Court Opinion

ID: 9566547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:40:45.690193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:26.250077
License: Public Domain

BROUSSARD, J.
I dissent. The Legislature has made it clear that juvenile status offenders are not to be incarcerated. The majority hold that the status offender who disobeys a court order to attend school can be *301incarcerated, despite the fact that there is no statutory language, case law, or evidence of legislative intent to support such a conclusion. The majority ignore the Legislature’s considered judgment that the harm which incarceration causes a status offender is too great to be permitted, even when the status offender fails to obey court orders. Instead the majority exalt the dignity of the court issuing the order over the best interest of the minor. Neither logic nor compassion can countenance such a result.
Welfare and Institutions Code section 6011 provides for wardship proceedings for minors who are beyond the control of their parents or guardians, or who are truant. Minors declared wards of the court under this section are called status offenders, in contrast with minors made wards of the court and incarcerated under section 602 for violation of state or federal law. “A status offender might be defined as one whose only offense against society is doing something that would not be legally prohibited if done by an adult.” (In re Ronald S. (1977) 69 Cal.App.3d 866, 867, fn. 1 [138 Cal.Rptr. 387].) A minor may be made a ward of the court under subdivision (a) of section 601 for persistent disobedience of his parents or guardians, and under subdivision (b) for truancy. Subdivision (b) concludes with these words: “[I]t is the intent of the Legislature that no minor who is adjudged a ward of the court pursuant solely to this subdivision shall be removed from the custody of the parent or guardian except during school hours.”
Section 207, subdivision (a) provides, with exceptions no one argues are applicable here, that “[n]o minor shall be detained in any jail, lockup, juvenile hall, or other secure facility who is taken into custody solely upon the ground that he or she is a person described by Section 601 or adjudged to be such or made a ward of the juvenile court solely upon that ground
Sections 601, subdivision (b) and 207, subdivision (a) prohibit the jailing of truants or other status offenders. Nonetheless, the majority hold that a directive not to jail truants does not prohibit jailing habitual truants who are in contempt of a court order to go to school. I do not agree with this conclusion. It is perfectly clear from the history of the relevant statutes that the Legislature has determined that jailing a status offender for contempt of court is not a good idea, and that the Legislature meant to prohibit such incarceration.
Before 1976, section 602 provided that a minor could be made a ward of the court under that section when the minor had been made a ward under *302section 601 and the minor failed “to obey any lawful order of the juvenile court.” (Stats. 1972, ch. 84, § 1, p. 109.) This meant that a status offender could be treated as a juvenile criminal as soon as he was in contempt of a dispositional order under section 601. However, in 1976 this language was deleted from section 602. (Stats. 1976, ch. 1071, § 12, p. 4819.) Obviously, when the Legislature deletes language from a statute, it intends to change existing law. (Clements v. T. R. Bechtel Co. (1954) 43 Cal.2d 227, 231-232 [273 P.2d 5].) In the same act, the Legislature enacted the part of section 601, subdivision (b) prohibiting removing status offenders from the custody of parents except during school hours. (Stats. 1976, ch. 1071, § 11, p. 4818.) It also eliminated contact between status offenders and wards under section 602, by providing that the status offender could not be detained in juvenile hall or other secure facility, but must be detained in a sheltered-care facility or crisis-resolution home. (See former § 507, subd. (b), as amended by Stats. 1976, ch. 1071, §7, p. 4817, now renumbered § 207.)
This clear indication that the Legislature intended to separate all status offenders from section 602 wards, and intended that even incorrigible status offenders not be incarcerated in secure facilities, was made express in In re Ronald S., supra, 69 Cal.App.3d 866, 873. There the juvenile court, faced with a runaway who would not obey court orders to stay in a sheltered-care facility, caused a petition to be filed alleging a violation of Penal Code section 166, subdivision 4: contempt of court. Since a violation of this section is a criminal offense, the minor was adjudged a section 602 ward and placed in juvenile hall. Wrong, said the Court of Appeal. The whole purpose of the 1976 amendments was to end the practice of bootstrapping a status offender into a section 602 ward by charging the minor with contempt of court. “While it may seem ridiculous to place a runaway in a nonsecure setting, nevertheless, that is what the Legislature has ordained. The Legislature has determined that 601’s shall not be detained in or committed to secure institutions even if this makes juvenile court judges look ridiculous. . . . [Otherwise] a deletion of language in section 602 would become meaningless and we would simply revert to the bootstrapping operation again. The court would be doing by indirection that which cannot be done directly. As the law now stands, the Legislature has said that if a 601 wants to run, let him run. While this may be maddening, baffling and annoying to the juvenile court judge, ours is not to question the wisdom of the Legislature.” (Id. at pp. 873-874.) Nothing could be clearer than the court’s conclusion that even contempt of a court’s dispositional order in a section 601 wardship cannot be punished by incarceration.2
*303The Legislature has acquiesced in this interpretation of its intent. “ ‘Where a statute has been construed by judicial decision, and that construction is not altered by subsequent legislation, it must be presumed that the Legislature is aware of the judicial construction and approves of it.’ ” (Wilkoff v. Superior Court (1985) 38 Cal.3d 345, 353 [211 Cal.Rptr. 742, 696 P.2d 134], quoting People v. Hallner (1954) 43 Cal.2d 715, 719 [277 P.2d 393]; see also People v. Rogers (1971) 5 Cal.3d 129, 136 [95 Cal.Rptr. 601, 486 P.2d 129].)
The court in Ronald S., supra, 69 Cal.App.3d 866, relied on new provisions of section 601 and the then applicable section 507, and on the fact that the Legislature amended section 602 to eliminate the power to make a section 601 ward into a section 602 ward for contempt of court. Later amendments have never repudiated or contradicted the Ronald S. interpretation. In fact, they have reinforced it. Although the language of the original section 207 permitted the secure detention of status offenders if no other option was available, after Ronald S. was decided in 1977, the Legislature amended the section to flatly prohibit such a detention. (Stats. 1977, ch. 1241, § 1, p. 4180, eff. Oct. 1, 1977.) A later amendment added certain exceptional circumstances in which the status offender could be incarcerated. (Stats. 1978, ch. 1061, § 1, pp. 3271-3272.) The Legislature explained: “It is the intent of the Legislature that this act restores to local entities the ability to provide secure detention, under specified conditions, for persons described in Section 601 of the Welfare and Institutions Code.” (Id., § 3, p. 3273.) The Legislature evidently thought that the 1976 and 1977 legislation had eliminated the power to order secure confinement entirely, so that it was necessary to specify some exceptions. Since the exceptions do not apply to contempt of court, the inference becomes even stronger that the Legislature acquiesced in the holding of Ronald S., supra, 69 Cal.App.3d 866, and did not intend to allow incarceration of truants who disobey a court order to go to school. (See Wildlife Alive v. Chickering (1976) 18 Cal.3d 190, 195 [132 Cal.Rptr. 377, 553 P.2d 537] [“where exceptions to a general rule are specified by statute, other exceptions are not to be implied or presumed”].)
Though neither section 601 nor section 602 has been amended since Ronald S. was decided, the Legislature has added an uncodified statute *304which reinforces the Ronald S. conclusion that contempt of a section 601 order cannot be punished by incarceration. The statute requires the Department of Youth Authority to establish a pilot program in one county to study the effectiveness of placing in secure facilities status offenders under section 601, subdivision (a) who violate a court order. (See Stats. 1986, ch. 1369, § 1, No. 6 Deering’s Adv. Legis. Service, pp. 301-303, No. 12 West’s Cal. Legis. Service, p. 693.) This statute is obviously designed to respond to the concern expressed in Ronald S. that runaways will disobey court orders to stay in nonsecure facilities. In this statute the Legislature finds and declares that wards under section 601, subdivision (a) who have violated related dispositional orders (i.e., been in contempt of court) “have a greater propensity to become involved in crimes, either as a victim or as a perpetrator. Consequently, the Legislature finds that it is necessary to establish a pilot program in one county to assess the effectiveness of court-ordered secure detention for up to five days for the benefit of the minor.” (Ibid.) Accordingly, the Legislature provided for a pilot program, with elaborate procedures, allowing secure placement for up to five days not more than twice a year of wards under section 601, subdivision (a) who have violated a dispositional order related to the wardship order. The Department of Youth Authority is to determine whether secure placement of these wards causes the number of crimes committed by or on the wards to fall during the pilot program. (Ibid.)
The conclusion is unavoidable that the Legislature understands that in every county but the pilot program county, a section 601, subdivision (a) ward who disobeys a dispositional order cannot be held in a secure placement. If it were otherwise, there would be no need for the special authorization for secure placement contained in this pilot program. Further, the data collected on whether secure placement reduced crime by or on these wards in the pilot county would be meaningless if secure placement is already available through the contempt power of the court.
Legislative authority for jailing truants for contempt of a section 601 order simply does not exist. I also see no constitutional infirmity in a system which prohibits incarceration of habitual truants. Though a court has the inherent power to punish contempt, the Legislature may place reasonable limitations on this power. (In re McKinney (1968) 70 Cal.2d 8, 10-11 [73 Cal.Rptr. 580, 447 P.2d 972].) A statute that took away all contempt power from the court or fixed a “wholly inadequate” penalty for a class of con-tempts would be an unconstitutional invasion of the court’s power. (Id. at p. 11.) But as long as the court retains the power to “vindicate [its] authority and maintain the dignity and respect due to [it],” the legislative regulation of the contempt power is considered within constitutional bounds. (Id. at p. 12.)
*305The juvenile court can punish the repeat truant for contempt, staying within the bounds of the section 601 wardship, by imposing fines, compulsory service to the community, or detention in nonsecure facilities during school hours. Under present law, except in the pilot county, the juvenile court cannot incarcerate a minor made a ward of the court as a result of his truancy for willfully failing to obey the court’s order to attend school. In holding otherwise, the majority reach too far.
Mosk, J., concurred.

All statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.

 The Court of Appeal reached a similar conclusion in In re Mary D. (1979) 95 Cal.App.3d 34 [156 Cal.Rptr. 829], where a section 602 ward who was placed in the parental home violated probation by running away from home to another state. The juvenile court held her in contempt under Penal Code section 166, subdivision 4 and ordered her to spend up to six *303months in a secure facility. The Court of Appeal reversed, finding that a juvenile court could not order secure placement for running away, since this was only a status offense, and since section 602 had been amended so that it no longer subjected a minor to section 602 placement for disobeying a court order. “It is the technical violation of the court’s order to obey the terms of probation which the court uses to make it a more serious offense. The court has used criminal contempt to contravene legislative intent, and attempted to do indirectly what it could not do directly.” (Id. at p. 38.)