Court Opinion

ID: 9694687
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:51:14.989796+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:04.652798
License: Public Domain

GLASSMAN, Justice,
with whom GOD-FREY, J., joins, dissenting.
Because this Court has no jurisdiction to entertain this appeal, I respectfully dissent.1
The appeal provisions applicable to this case may be found in Chapter 509 of Title 15 of the Maine Revised Statutes.2 Section 3401(1)(B) provides: “Judgments of the Superior Court in juvenile matters shall be reviewable by the Law Court.” Other than this general jurisdictional grant, the only provision of the chapter dealing with appeals to the Law Court is Section 3407 which provides in pertinent part: “Appeals, for the purpose only of raising questions of law, from decisions of the Superior Court rendered in juvenile cases before the Superior Court on appeal from orders of juvenile courts, may be taken to the Law Court in *727the same maimer and form as appeals in adult criminal actions.” To the extent that this language may be construed as ever authorizing the State to appeal to the Law Court, its appeal right under the Juvenile Code is coextensive with the authorization granted by 15 M.R.S.A. § 2115-A governing appeals by the State in adult criminal cases.3 That section limited the State’s right of appeal to pre-trial orders of certain types and to post-trial appeals from the Superior Court only when the defendant has appealed from the judgment. Thus, under the provisions of Section 2115-A as they existed, if an adult defendant were convicted in the Superior Court and appealed from the judgment, the State by way of cross-appeal might question any decision, ruling or order of the court made in the proceeding in which the judgment was entered.
The literal wording of these statutes does not grant the State the right to appeal in a juvenile case from a judgment of the Superior Court which sits as an intermediate appellate tribunal reviewing decisions of the juvenile court on questions of law. Although such a right of appeal might be found by way of implication or inference from the statutory language, we have unequivocally stated that the innovative nature of the statute granting the State the right to appeal precludes such methods of construction or interpretation. State v. Fernald, Me., 381 A.2d 282, 286 (1978); State v. Kelly, Me., 376 A.2d 840, 843 (1977). In State v. Kelly, supra, this Court commenced its analysis of the jurisdictional issue involved in State appeals in criminal cases by noting that the general grant of jurisdiction to the Law Court found in 4 M.R.S.A. § 57 did not include jurisdiction to hear appeals by the State in criminal cases. It reached this result because granting the State the right to appeal in criminal cases was recognized as such a “serious and far-reaching . . innovation in the criminal jurisprudence of the United States . as well as the criminal jurisprudence of the State of Maine . . . .” Id. at 843. The Court concluded that “rights of such substantive importance will not be taken to have been legislatively conferred by indirection or implication but only by legislation explicitly addressing the subject in express language of unmistakably plain meaning.” Id. This reasoning is equally applicable to the grant of jurisdiction found in Section 3401(1)(B).
In the Kelly case, when the Court turned to construing the statute granting the State’s right of appeal, it read that statute literally to invalidate a rule of court promulgated by the Supreme Judicial Court. In State v. Fernald, supra, this Court affirmed the principle announced in State v. Kelly, stating further: “As Kelly suggests, in view of the unprecedented nature of section 2115-A, the scope of the appeal rights conferred upon the State by the legislature are to be strictly construed and not extended beyond the plain and necessary meaning of the grant.” 381 A.2d at 285.
I recognize that juvenile proceedings are not criminal in nature. State v. Gleason, Me., 404 A.2d 573 (1979). Yet, many of the procedural safeguards afforded adults in criminal proceedings must also be afforded juveniles in juvenile proceedings. As we had occasion to remark in State v. Gleason, supra, 404 A.2d at 580:
[ Rjecent decisions of this Court and the United States Supreme Court have shown that the procedural safeguards constitutionally required in adult criminal proceedings must be afforded a juvenile unless they would ‘compel the States to abandon or displace any of the substantive benefits of the juvenile process.’ In re Winship, . . . [397 U.S. 358,] at 367, 90 S.Ct. [1068,] at 1074, 25 L.Ed.2d [368,] at 377. Normal adult criminal procedures must be afforded to the extent consistent with the basic rehabilitative purposes of the juvenile justice system.
In State v. Fernald, supra, 381 A.2d at 285, we noted that restrictions on the State’s right to appeal in criminal cases *728“reflected an historical sensitivity to the defendant’s constitutional guarantees of a speedy trial and freedom from being placed in double jeopardy.” The Fifth Amendment guarantee of freedom from double jeopardy is fully applicable to juvenile proceedings. Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519, 95 S.Ct. 1779, 44 L.Ed.2d 346 (1975). Although the constitutional guarantee of speedy trial has never been specifically held applicable to juvenile proceedings by the United States Supreme Court, certainly that procedural safeguard is not incompatible with the rehabilitative purposes of our Juvenile Code. Indeed, a speedy hearing is as important to a child in the toil of the juvenile justice system as it is to an adult in the snare of the criminal process.4 The juvenile may be detained pending the hearing. See 15 M.R.S.A. § 3203. Whether or not detained, the juvenile should have a right to a reasonably speedy determination of whether he is to be subject to the restraint of the juvenile system. If he is to be adjudicated a juvenile offender, it should be done quickly in order that the rehabilitative processes of the juvenile system will be promptly available to him. Thus, the same underlying principles which required strict interpretation of the statutory grant of jurisdiction to hear appeals by the State in criminal eases apply with equal force to the similar grant to hear State appeals in juvenile cases.5
This conclusion is in no way affected by resort to the goals of the juvenile appellate process enumerated in Section 3401(2). I would assume that the general grant of appellate jurisdiction to this Court to hear appeals in criminal cases has as its objectives: “A. To correct errors in the application and interpretation of law; B. To insure substantial uniformity of treatment to persons in like situations; C. To provide for review of . court decisions so that the legislatively defined goals of the [criminal] justice system as a whole are realized.” Id. If those objectives were not sufficient to permit this Court to read into the broad grant of appellate jurisdiction found in 4 M.R.S.A. § 57 a right of the State to appeal in criminal cases, then they are not sufficient to permit this Court to read into the grant of jurisdiction in 15 M.R.S.A. § 3401(1)(B) a right of the State to appeal in juvenile cases.
Nor is the conclusion undermined by resort to the prior law governing appeals to the Law Court in juvenile cases. 15 M.R. S.A. § 2667 (repealed, P.L.1977, ch. 520, § 22). That section did not address the question of who might take an appeal. Like 4 M.R.S.A. § 57 and 15 M.R.S.A. § 3401(1)(B), the provision was a mere grant of jurisdiction to the Law Court to hear appeals without any specification of who might take such an appeal. It is instructive to note that this statute was first enacted in 1959 (P.L.1959, ch. 342, § 1); one may search in vain through the reports of the decisions of the Law Court during the almost twenty years of that statute’s existence for a single instance in which there was an appeal by the State from a decision of the Superior Court in a juvenile case. This demonstrates most clearly that appeal *729by the State in juvenile cases is, indeed, “an innovation in . the ... jurisprudence of the State of Maine.” State v. Kelly, supra, 376 A.2d at 843.
The statutes here involved do not “in express language of unmistakably plain meaning,” id., grant the State the right to appeal to this Court. Although, through inference and implication, they may be construed to grant that right, the institutional integrity of this Court is not enhanced by giving them such a construction when we have so recently stated that similar statutes having similar purposes must be narrowly, strictly and literally construed.6 See State v. Fernald, supra, 381 A.2d at 285; State v. Kelly, supra, 376 A.2d at 843.
Construing the Juvenile Code in the manner mandated by this Court’s decisions in Kelly and Fernald, I cannot read into it a right to appeal by the State from the Superior Court when that court, sitting as an intermediate appellate tribunal, makes rulings adverse to the State. The Law Court has no jurisdiction to hear this appeal. The appeal should be dismissed.

. I disagree with only Part I of the opinion of the Court. I have no disagreement with Part II but would not reach the issues there considered because of lack of jurisdiction.

. The appeal provisions of the Juvenile Code were substantially amended by P.L.1979, ch. 512, §§ 8-14. These new provisions became effective on September 14, 1979; therefore, they have no effect upon this case in which the appeal was filed on March 19, 1979 and docketed in the Law Court on March 22, 1979.

. The State’s right of appeal in criminal cases was significantly expanded by P.L.1979, ch. 343, § 2, effective September 14, 1979, which repeals and replaces 15 M.R.S.A. § 2115-A.

. “Immediately upon the filing of the petition, a date for the hearing should be set. This date should allow adequate time for a proper social study but should not be unduly distant, ordinarily not more than 20 days from the date of filing .... The cases of children held in detention should be heard as soon as possible, on a priority basis, and considerably within the 20-day limitation mentioned above. All concerned should constantly keep in mind the fact that parents and children have a right to legal determination of their rights as soon as possible.” (emphasis added). W. Sheridan, Standards for Juvenile and Family Courts 64 (U. S. Dep’t of Health, Education and Welfare, Children’s Bureau, Pub. No. 437 (1966)); see National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Council of Judges, Model Rules for Juvenile Courts, Rule 19 (1969); National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Standard 12.1 (1976).

. In the instant case, the order of the Superior Court remanding this matter to the juvenile court was entered February 28, 1979. The State’s appeal to the Law Court was argued September 14, 1979. While not suggesting that the juvenile has been denied a right to speedy rehearing, the appellate process has delayed the rehearing in the juvenile court at least seven months.

. Strict construction of the newly enacted § 2115-A is rejected by subsection 6 of that section which now reads: “The provisions of this section shall be liberally construed to effectuate its purpose, or purposes, of insuring that the State is able to proceed to trial with all the evidence it is legally entitled to introduce, in view of the limited ability of the State to have error reviewed after trial.” P.L.1979, ch. 343, §2.