Truant May Be Jailed on Contempt, Court Rules

The state Supreme Court, widening the judiciary’s long-held power of contempt, ruled Monday that judges may jail habitual truants for defying a court order to return to school.

In a 5-2 ruling, the justices said that so-called “status offenders”--juveniles who, unlike delinquents, have not actually committed crimes--can be incarcerated for flagrant violations of orders not to repeat their misbehavior.

While the ruling centered on a habitual truant, the justices’ far-ranging opinion appeared to cover runaways, curfew violators, incorrigibles and others who find themselves in juvenile courts for non-criminal acts.

The court carefully pointed out, however, that judges must first consider less restrictive alternatives to jail--and, if they do send these youths to be locked up, they must be incarcerated separate from juvenile delinquents.

Potential Clash

The court sidestepped a potential constitutional clash with the Legislature by concluding that the authority of judges to enforce court orders does not necessarily collide with state statutes that generally bar incarceration of truants and others for non-criminal acts.

“Imposition of these qualifications on a juvenile court’s contempt power achieves the twin goals of vindicating the inherent power of the courts, while giving practical effect to the Legislature’s express intent to deinstitutionalize status offenders,” Justice John A. Arguelles wrote for the court.

Arguelles’ 29-page opinion, joined by Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas and Justices Edward A. Panelli, David N. Eagleson and Marcus M. Kaufman, quoted approvingly from a lower court opinion saying that allowing juveniles to defy court orders would “make the court a laughingstock in the eyes of the very persons it is charged with a duty to supervise and control.”

In dissent, Justice Allen E. Broussard, joined by Justice Stanley Mosk, argued that the Legislature had made it clear that juvenile status offenders were not to be jailed like delinquents.

“The majority exalt the dignity of the court issuing the order over the best interest of the minor,” Broussard wrote. “Neither logic nor compassion can countenance such a result.”

The decision, long awaited by school officials, law enforcement groups and defense attorneys, involved a 48-hour weekend sentence in a juvenile facility imposed on a Fresno youth identified only as Michael G. Authorities said the boy refused his mother’s pleas to attend school, as well as those of school officials.

The judge, William Sanderson, made Michael a ward of the court and ordered him to school--but again he refused, and was sentenced by Sanderson for contempt of court. The penalty was set aside while the case was appealed.

While upholding the authority of the judge to jail truants for contempt, the justices said that further hearings must be held in Michael’s case to see whether the youth’s defiance of the order was “egregious” and whether less restrictive alternatives than incarceration might still be available.

The ruling could have wide impact on truants, runaways, curfew-violators, incorrigibles and other misbehaving youths that attorneys believe will be covered under the decision.

Thousands Arrested

According to the state Bureau of Criminal Statistics, 931 such youths were referred to juvenile courts in 1986. Many thousands of youths are arrested by police for such misbehavior but are referred to other authorities instead of the juvenile courts.

The ruling drew praise from groups that had asked the justices to uphold the authority of judges to use contempt authority as a “last resort” against habitual truants.

“Had the court ruled otherwise, judges would have been powerless to enforce their orders,” said Michael Rushford, executive director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento. “Now a repeatedly incorrigible youth will find out that he can’t thumb his nose at the court. . . . This puts teeth in a judge’s order.”

Fresno County Public Defender Jose R. Villarreal, who had represented Michael in the case, said he was “somewhat disappointed” by the ruling but said that the Legislature might take new action to try to ensure that juvenile status offenders are not incarcerated.

Villarreal said he was pleased by the court’s decision to order further hearings in Michael’s case. The youth, now 19, had expressed a recent interest to return to school, the defender said.

Susan L. Burrell, staff counsel for the Youth Law Center in San Francisco, denounced the ruling, saying it would tempt hard-pressed school authorities to turn increasingly to the courts to combat truancy.

“If this is now the state of the law in California, then the Legislature should take truancy entirely out of the courts,” Burrell said. “The Legislature had clearly intended that these kids not be locked up.”

Second on Truancy

The decision was the second by the new and more conservative court to uphold efforts to curb school truancy. Last September, the court ruled 6 to 1 that police officers may legally stop and question youths they suspect are truants.

The case decided Monday brought an unusual test of the power of contempt, used for centuries in Anglo-American law, and recently enacted reform legislation seeking to prevent truants and other status-offenders from being mingled with youths who commit crimes.

A “friend of the court” brief filed by the National School Safety Center in behalf of several law enforcement and educational groups and officials cited increasing concern over the high dropout rates in California.

A 1985 study for the Legislature showed that about 30% of California’s 1.4 million high school students were dropping out each year, most of them “chronically truant,” according to the Center brief.

The Center noted further that 119 schools were reporting attrition rates of over 40% and that police data showed that 65% of all daytime burglaries were being committed by truants.

Fresno County prosecutors, supported by the Center and the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, urged the justices to permit juvenile court judges to use their contempt powers to jail habitual truants, if need be, up to the statutory maximum of five days.

They pointed out that Michael, at age 15, had been truant 47 times in 1983 and 1984. Not only had he refused to obey orders from officials to attend school but he also had defied their instructions to report for counseling and community work programs, the prosecutors said.

Called Justifiable

The 48-hour incarceration ordered by the judge was a justifiable “last resort” to use against such habitual truancy, the Fresno authorities said.

Attorneys for Michael argued that the judge’s contempt authority should not be used to achieve the kind of punishment--incarceration-- that was barred by other statutes.

They contended that contrary to claims by the prosecutors, there were alternatives to jailing the youth--such as a fine or temporary detention during school hours in a “non-secure” facility.

A brief in support of the youth filed by the Los Angeles County public defender’s office said that while upholding the contempt power “may bolster judicial egos,” it would not solve California’s truancy problem.