Title: State v. Jackson
Citation: 503 S.W.2d 185
Docket Number: N/A
State: Tennessee
Issuer: Tennessee Supreme Court
Date: November 5, 1973

503 S.W.2d 185 (1973) STATE of Tennessee v. Frank JACKSON and Thomas Avery. Supreme Court of Tennessee. November 5, 1973. David M. Pack, Atty. Gen., William C. Koch, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, for appellant. Maynard E. Pirsig, Minneapolis, Minn., for amicus curiae. Barney J. Reeves, Kingsport, Russell J. Overby and Walter C. Kurtz, Nashville, for appellees. Wendy W. Schiller, St. Louis, Mo., for amicus curiae. McCANLESS, Justice. Since this is a civil case in which the sole determinative question is the constitutionality of a statute, the appeal from the Circuit Court is to the Supreme Court. Section 16-408, T.C.A. The challenge is to that part of Section 37-258, T.C.A., which allows an appeal by the State or subdivision of the State from a juvenile court's disposition of a child. The Section challenged is part of the juvenile courts statute enacted as Chapter 600 of the Public Acts of 1970, and now codified as Sections 37-201 to 37-259, T.C.A., inclusive. The pertinent part of the Section is: *186 The facts are that two juveniles, Frank Jackson and Thomas Avery, were charged with an assault with the intent to commit robbery and with being delinquent. An affidavit shows the age of one of the boys to be fifteen; that of the other does not appear in the record. The juvenile court, after hearing the evidence and testimony, found the defendants to be not guilty. The State appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court which adjudged that: The State perfected its appeal to the Supreme Court, and assigned the single error that: The applicable section of the Constitution of Tennessee, Article I, Section 10, provides: The comparable section of the Constitution of the United States is this part of the Fifth Amendment: The double jeopardy provision of the Fifth Amendment is binding on the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707 [1969]. The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads: Among the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution of Tennessee is the following part of Article I, Section 17, which appears in almost identical words in the State's first Constitution that of 1796: In an opinion of the United States District Court of the District of Columbia in the case of United States of America v. Dickerson, 168 F. Supp. 899 [1958], the court said: Before the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1967 in the case styled Re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S. Ct. 1428, 18 L. Ed. 2d 527, in proceedings in juvenile courts, juveniles were not afforded all the constitutional rights and safeguards to which adult defendants were entitled in criminal proceedings. This was on the principle that juvenile proceedings were civil in nature, having as their purpose reformation and rehabilitation rather than punishment. This view was expressed by our Court in Childress v. State, 133 Tenn. 121, 179 S.W. 643 [1915], and in Juvenile Court of Shelby County v. State ex rel., 139 Tenn. 549, 201 S.W. 771 [1918]. The Court many times has cited these opinions with approval and without question it has been the purpose of the juvenile statutes, both before and since the enactment of the 1970 Act, to reform and to rehabilitate rather than to punish. Within recent years, however, there has been a change in the holdings of the courts in cases involving juveniles charged with and tried for the commission of delinquent acts. The Dickerson case has been relied on in a number of opinions of appellate courts as authority for holding that jeopardy attaches in juvenile proceedings that can result in the deprivation of the child's liberty. Sawyer v. Hauck, 245 F. Supp. 55 [D.C.Tex., 1965]; Garza v. State, 369 S.W.2d 36 [Tex.Cr.App., 1963]; and Anonymous v. Superior Court of Pima, 10 Ariz. App. 243, 457 P.2d 956 [1969]. But the influence of Re Gault has been such that the courts have come to apply its reasoning in juvenile cases with respect to the several constitutional safeguards enjoyed by adult defendants to criminal prosecutions. It is determinative of this appeal. In the Gault case the court held that a boy, age fifteen years, who as a delinquent had been committed to confinement in a state institution during the rest of his minority had been entitled (1) to timely written notice to him and to his parents of the charges against him, (2) to notification of his right to counsel, (3) of the application to him of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, and (4) to the determination of delinquency, in the absence of a confession, by sworn testimony subject to cross examination. The court in the opinion by Mr. Justice Fortas said: The question for our consideration in this case is whether the juveniles were in jeopardy within the meaning of the State and Federal Constitutions during the hearing in the juvenile court that resulted in the dismissal of the proceedings and whether the hearing on appeal to the Circuit *188 Court which the State now seeks would result in their being twice placed in jeopardy. In order to decide this question we must first consider what might have been the result of a decision of the juvenile court adverse to the juveniles and what might be the result of a hearing de novo in the Circuit Court. Under Section 37-231, T.C.A., a child found to be delinquent may be placed in an institution, camp, or other facility for delinquent children, or committed to the State Department of Correction and assessed a fine not to exceed $50.00 for each offense which constitutes a violation of a state law or municipal ordinance. The law clearly provides, therefore, that the juvenile court might have pronounced a judgment that would have deprived these juveniles of their liberty. The State relies on the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 91 S. Ct. 1976, 29 L. Ed. 2d 647 [1971], holding that in the two cases which the court then decided, it was not required that juveniles be allowed trials by jury. Our Court of Appeals in 1970, however, decided in the case of Arwood v. State, 62 Tenn. App. 453, 463 S.W.2d 943, that juveniles charged with acts which, if committed by adults, would be felonies, are entitled to demand and be awarded trials by jury. The court relied on Re Gault, supra, and In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S. Ct. 1068, 25 L. Ed. 2d 368 [1970], and other authorities. We hold that a juvenile who is tried for an act which, if committed by an adult, would constitute a crime, and by a court which has jurisdiction in that trial to deprive him of his liberty, in such trial undergoes jeopardy. Any subsequent trial of the juvenile on the same charge would cause him to be twice put in jeopardy in violation of the rights guaranteed him by the State and by the Federal Constitutions. We therefore hold Section 37-258, T.C.A., to be unconstitutional to the extent that it allows an appeal and a trial de novo in the Circuit Court in a case in which the juvenile has been acquitted of delinquency by the juvenile court. Such a trial would subject the juvenile to double jeopardy in violation of his rights under Article I, Section 10, of the Constitution of Tennessee and under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Further it would deprive him of his rights guaranteed by Article I, Section 17, of the Constitution of Tennessee and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We affirm the judgment of the Circuit Court dismissing the case. DYER, C.J., and CHATTIN and FONES, JJ., and LEECH, Special Justice, concur.