Court Opinion

ID: 9832874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:16:03.328646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:54.530158
License: Public Domain

On ■ Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants and appellee filed motions for rehearing. Since appellants raised nothing new in their motion and since we have heretofore passed on all questions raised by them, their motion for a rehearing is overruled.
The County Attorney filed a motion for appellee asking for a rehearing and charging that this Court erred in holding that the trial court committed error in requiring appellants, Billy Dendy and L. J. King, Jr., to testify against themselves over their objections made only through their counsel. Appellee contends that “such privilege of refusing to testify, wherein such testimony might tend to incriminate the witnesses, must be claimed by the witness himself at the time such question is propounded to him, the answers to which might incriminate the witness, under oath, and cannot be claimed by such witnesses’ counsel as was done in this case.”
*304The record discloses that the above-named appellants were each fifteen years of age and must have been unaccustomed to court procedure and must have known little about the law governing the rights of the accused and his privileges when called as a witness. Appellants were standing trial as juvenile delinquents upon a petition charging them with fraud and making other accusations of a similar nature against them that amounted to a charge of theft. Such a proceeding should not be a criminal proceeding that contemplates punishment of the child if convicted, but it should be a proceeding for custodial protection of the child as intended by the Act in question.
Under authorities cited in the original opinion in this appeal, the word “incriminate” may mean even more than to charge with a crime; it may also mean to charge “with fraud, to accuse, or to involve in an accusation.” These children of a tender age were charged with fraud, were being accused, and were then on trial as a result of such charges and accusations when the trial court, at the request of the State’s counsel and over the objection of their own counsel, required them to be sworn and to give evidence against themselves that amounted to involuntary pleas of guilty and resulted in their convictions. They were the first witnesses called by the State; others were called later whose testimony corroborated that given by said appellants.
In any kind of a judicial hearing that involves the rights or the future destiny of a child, an old rule of law, as well as the Act in question, makes it the duty of the trial judge to zealously guard the rights of such child and to see that no advantage is taken of him in such proceedings. It is our opinion that the Act in question contemplates the conducting of a hearing in a juvenile case for the best interests of the child involved and there must be some rule of procedure, especially in a contested case, that will divulge, in so far as possible, the facts and conditions surrounding the child, but some regard must be had for the fundamental principles of judicial procedure. Certainly, a child of tender age who is standing trial upon a charge of fraud and other kindred accusations should have at least as much, if not more, protection at the hands of the trial court than an adult who is standing trial on a criminal charge.
The Act in question sets up a complete jurisdiction and procedure for hearing such cases and nowhere does it provide that either criminal or civil procedure shall be followed. It is our opinion that it contemplates a cooperative attempt upon the part of all the officers of the court in seeing that the best interest of the child is protected in such cases and that he is given every possible advantage for proper training for good citizenship.
We believe the objections of appellants’ counsel alone to the trial court’s compelling Billy Dendy and L. J. King, Jr., who were then on trial, to give testimony against themselves was sufficient in such a case without said children claiming their privilege of refusing to testify. We believe the trial court committed error in compelling them to testify over the objections of their counsel only, and we further believe that because of the tender ages of these appellants it was the duty of the trial court to inform them as witnesses, even after they were sworn as such, in language understood by them that they were not required to answer the questions propounded to them by the County Attorney. 44 Tex.Jur. 973, par. 29, and cases there cited.
All other questions raised by appellee have been heretofore disposed of, and ap-pellee’s motion for a rehearing is therefore overruled.