Court Opinion

ID: 9633175
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:36:33.124356+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:30.301705
License: Public Domain

Schroeder, J.,
dissenting: Not to be outdone by the legislature, the court ventures into an administrative domain to confer “constitutional rights” where they have never heretofore been recognized. I cannot indulge in the fantasy that there exists a vast *21thicket in our society to be explored and into which the judicial domain must be extended. Courts that venture into this thicket implanting a banner labeled “constitutional rights” serve as catalysts to promote confusion, expense and prolific litigation into such areas at both the administrative and court levels. For whose well being and for what purpose one may ask?
In my opinion, as applied to the public school system, the precedent here established will serve the revolutionaries in our society best.
I fully join in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Fromme and subscribe to the views therein expressed, but I feel compelled, in view of the gravity of the precedent established by the court, to add a few more reasons why the opinion of the court extending procedural due process for public school discipline is untenable.
In Kansas the period of minority of individual persons extends in males and females to the age of eighteen years. (K. S. A. 1972 Supp. 38-101; and K. S. A. 1972 Supp. 38-901 [a] and [n].) The jurisdiction of the juvenile code over children, both male and female, in Kansas was extended by the legislature in 1965 to children less than eighteen years of age. (K. S. A. 1972 Supp. 38-802.) The code of civil procedure was made to apply to juvenile proceedings by K. S. A. 1972 Supp. 38-813; and the juvenile judge in all hearings in the juvenile court is required to appoint a guardian ad litem. (K. S. A. 1972 Supp. 38-821.) The legislature also extended to a child under the age of eighteen years the right to confer with counsel when he or she has been taken into custody by a law enforcement official. (K. S. A. 1972 Supp. 38-839.)
The United States Supreme Court in Kent v. United States, 383 U. S. 541, 16 L. Ed. 2d 84, 86 S. Ct. 1045, required procedural regularity sufficient to satisfy the basic requirements of due process and fairness as to waiver proceedings conducted in the juvenile court, where its exclusive original jurisdiction over a minor child was subject to waiver and transference of the action to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for a criminal trial. (See, State v. Coutcher, 198 Kan. 282, 424 P. 2d 865; In re Templeton, 202 Kan. 89, 447 P. 2d 158; and State v. Hinkle, 206 Kan. 472, 479 P. 2d 841.)
But it was not until In re Gault, 387 U. S. 1, 18 L. Ed. 2d 527, 87 S. Ct. 1428, recently decided, that restrictions the constitution made applicable to adversary criminal trials were extended to the thou*22sands of juvenile courts throughout the nation. There the court (by a majority of five with three justices concurring and one dissenting) held the Bill of Rights safeguards, including notice as provided in the Sixth Amendment, the right to counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, the right against self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, and the right to confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, apply to protect a juvenile accused in a juvenile court on a charge under which he could be imprisoned for a term of years. The Fifth and Sixth Amendments were made obligatory on the states by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Mr. Justice Black in his concurring opinion said: “This holding strikes a well-nigh fatal blow to much that is unique about the juvenile courts in the Nation.” (387 U. S. 60.)
The whole purpose and mission of juvenile proceedings established in the nation prior to Gault were cast aside and the restrictions made applicable to adversary criminal trials were imposed. The departure from precedent and consequences, in my opinion, are well expressed by Mr. Justice Stewart in his dissenting opinion in Gault.
Here, however, in the instant case the Supreme Court of Kansas goes beyond Gault to establish a precedent even more flagrant in its departure from tradition. It imposes upon administrative proceedings conducted for public school discipline the dignity of a proceeding in juvenile court required by Gault, where the juvenile accused could have been imprisoned for a period of years. Here Gary L. Smith, a minor and subject to juvenile court jurisdiction had he been charged with the offense in the juvenile court, is subjected at most to expulsion from school.
After conducting the administrative hearing on the 18th day of September, 1972, the hearing examiner on the 20th day of September, 1972, forwarded to Gary L. Smith a letter indicating that the recommendation to expel him from Wichita High School West for the remainder of the 1972-1973 school year was upheld. In an attempt to provide some sort of an educational opportunity for Smith, the hearing examiner directed a letter to Smith dated October 3, 1972, indicating that he could be placed in the Metropolitan School for the remainder of the current semester. But Smith did not accept that offer.
I am convinced, where as here, the court opens the door a little by requiring “procedural due process” — the right to cross-examine *23bis accuser — all other constitutional due process rights imposed upon juvenile court hearings by Gault will follow as a matter of course. Of what value is the right to cross-examine one’s accuser if he does not have counsel to assist him in the cross-examination? And so the right to be represented by counsel is imposed, including the right of the indigent to the appointment of counsel, as in criminal cases, to afford him the equal protection of the laws. All other constitutional due process rights spoken of in Gault must follow in due course and be imposed upon administrative proceedings conducted for public school discipline because the court is committed to procedural due process in such healings.
The court’s eagerness to plunge head on into procedural due process for public school discipline is illustrated by the fact that the issues in this case are moot. The 1972-1973 school year has terminated. But the court resourcefully seizes upon the opportunity to call this a declaratory judgment action and proceeds to give its advisory opinion.
Under these circumstances the argument that Gary L. Smith, who may be expelled from public school, has the right to be confronted by his accuser and to cross-examine him is fallacious.
It must be recognized that this case is being used as a vehicle to establish a precedent — that “procedural due process” is required in proceedings conducted for public school discipline — and not to correct what on the surface is said to be an abuse of a high school student’s rights.
The opinion for the court suggests the court is not aware of the theory of constitutional interpretation it applies to the facts in this case. In the opinion the court says:
“The term due process refers primarily to the methods by which the law is enforced; however the term has no fixed technical concept unrelated to time, place and circumstances. In Hannah v. Larche, 363 U. S. 420, 4 L. ed. 2d 1307, 1321, 80 S. Ct. 1502, 1514, this comment was made:
“ ‘ “Due process” is an elusive concept. Its exact boundaries are undefinable, and its content varies according to specific factual contexts. . . . Whether the Constitution requires that a particular right obtain in a specific proceeding depends upon a complexity of factors. The nature of the alleged right involved, the nature of the proceeding, and the possible burden on that proceeding are all considerations which must be taken into account.’ (p. 442.)”
To view the court’s opinion in its proper context the theories of constitutional interpretation should be explored. The divergent *24opinions on this point were discussed by Mr. Justice Black in his concurring opinion in Gault, where he said:
“A few words should be added because of the opinion of my Brother Harlan who rests his concurrence and dissent on the Due Process Clause alone. He reads that clause alone as allowing this Court ‘to determine what forms of procedural protection are necessary to guarantee the fundamental fairness of juvenile proceedings’ ‘in a fashion consistent with the “traditions and conscience of our people.” ’ Cf. Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165. He believes that the Due Process Clause gives this Court the power, upon weighing a ‘compelling public interest,’ to impose on the States only those specific constitutional rights which the Court deems ‘imperative’ and ‘necessary’ to comport with the Court’s notions of ‘fundamental fairness.’
“I cannot subscribe to any such interpretation of the Due Process Clause. Nothing in its words or its history permits it, and ‘fair distillations of relevant judicial history’ are no substitute for the words and history of the clause itself. The phrase ‘due process of law’ has through the years evolved as the successor in purpose and meaning to the words ‘law of the land’ in Magna Charta which more plainly intended to call for a trial according to the existing law of the land in effect at the time an alleged offense had been committed. That provision in Magna Charta was designed to prevent defendants from being tried according to criminal laws or proclamations specifically promulgated to fit particular cases or to attach new consequences to old conduct. Nothing done since Magna Charta can be pointed to as intimating that the Due Process Clause gives courts power to fashion laws in order to meet new conditions, to fit the ‘decencies’ of changed conditions, or to keep their consciences from being shocked by legislation, state or federal.
“And, of course, the existence of such awesome judicial power cannot be buttressed or created by relying on the word ‘procedural.’ Whether labeled as procedural’ or ‘substantive,’ the Bill of Rights safeguards, far from being mere ‘tools with which’ other unspecified ‘rights could be fully vindicated,’ are the very vitals of a sound constitutional legal system designed to protect and safeguard the most cherished liberties of a free people. These safeguards were written into our Constitution not by judges but by Constitution makers. Freedom in this Nation will be far less secure the very moment that it is decided that judges can determine which of these safeguards ‘should’ or ‘should not be imposed’ according to their notions of what constitutional provisions are consistent with the ‘traditions and conscience of our people.’ Judges with such power, even though they profess to ‘proceed with restraint,’ will be above the Constitution, with power to write it, not merely to interpret it, which I believe to be the only power constitutionally committed to judges.
“There is one ominous sentence, if not more, in my Brother Harlan’s opinion which bodes ill, in my judgment, both for legislative programs and constitutional commands. Speaking of procedural safeguards in the Bill of Rights, he says:
“ ‘These factors in combination suggest that legislatures may properly expect only a cautious deference for their procedural judgments, but that, conversely, courts must exercise their special responsibility for procedural guarantees with care to permit ample scope for achieving the purposes of legisla*25tive programs. . . . [T]he court should necessarily proceed with restraint.’
“It is to be noted here that this case concerns Bill of Rights Amendments; that the procedure’ power my Brother Hablan claims for the Court here relates solely to Bill of Rights safeguards; and that he is here claiming for the Court a supreme power to fashion new Bill of Rights safeguards according to the Court’s notions of what fits tradition and conscience. I do not believe that the Constitution vests any such power in judges, either in the Due Process Clause or anywhere else. Consequently, I do not vote to invalidate this Arizona law on the ground that it is ‘unfair’ but solely on the ground that it violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments made obligatory on the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. Cf. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 412 (Goldberg, J., concurring). It is enough for me that the Arizona law as here applied collides head-on with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments in the four respects mentioned. The only relevance to me of the Due Process Clause is that it would, of course, violate due process or the ‘law of the land’ to enforce a law that collides with the Bill of Rights.” (pp. 61, 62, 63, 64.)
It seems to me the court is fashioning procedural due process in the instant case to its own whims and caprice — in a fashion consistent with the traditions and conscience of our people. I cannot subscribe to this theory in the interpretation of the Due Process Clause. Obviously, the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution have no application to the facts here. This is not a criminal prosecution.
To date the United States Supreme Court has not ventured into the thicket of “procedural due process” for public school discipline. The cases relied upon by the court pertain to adversary criminal proceedings or disciplinary problems on the campuses of our colleges and universities.
I would dismiss the appeal as moot.
Fatzer, C. J., joins in the foregoing dissenting opinion.