Court Opinion

ID: 9639921
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:51:51.233517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:22.883700
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Associate Justice.
I concur in the result reached in the instant case.
I concur in the ruling that the juvenile court correctly forbade an answer to the question whether the prosecuting witness “had been arrested and tried for larceny in the Juvenile Court on or about July, 1939.” Even if adjudication of misconduct in the juvenile court constituted conviction of a crime — which it does not — the question was improper because the inquiry was concerning arrest and trial only. As correctly pointed out in the majority opinion such a question is not warranted.
But I dissent from the view expressed by the majority that that part of the Juvenile Court Act which provides that “The disposition of a child or any evidence given in the court shall not be admissible as evidence against the child in any case or proceeding in any other court ...” forbids the juvenile court itself to consider previous misconduct, shown by its own records, of a witness in a present proceeding, where that misconduct is of such character as will bear upon the credibility of that witness. For the juvenile court so to consider previous misconduct does not in my view impose upon a witness any of the civil disabilities ordinarily imposed by conviction, or treat a witness as a criminal, or constitute admission of evidence against a witness, contrary to the provisions of the Juvenile Court Act. I cannot conclude that it was the intention of Congress, when it laid down the wholesome protections of the Juvenile Court Act against treating children as criminals, to blind the eyes of the juvenile judge or of a jury in the juvenile court to considerations vitally bearing upon the credibility of testimony. And I think that the view taken by the majority in this respect will inevitably result in shocking miscarriages of justice in respect of both juveniles and adults. For example, an adult may be under present trial in the juvenile court upon a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a child. That child may be the only witness, and upon its uncorroborated testimony will therefore depend conviction or acquittal. The juvenile judge may know from the court’s own records concerning past misconduct of this child that its word is utterly undependable. Yet, under the view of the majority, it must not consider that fact nor permit a jury to do so. Again, juvenile B may be on trial today in the juvenile court on a charge of misconduct preferred by juvenile A. Even though the judge knows from previous experience in the court with juvenile A that the latter’s word is worthless, nevertheless, the judge may not consider that fact in the proceeding against juvenile B or permit a jury to do so.
Moreover, the expression of the majority on this subject is unnecessary to the decision of the case. As said above, the question asked of the witness related to arrest and trial rather than to conviction and was, therefore, improper in any event.' There was no ruling in the juvenile court on the precise question whether that court can in a present proceeding consider as bearing upon the credibility of a witness past misconduct of that witness as shown by the court’s own records. With due deference to my colleagues, I protest with all possible vigor against a gratuitous ruling on a subject of such grave consequence to juvenile court proceedings.