Justices to Review Parental Responsibility Law : Delinquency: High court agrees to decide constitutionality of measure. It makes mothers and fathers liable for their children’s criminal behavior.

The California Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide the constitutionality of a novel state law that allows the prosecution of parents who willingly allow their children to become delinquents.

The justices, granting a review of an appeal by Los Angeles officials, set aside a ruling last December by a state appellate court, which found that the 1988 parental responsibility law was impermissibly vague.

The Legislature passed the law--the first of its kind in the nation--as part of a package of anti-street gang measures drafted by Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn and Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner. The law served as a model for similar legislation in other states and municipalities.

The statute makes parents and guardians criminally liable if their failure to exercise “reasonable care, supervision and control” over a minor child causes or encourages delinquency. Violators can receive up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

The high court action came in a brief order signed by Justices Stanley Mosk, Armand Arabian, Marvin R. Baxter and Ronald M. George--the minimum number required for review by the seven-member court. No hearing date was set.

The order was welcomed by Hahn as a sign that the justices will decide to uphold the statute. “This law is an important part of the whole strategy to drive a wedge between criminal street gangs and children in California,” Hahn said. “If we let parents know they are going to be held responsible when their children are arrested, we can make a difference.”

Carol A. Sobel of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, an attorney for a group challenging the law, said the measure goes too far in extending parental responsibility for the acts of their children.

“We’re hopeful that when the court takes a full look at this issue, it will agree the Court of Appeal was correct in striking down the law,” Sobel said.

The first use of the law provoked widespread debate in May, 1989, when a South-Central Los Angeles woman, Gloria Williams, was arrested on charges that she failed to adequately control a 15-year-old son found guilty of joining in the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl.

Police said that Williams was involved in her son’s gang and that they had found photos showing her posing with members of the Crips, flashing gang signs.

But charges were dropped when it was learned that Williams had completed a course on becoming a better parent. The law allows parents to avoid prosecution by seeking education, treatment or rehabilitation services.

Los Angeles authorities have temporarily ceased prosecutions but have continued to persuade hundreds of parents of delinquents to attend parental education and training classes, said Deputy City Atty. R. Bruce Coplen. Only a few prosecutions have been reported elsewhere while the law has been under court challenge, Coplen said.

ACLU attorneys filed suit for a group of taxpayers in July, 1989, saying that the law failed to adequately define what actions by parents could send them to jail. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald M. Sohigian rejected the challenge. In December, a state Court of Appeal held the law unconstitutional.

The panel warned that the law’s vague provisions were open to “abuse and mischief” because authorities were left too much discretion to decide whether parents exercised “reasonable” control over a child.

“Even the most dedicated, intelligent and responsible parents may disagree on how to raise a child, and may spawn, in spite of themselves, a delinquent child,” Appellate Justice Reuben A. Ortega wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Vaino Spencer and Miriam A. Vogel.

In a subsequent appeal, Hahn and Reiner urged the high court to revive the law, saying that there was a point where lack of parental supervision would lead minors to delinquency--and that the state should be allowed to punish such conduct by parents.

Lawyers for the ACLU asked the justices to affirm the appellate ruling. Even the best of homes may produce children who commit crimes, the ACLU said, and it was improper to try to punish parents for the delinquency of their children.