Truants in Jail: Court’s Ability to Enforce Contempt Rulings Debated

According to authorities, Michael G. had not been involved in crime, alcohol abuse or other delinquent activities that too often attract today’s teen-agers.

But the boy adamantly refused to go to school, defying his mother, counselors and finally, the order of a Fresno County Juvenile Court judge. Exasperated, the judge found Michael in contempt and ordered him held in a juvenile facility for 48 hours.

The judge’s unusual action resulted in a dispute that came before the state Supreme Court last week, presenting a sharp conflict between the judiciary’s well-established power of contempt and a legislative ban on incarcerating minors for truancy.

A county prosecutor told the justices that incarceration is permissible when other efforts to get a habitual truant to go to school have failed.

“There does come a point where you have someone who’s simply incorrigible,” Fresno Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth Hahus said in his oral argument before the court. “He did thumb his nose at the court. At that point, what’s left?”

But lawyers for the boy, now 18, said the Legislature clearly had intended that truants remain in the custody of their parents, and that even through the power of contempt, judges could not jail a youth for truancy. A fine or temporary detention during school hours in a “non-secure” facility should have been tried as alternatives, they said.

“Regardless of the frustration of the court, that is the law,” Fresno Deputy Public Defender Jose R. Villarreal told the justices.

Villarreal also raised concern that school officials, prosecutors and courts would turn to incarceration as a “first resort” against truancy if the justices decide to uphold the action ordered against Michael.

But the boy’s attorneys ran into a barrage of questions from court members reflecting deep concern over any intrusion on a judge’s authority to order incarceration, if necessary, to enforce an order of the court.

“What is the court going to do?” Justice John A. Arguelles asked at one point. “Just give up?”

The case arose in 1984, when the youth, after repeatedly missing school, was referred to juvenile authorities and subsequently ordered by Judge William H. Sanderson to undergo counseling, perform work in a community service program and “attend school regularly and not be tardy or absent.”

Still, the boy would not go to school. Judge Sanderson, exercising his power of contempt, ordered Michael to be held in Juvenile Hall for a 48-hour period over the weekend. “I certainly wouldn’t want to place the court in the position of depriving the minor of the opportunity to attend school,” the judge said wryly.

The order was suspended while attorneys for the youth brought an appeal, citing a state statute that says that no minor who becomes a ward of a juvenile court because of truancy “shall be removed from the custody of the parent or guardian except during school hours.”

In a one-hour hearing before the justices Wednesday, prosecutor Hahus contended that the statute was not intended to affect the inherent power of courts to ensure that their orders are obeyed.

Hahus said that Michael had rejected all other attempts by his mother, juvenile authorities and the judge to get him to go to school--including a refusal to perform the community service work. “Less-restrictive alternatives were tried first,” he stressed.

The prosecutor denied that upholding the judge’s order would invite widespread incarceration of habitual truants. “You have to trust your judges,” he said.

Los Angeles Deputy Public Defender Susan L. Burrell, appearing as a “friend of the court” in Michael’s behalf, called the incarceration order a “sham use” of the contempt power and an attempt to “engage in judicial lawmaking.”

“The Legislature says you can’t lock a kid up for truancy,” Burrell said.

But several of the justices appeared skeptical. They raised questions about how it would appear to Michael and the other habitual truants--200 of whom were made wards of the juvenile court system last year--if it became clear that judges could not force them to obey a court order.

“A kid then goes out on the street and says to his friends, ‘Don’t worry, the judge can’t make you do a thing.’ ” observed Justice Edward A. Panelli, a one-time juvenile court judge in Santa Clara County.

“I don’t see any ‘sham’ in the order,” said Justice Marcus M. Kaufman. “If an order is willfully disobeyed, that’s contempt, and a court has every right to enforce it.”

Kaufman expressed concern over the effect on a juvenile of a court’s inability to enforce the law. “If a judge sitting in juvenile court can’t make an order stick, that’s just wonderful for the kid’s development, growth and image of the law,” he remarked wryly.

According to the state Bureau of Criminal Statistics, 218 habitual truants were made wards of the juvenile court system last year in California.

There also was a negative reaction to defense attorney Burrell’s suggestion that, as an alternative to incarceration, courts could order parents to personally deliver their children to school.

“Isn’t one of the problems that parents aren’t doing their jobs?” asked Justice David N. Eagleson. “If they were on their toes, we wouldn’t be here arguing this issue.”