the Master and circuit court erred, the proper remedy would be to remand this case to adjudicate the merits of the appellant's motion rather than to reverse the adjudication of delinquency.

II.

The proper resolution of this case requires us to consider the pertinent procedural rules in light of the history and underlying policies of the juvenile court. As the following discussion will show, the criminal rules under Title 4 of the Maryland Rules do not apply to juvenile proceedings, and thus a pre-adjudicatory motion is not required to preserve an objection to the admissibility of evidence at an adjudicatory hearing.

A.

Prior to the beginning of the twentieth century, under the common law view prevalent throughout the country, children above the age of seven were tried as adults. In re Johnson, 254 Md. 517, 521, 255 A.2d 419, 421 (1969), appeal dismissed, 403 U.S. 926, 91 S.Ct. 2257, 29 L.Ed.2d 706 (1971). They were afforded the same legal protections and received the same punishments as adult criminal offenders. Id. In the early part of this century, however, " 'a tidal wave of reform, put in motion by such persons as Judge Julian Mack and the leaders of the Jane Addams School, resulted in a national outcry against the resulting barbarism, as it appeared to them to be, of treating children and juveniles the same as adults.' " Id. at 521-22, 255 A.2d at 421 (quoting Fortas, Equal Rights--For Whom? 42 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 401, 405-06 (1967)).

Influenced by this national outcry, jurisdictions throughout the country began creating separate systems of courts that followed their own sets of principles for juvenile offenders. Id. at 522, 255 A.2d at 421. Under an extension of the doctrine of parens patriae, these separate systems viewed juvenile offenders to be in need of protection and rehabilitation rather than punishment. Id. at 522, 255 A.2d at 422. In contrast to the adversarial nature of the adult system, in these systems, criminal charges were not brought against juvenile offenders. Moreover, juvenile proceedings were informal and flexible in nature, psychiatric and psychological assistance was sought, the rules of evidence were relaxed, and many proceedings were not open to the public. Id. at 522, 255 A.2d at 422.

In line with this trend, a separate system for juvenile offenders, civil in nature, evolved in Maryland. Id. at 522-23, 255 A.2d at 422. Today, this system is governed by the Juvenile Causes Act, Maryland Code (1974, 1989 Repl.Vol., 1993 Cum.Supp.), §§ 3-801 to -837 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article.

Although juvenile proceedings are not criminal in nature, the Supreme Court has held that many of the constitutional safeguards afforded criminal defendants are applicable to juveniles. ¹ This was aptly noted by Judge Moylan in In re Devon T., 85 Md.App. 674, 584 A.2d 1287 (1991):

Under the initially prevailing philosophy that the State was acting in delinquency cases as parens patriae (sovereign parent of the country), the State was perceived to be not the retributive punisher of the child for its misdeeds but the paternalistic guardian of the child for its own best interests. Under such a regime, the moral responsibility or blameworthiness of the child was of no consequence. Morally responsible or not, the child was in apparent need of the State's rehabilitative intervention and the delinquency adjudication was but the avenue for such intervention.

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Over the course of the century, however, buffeted by unanticipated urban deterioration and staggering case loads, the reforming vision of Judge Julian Mack and the other founders of the movement faded....