Court Opinion

ID: 9481542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:22:17.618567+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:23.329572
License: Public Domain

PER CURIAM:
Edward Penn appeals the judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama denying his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for habeas corpus relief. He alleged that he was denied equal protection of the law because the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama, used convictions obtained under an unconstitutional juvenile statute to sentence him as an habitual felony offender to life in prison with no chance of parole. Even if the challenged code section was unconstitutional as contended by Penn, he would still have been tried as an adult in accordance with the general law of Alabama in force at that time. Therefore, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
Penn was sentenced to life in prison without parol in 1985 under the Alabama Habitual Felony Offender Act because he had committed three prior felony offenses.1 Two of the three convictions used to enhance his present sentence occurred when he was under eighteen years of age. These convictions were treated as adult convictions. Penn claims and the State of Alabama essentially concedes that a stat*840ute applicable only to residents of Jefferson County, concerning criminal prosecutions of juveniles denied him equal protection of the law because of his gender. Penn was sixteen in 1969 when he was tried and convicted as an adult for burglary, a felony. In 1970, he was seventeen when he was tried and convicted as an adult for grand larceny, also a felony. Both convictions were obtained in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County.
On September 10, 1985, Penn was found guilty of robbery in the first degree in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama. At the sentencing hearing the state introduced evidence that Penn had three prior felony convictions, which, under the terms of the Habitual Felony Offender Act, required mandatory imposition of a sentence of life in the penitentiary without parole.2 The three felony convictions used to enhance his sentence consisted of the burglary offense on June 5, 1969, the grand larceny conviction on February 18, 1970, and another conviction in 1983 for possession of a forged instrument. Penn was born on August 15, 1952.
Penn argues that Title 62 section 311 of the Code of Alabama (1940, Recompiled 1958) which dealt with the jurisdiction to try juvenile offenders only in Jefferson County, Alabama was unconstitutional as violative of the equal protection clause because it singled out males for different treatment than females. Under the terms of this statute males between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years of age were tried as adults in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, while young women under the age of eighteen years of age were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the juvenile court. As a result, he maintains, the two convictions are invalid and the state court should not have been able to use these convictions to enhance his current sentence.
Penn does not challenge the underlying criminal laws he was charged with violating in 1969 and 1970. Nor, is he attacking the validity of the Alabama Habitual Felony Offender Act. He is only concerned with the constitutionality of the jurisdictional language of the Jefferson County juvenile code and its effect on his convictions as an adult in 1969 and 1970.
The magistrate, after determining that the issue was properly before the court, agreed with Penn that the Jefferson County juvenile code violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. However, the magistrate then considered what would have happened if the law had been challenged in 1969 or 1970. He concluded that if Title 62, section 311, Code of Alabama (1940, Recompiled 1958) was struck down as violative of the equal protection clause, then Penn would have been tried as an adult under Title 13, sections 350 and 363, Code of Alabama (1940, Recompiled 1958) which applied to the entire state of Alabama except Jefferson County. Under this title all children under the age of sixteen were treated as juveniles. However, those youths between the ages of sixteen and eighteen were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of general jurisdiction unless the court exercised its discretion to transfer the case to juvenile court. Therefore, the magistrate was of the opinion that since Penn was sixteen or older in 1969 and 1970 he suffered no prejudice and that the convictions obtained in Jefferson County could be used to enhance his sentence under the Habitual Felony Offenders Act. The district court adopted the recommendations of the magistrate.
We agree with the district court and the state that Penn’s 1969 and 1970 convictions were properly used to enhance his sentence under Alabama’s Habitual Felony Offender Act. By simply holding that Title 62, section 311 deprived Penn of his right to equal protection of the law does not mean that those convictions as an adult were not valid and set aside for enhancement purposes. In these circumstances it makes little difference whether the jurisdiction to try Penn as a juvenile in Jefferson County was constitutional. If the jurisdictional language of the Jefferson County statute was unconstitutional, then the *841court is still faced with the question of the proper remedy available to the petitioner. In the past the Supreme Court has voided convictions imposed under habitual offender statutes because some of the convictions used for enhancement purposes were obtained when the defendant was not represented by counsel.3 These decisions focused on the validity of the trial itself. Because of these prior uncounseled convictions the Court ordered a new sentencing hearing for reconsideration of the defendant’s sentence in light of the prior invalid sentences. The Court reasoned that it would be impossible to speculate what sentence the trial court would impose if the court .was precluded from taking into consideration the invalid convictions. In other cases, where the underlying criminal law was declared unconstitutional, the conviction did not redress any legal wrong. “An unconstitutional law is void, and is as no law. An offense created by it is no crime. A conviction under it is not merely erroneous, but is illegal and void, and cannot be a legal cause of imprisonment.” Ex Parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371, 376-377, 25 L.Ed. 717 (1879). Neither of these scenarios fits the mold of the case before us. In situations more analogous to the facts here, if a law is held violative of the fourteenth amendment’s guarantee of equal protection, the remedy has been to either extend the privileges to the unprotected class or “declare it a nullity and order that its benefits not extend to the class that the legislature intended to benefit.” Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 361, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 1807-08, 26 L.Ed.2d 308, 331 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring) (citations omitted); see also California Federal Savings and Loan Assoc. v. Guerra, 479 U.S. 272, 107 S.Ct. 683, 93 L.Ed.2d 613 (1987). In this case if we held that the Jefferson County juvenile statute was unconstitutional for jurisdictional reasons, we would have to declare it a nullity because to extend its benefits to Penn would create a conflict with the state-wide statute and still violate equal protection. Likewise, to extend section 311 to all juveniles in the state would also violate equal protection. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the code section in question was violative of equal protection our conclusion would be the same. As a matter of law Penn would have been tried as an adult under sections 350 and 363 of Title 13. Also, under our analysis, it does not matter whether the jurisdictional language of the Jefferson County code was declared unconstitutional because Penn suffered no constitutional harm. Therefore, he has no standing to challenge the constitutionality of section 311. Clements v. Fashing, 457 U.S. 957, 102 S.Ct. 2836, 73 L.Ed.2d 508, reh’g. denied, 458 U.S. 1133, 103 S.Ct. 20, 73 L.Ed.2d 1404 (1982). The only difference between section 350 and section 311 is that under section 311 female delinquents between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years of age were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Jefferson County juvenile court system.
The jurisdictional language in Title 13, sections 350 and 363 make it clear that the legislature intended that the juvenile court have exclusive jurisdiction- over all delinquent children under the age of sixteen in all of Alabama except Jefferson county. Title 13, § 350 and § 363 Code of Alabama (1940, Recompiled 1958). The same is true for Title 62, section 311, the only difference being that, in addition, the juvenile court retained exclusive jurisdiction over females under the age of eighteen. Title 62, section 311 of the Code of Alabama (1940, Recompiled 1958), since repealed by the 1975 code of Alabama, reads in pertinent part:
‘delinquent child’ shall mean any male child who while under sixteen years of age, or any female child who while under eighteen years of age, being or residing in such county, violates any penal law of the United States or of this state, or any regulation, ordinance or law of any city, town, or municipality of such county; or who commits any offense or act for which he or she could be prosecuted in a method partaking of the na*842ture of a criminal action or proceeding; or who is beyond the control of his or her parent, parents, guardian or custodian, or who defies their authority, or who is otherwise incorrigible; or who is guilty of immoral conduct; or who is leading, or from any cause is in danger of leading an idle, dissolute, lewd or immoral life, or who is found in any place, for permitting which, an adult may be punished by law; or a male child between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years of age, who has been brought before any other court, charged with a crime, and which court has by proper order transferred said child to the said juvenile and domestic relations court to be dealt with under the terms of this subdivision.
Id. (Emphasis added).
As can be seen, the Jefferson County law also contained language, which gave the local criminal court jurisdiction over male delinquents between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years, unless the court in its discretion saw fit to transfer the case to juvenile court. The section of the code dealing with juveniles for the rest of the state defined a delinquent child as any child under sixteen years of age who violates any penal law.4 Section 350 does not address the question of jurisdiction over delinquents between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. That language is contained in section 363 of Title 13.
Title 13, section 363 entitled “Transferring jurisdiction; transfer to the juvenile court” states that any criminal court which has before it a “child between the ages of sixteen and eighteen,” has the discretion to “transfer such child ... to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court.” 5 Id. This is the same option available to the Jefferson County courts in transferring a male child, between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years of age, to the juvenile court. The jurisdictional section of section 311 allows a court of criminal jurisdiction to transfer:
[A] male child between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years of age, who has been brought before any other court, charged with a crime, and which court has by proper order transferred said child to the said juvenile and domestic relations court to be dealt with under the terms of this subdivision.
Title 62, § 311 Code of Alabama, (1940, Recompiled 1958).
The courts of general jurisdiction had exclusive jurisdiction over male juveniles between sixteen and eighteen in section 311 and all juveniles between those ages in section 363 unless the court exercised its discretion to transfer the case to juvenile *843court. As far as the exercise of that discretion is concerned, we can find no cases or statute that give any guidance that limits the judge’s discretion. If the benefits of the “under eighteen years of age” provisions of section 311 could not have been extended to include Penn as we have held, the only alternative was to try him under sections 350 and 363. It is obvious to us that the Jefferson County courts in 1969 and 1970 declined to exercise their discretion to transfer the cases to the juvenile court and proceeded to try him as an adult, the same result that would have been obtained if he had been tried under sections 350 and 363.
Therefore, despite the fact that certain portions of the jurisdictional language of the Jefferson County juvenile code may have been violative of the guarantee of equal protection, Penn suffered no constitutional harm. There existed a privilege to have his case transferred to the juvenile court. However, that option was only a privilege, there was no constitutional or statutory right for a youth between sixteen and eighteen years old to be tried as a juvenile. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is hereby
AFFIRMED.

. The pertinent portion of the Habitual Felony Offender Act provides:
(c) In all cases when it is shown that a criminal defendant has been previously convicted of any three felonies and after such convictions has committed another felony, he must be punished as follows:
es) On conviction of Class A felony, he must be punished by imprisonment for life without parole.
Ala.Code § 13A-5-9(c)(3) (1975).

. Robbery in the first degree is a Class A felony. See note 1, supra.

. See United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 447, 92 S.Ct. 589, 591, 30 L.Ed.2d 592, 596 (1972); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963).

. Title 13, § 350(3) Code of Alabama (1940, Recompiled 1958) in pertinent part reads:
The words ‘delinquent child’ shall mean any child who while under sixteen years of age violates any penal law of the United States or of this state, or any regulation, ordinance or law of any city, town or municipality, or who commits any offense or act for which an adult could be prosecuted in a method partaking of the nature of a criminal action or proceeding; or who is beyond the control of his parent, parents, guardian, or custodian, or who is otherwise incorrigible, or who is guilty of immoral conduct, or who is leading an idle, dissolute, lewd or immoral life; or who engages in any calling, occupation or exhibition punishable by law or is found in any place for permitting which an adult may be punished by law.

Id.

. Title 13, § 363 Code of Alabama (1940, Recompiled 1958) in pertinent part reads:
Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as forbidding the arrest, with or without warrant, of any child as is now or may hereafter be provided by law, or as forbidding the issuance of warrants by magistrates as provided by law. Whenever a child under sixteen years of age is brought before a magistrate of any court in the county other than the juvenile court, charged with any offense, such magistrate or court shall forthwith, by proper order, transfer the case to the juvenile court of the county. Any criminal court or any court exercising criminal jurisdiction in any county coming under the provisions of this chapter before which any child between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years is brought, charged with the commission of a crime, shall have the authority, if such court shall deem it to be in the interest of justice and of the public welfare, to in like manner transfer such child by proper order to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court of said county to be dealt with as a delinquent child under the terms of this chapter and when so transferred such child shall come under all terms and conditions of this chapter.

Id.