Case ID: utah_56/html/0287-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WEBER, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BEDFORD v. ANDERSON, Judge.
    No. 3473.
    Decided June 8, 1920.
    (190 Pac. 775.)
    INFANTS — -JUDGMENT COMMITTING MINOR TO INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL,. ON Erroneous Finding that Mother was Unfit to Have Custody, Reversed. — Where court found that a minor was guilty of acts charged, and was a delinquent, and also that minor’s mother was unfit to have custody, and committed the minor to the State Industrial School, and it appears on appeal that the finding of unfitness of the mother was not sustained by the evidence, the judgment will he reversed, and the minor ordered released from the State Industrial School, and restored to the legal custody and control of the juvenile court, hut in the actual custody of the mother, there to remain unless the court, on due notice and on competent and sufficient evidence, determines that she is unfit.
    Appeal from Juvenile Court, Third District, Salt Lake County; Hugo V. Anderson, Judge.
    Ernest Brown was found guilty of delinquency and com •mitted to the State Industrial School by Hugo V. Anderson, 
      as Judge of tbe Juvenile Court of Salt Lake County, and the mother of the delinquent, Mrs. Lola Hobson Bedford, appeals.
    JuDGMENT REVERSED IN PART.
    
      G. E. Norton, of Salt Lake City, for appellant.
    
      Dcm B. Shields, Atty. Gen., O. G. Dolby, James H. Wolfe, H. Van Dam, Jr., and D. M. Draper, Asst. Attys. Gen., for respondent.
   WEBER, J.

The juvenile court of Salt Lake county found Ernest' Brown, a minor thirteen years of age, to be guilty of delinquency, and committed him to the State Industrial School. His mother, Mrs. Lola Hobson Bedford, has appealed, and assigns as error that the finding of the court that the minor was guilty of the acts charged was not supported by evidence.

It would serve no useful purpose to review the evidence. It is sufficient to state that the evidence amply justified the court’s conclusion as to the boy’s guilt. The court also found the mother to be unfit to have the custody of her son. We agree with appellant’s counsel that the second finding is not justified by the evidence. In fact, the record is wholly devoid of any competent evidence to sustain this finding.

It is therefore ordered and adjudged that the part of the judgment of the juvenile court, by which the said minor is committed to the State Industrial School be reversed; that said minor be forthwith released from the State Industrial School, and restored to the legal custody and control of the juvenile court of Salt Lake county, but in the actual custody of his mother, and that he remain in his mother’s custody, unless the court, upon due notice, and upon competent and sufficient evidence, determines that she is an unfit person to have the custody of said minor.

CORFMAN, C. J., and FRICK, GIDEON, and THURMAN, JJ., concur.