Court Opinion

ID: 9716295
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:33:24.54391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:43.455274
License: Public Domain

DUFRESNE, Chief Justice
(separately concurring).
I agree with Mr. Justice Pomeroy’s opinion in reasoning and result. However, since the case of S**** S**** v. State, 1973, Me., 299 A.2d 560, has been cited for the proposition that “due process does not require that a finding of delinquency necessarily requires that the juvenile be found to have committed acts which, if committed by an adult would be criminal”, I must renew the message conveyed by my dissent in that case. I do agree that certain juvenile conduct under 15 M.R.S.A., § 2552, such as “habitual truancy” and “repeatedly deserting one’s home without just cause”, conduct not criminal in terms of adult behavior, may be the basis of a juvenile offense without any infringement of constitutional due process. The reason for this is that habitual truancy is specifically defined in the statute (see, 15 M.R.S.A. § 2502(2) and the statutory provision — repeatedly deserting one’s home without just cause — is a concept of sufficient clarity that it provides adequate information to juveniles as to the statutorily prohibited conduct and affords a reasonable degree of guidance to the enforcement authorities and the courts to permit equal dispensation of justice to the poor as well as to the rich, to the less fortunate as to the well oriented, to the troublesome as to the most docile juveniles. However, I still maintain that constitutional due process requires, to support a finding of delinquency for juvenile conduct which in adults would not be criminal, except as mentioned above, that the statute prohibiting the juvenile conduct must define the juvenile offense in terms of sufficient specificity as to furnish necessary intelligible standards to guide the child, his parents, the police and the courts. Statutory vagueness in legislation regulating juvenile conduct under penalty of State wardship, removal from parental control and loss of home, is equally abhorrent to the juvenile under considerations of fair play, if not more so, as the failure of the State to provide counsel for indigents in neglect proceedings may be to the parents of the juvenile.
I equate the natural right of a parent to have custody of his children as against the State to the natural right of a child not to be removed from his parents for juvenile misconduct, and consider both to be of *802constitution dimension, neither of which should be abridged except within the strictures of procedural due process.
With this explanation, I concur in the Court’s opinion.