Justices to Weigh Parent Misconduct Law : Courts: ACLU is fighting measure that allows prosecution for letting children become delinquents. Paralyzed inmate’s right-to-die case is also accepted.

The California Supreme Court seemed receptive Wednesday to a controversial state law that allows the prosecution of parents whose negligence permits their children to become delinquents.

During a lively session of oral arguments, the justices appeared skeptical of assertions by the American Civil Liberties Union that the law--passed in 1988 at the urging of Los Angeles prosecutors--is too vague.

The court also stepped into a novel right-to-die case examining whether prison doctors can forcibly feed and treat a quadriplegic inmate who has refused such care.

In their first review of the sensitive issue, the justices responded favorably to arguments brought by Howard Kelly Andrews, a convicted murderer who staged a hunger strike in an apparent attempt to die.

“Isn’t this a moral decision that has to be made individually, rather than a government decision?” Justice Edward A. Panelli said during the hourlong hearing.

The parental responsibility law was passed by the Legislature as part of a package of anti-gang measures drafted by former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner and Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn.

Although contributing to a minor’s delinquency has been a crime for decades, the new law specifies that parents can be held criminally liable if their failure to exercise “reasonable care, supervision and control” over their minor children causes or encourages delinquency. Penalties can include a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

The law, which sparked a flurry of interest from other states, was first used in the May, 1989, arrest of a South-Central Los Angeles woman, Gloria Williams. In a widely publicized case, Williams was charged with failing to control a 15-year-old son found guilty in the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl.

Police alleged that Williams joined in her son’s gang activities, citing photographs showing her flashing gang signs and posing with members of the Crips. But charges were dropped after it was learned that Williams had taken a parenting course.

Since then, the city attorney and district attorney in Los Angeles have prosecuted only a handful of parents under the law, most of them chronic truancy cases. But authorities have used the law as a stick to force parents of nearly 1,200 lawbreakers into parenting classes, said Robert Ferber, supervisor of the city attorney’s gang unit.

“Our goal is not to prosecute people, because what good does that really do?” Ferber said. “We want to help parents develop the skills they need to deal with kids today.”

The ACLU, however, sued to void the law in 1989. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge rejected the challenge, but a state Court of Appeal agreed with the ACLU, concluding that the law allows authorities too much discretion in weighing whether parents exercise reasonable control over a child.

Before the high court Wednesday, ACLU attorney Carol Sobel argued that the statute “sets no guidelines or standards,” leaving parents to puzzle over what sort of behavior might land them in jail.

“Every day there is pressure to join a gang, to take colors,” Sobel said. “What is a parent obligated to do in that situation, short of moving away, which most parents are not able to do?”

Several justices sharply questioned this reasoning, with Justice Ronald M. George calling the law’s key language--”reasonable care, supervision and control”--common words that most parents would have little trouble understanding.

The right-to-die case was brought by Dr. Daniel Thor, a physician at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville who treated Andrews. Andrews, 30, who is serving a sentence for second-degree murder, became paralyzed from the shoulders down after he fell or jumped from a third-tier deck at Folsom Prison.

Andrews must be spoon-fed and receives medication to prevent a life-threatening pulmonary embolism. In October, 1991, he began a hunger strike, prompting doctors to feed him through a tube.

Although state laws and decisions by lower courts have upheld the right of mentally competent people to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment, it remains unsettled as to whether people in custody may do so.

On Wednesday, Thor’s attorney conceded that Andrews is mentally competent but argued that prison officials have a legal duty to provide medical care to inmates in their custody.

If they do not and the inmate dies, they risk lawsuits from survivors, said Deputy Atty. Gen. George D. Prince, characterizing physicians like Thor as “damned if they do, damned if they don’t.”

Andrews’ attorney, however, argued that inmates, like other Californians, have a fundamental right to refuse unwanted treatment.

The high court is scheduled to rule on both cases within 90 days.