Opinion ID: 1353320
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Lawfulness of the Criteria Underlying the Youth Authority's Rejection of Petitioner and the Juvenile Court's Transfer Order

Text: (3) Petitioner contends that the Youth Authority without considering the facts of his case rejected him solely on the basis of its mechanical application of the Youth Authority Board's policy requiring two years' institutionalization of all minors committed for violent offenses such as murder. Moreover, he urges, the juvenile court's later determination that he would not be amenable to the treatment available through the facilities of that court rests on its automatic acceptance of that arbitrary criterion. We adhere to and reemphasize the concept basic to our Juvenile Court Law that each minor must be considered as an individual, but we reject petitioner's contention that he did not receive individualized consideration. Nothing could be further from the spirit of the [juvenile court] law than the absorption of the individual into a stereotype. ( In re William M. (1970) 3 Cal.3d 16, 31 [89 Cal. Rptr. 33, 473 P.2d 737].) Thus in In re William M. we denounced a detention order based on a judge's mechanically applied policy of detaining all juveniles who were accused of the sale of marijuana. In Jimmy H. v. Superior Court, supra, 3 Cal.3d 709, 715, we held that when the possible need of treatment beyond the age of majority is the determinative factor in a juvenile court's decision to transfer a minor as unfit for treatment as a juvenile, the transfer order must be supported by substantial evidence that successful treatment of the particular minor may require the extra time. Recognizing the need for individualized consideration the Legislature has specifically forbidden the juvenile court to base a finding of unfitness on the offense, in itself, or on the juvenile's denial ... of any or all of the facts or conclusions set forth [in a section 602 petition] ... or of any inference to be drawn therefrom. (§ 707.) The Juvenile Court Law's premise of particularized treatment of each juvenile would be set at naught if the Youth Authority could reject juvenile court commitments on the basis of mechanical, categorized policies. The Legislature's description of the authority's discretion to accept or reject a person committed by the juvenile court is broad and general. It shall accept such a person if it believes that the person can be materially benefited by its reformatory and educational discipline, and if it has adequate facilities to provide such care. (§ 736.) It may return such a person to the committing court if he appears to be an improper person to be received in its facilities or so incorrigible or so incapable of reformation ... as to render his retention detrimental to the interests of the Youth Authority. (§ 780.) Guided by the foregoing broad but constitutionally sufficient standards (cf. In re Herrera (1943) 23 Cal.2d 206, 211 [143 P.2d 345]), the Director of the Department of the Youth Authority and the Youth Authority Board formulate policies as to the exercise of their powers and duties. (§ 1711.3.) The director's power to accept or reject cases submitted by the courts for commitment to the authority is delegated to the case services supervisor. (See Youth Authority Board Policy Manual (as revised Nov. 1, 1971) §§ 02, 10; Criteria and Procedure for Referral of Juvenile Court Cases (June 1971) p. 4.) As we have indicated the supervisor in his letter to and testimony before the juvenile court in petitioner's case explained that among the criteria adopted by the board is the policy that youths committed for violent homicides shall be institutionalized for at least two years. From the supervisor's letter and testimony, however, it does not appear that the authority's rejection of petitioner rested on a mechanical application of this policy without regard to petitioner's individualized history. On the contrary, the supervisor and his staff reviewed all the records of that history as well as the records of the circumstances of the crime. Among the factors which they considered aside from the circumstances of the crime itself were petitioner's history of glue-sniffing and use of alcohol and the lack of home environment where he could find acceptable support. These and various other matters were sufficient to support the supervisor's conclusion that in petitioner's particular case, implementation of the two-year-institutionalization policy would afford the authority insufficient time within which to train, treat and otherwise rehabilitate petitioner on parole before his mandatory discharge date. (See § 1700.) Thus neither the authority in its determination to reject petitioner nor the court in its ultimate determination to transfer him for adult prosecution applied a mechanical approach to the exclusion of petitioner's individual history, characteristics, and circumstances. No sufficient reason appears to challenge either determination on its merits.