Court Opinion

ID: 9845090
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:15:06.515055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:51.552646
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Chief Justice,
concurring:
The decision in this ease is correct but the majority writer’s language is eminently misleading. The child in question cannot be sent to Moundsville Penitentiary or the Huttonsville Correctional Center by the sentencing judge without the concurrence of the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections, but that does not mean that the child cannot continue to be punished in the sole discretion of the circuit court. The majority opinion implies that both commissioner and judge must concur before a child can be incarcerated after his eighteenth birthday, but that is not the holding of this court. Accordingly I concur in order to clarify the law.
W.Va.Code, 49-5-16(b) [1982] in no way stands for the proposition that without the concurrence of both the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections and the circuit court a child cannot be further punished by incarceration in an adult institution after his eighteenth birthday when he has been convicted of a serious crime such as rape, murder, or armed robbery. In light of the fact that West Virginia’s penitentiaries are woefully inadequate there will always be pressure on the commissioner not to incarcerate individuals for no better reason than the deploring lack of available beds.
The real holding of this Court is that without the concurrence of the commissioner, a child upon becoming an adult, cannot be transferred immediately from the West Virginia Industrial Home for Youth to a full-fledged adult prison. The child may, however, be transferred to any youthful offender facility, such as the forestry camp, for a number of additional years without the agreement of the commissioner. The case of State ex rel. R.C.F. v. Wilt, 162 W.Va. 424, 252 S.E.2d 168 (1979) in no way stands for the proposition for which it is cited in the majority’s footnote 2. R. C.F. v. Wilt simply repeats the words of W.Va.Code, 49-5-16(b) [1982] without any construction whatsoever; the quotation is simple dicta for the purpose of Wilt’s holding.
The preferable view of legislative intent, and a view not foreclosed by the majority opinion, is that the decision concerning a juvenile’s incarceration after his eighteenth birthday for an offense for which he was convicted under the adult jurisdiction of the circuit court should remain exclusively in the province of the circuit court judge. On the other hand, whether the child should be transferred from the Industrial Home for Youth directly to either Moundsville Penitentiary, Huttonsville Correctional Center, or the adult facility for women (now at Huttonsville) is a matter for joint decision between the commissioner and the circuit court. Once the circuit judge has determined that further punishment is warranted, the commissioner has the power to require that the child be further confined in a youthful male offender center rather than in Moundsville Penitentiary or the Huttons-ville Correctional Center. (However, he cannot refuse to detain an offender after the circuit judge’s determination.) In this regard it is important to note that under W.Va.Code, 25-4-6 [1975], the Youthful Male Offender Act, offenders assigned to a youth center are returned to the jurisdiction of the court that originally committed them when they have satisfactorily completed the center’s training program.
*532The tone of the majority opinion implies that even the most heinous juvenile murderers, rapists, and armed robbers (who may have spent but three months in a youth center before they turn eighteen) should be treated similarly to juvenile mis-demeanants who are presumed rehabilitated once they become adults. Since I doubt the majority would welcome such an inference, I would suggest that both the circuit courts and the commissioner interpret the statute as I have in this concurring opinion and require the issue to be brought back to this Court in an appropriate context for further clarification.
I am authorized to say that Justice BROTHERTON joins me in this concurrence.