Bill for Paddling Vandals Clears Assembly Committee

Prodded by growing public dismay over graffiti, a key Assembly committee approved a landmark bill Tuesday allowing juvenile court judges to punish youthful vandals by ordering they be whacked up to 10 times with a wooden paddle.

If enacted, the measure would reinstitute court-ordered corporal punishment in the United States for the first time in more than four decades, legal scholars say.

The Assembly Public Safety Committee voted 4 to 1 for the bill by Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange), who was inspired by the recent caning in Singapore of an American teen-ager for spray-painting cars.

Conroy’s measure appeared to face long odds in the Public Safety Committee, which historically has been a graveyard for hard-nosed GOP anti-crime efforts. But two Democrats joined with a pair of Republicans to push the legislation forward.

It still must survive another committee hearing and an Assembly floor vote, where Speaker Willie Brown has vowed to defeat the bill, before it can move to the Senate. Gov. Pete Wilson has indicated he supports the bill but has not said he would sign it.

The Public Safety Committee added a sunset clause requiring the Legislature to renew its approval after paddling is given a three-year trial run.

The committee endorsed the measure despite vocal opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union and other foes, who questioned the measure’s constitutionality and effectiveness while calling Conroy’s effort election-year posturing.

“The beating of offenders as a form of punishment runs contrary to the fundamental notions of decency in our justice system,” said Francisco Lobaco, ACLU legislative director. “It’s really not the way to solve the issue. State-sponsored violence is not an answer or a solution. I think it’s a horrible idea.”

Cathy Dreyfuss, legislative advocate for California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, described the bill as “court-sanctioned child abuse.” MaryAnn Memmer of the California PTA said Conroy’s proposed punishment would prove profoundly ineffective: “Hard-core gang criminals will not be deterred by a swat from a paddle.”

Conroy, however, portrayed his legislation as a firm way to steer errant youths away from destructive, gang-related activities such as violence and drugs. He also cited the high cost of graffiti cleanup and paraded half a dozen experts before the committee to provide vivid testimony about the violent intentions gang members sometimes express through graffiti.

“By spraying their gang markings and taggings all over their communities, these hoodlums commit the worst of all crimes possible--they create an environment of fear and despair for the innocent, law-abiding citizens living in these afflicted neighborhoods and communities,” Conroy said. “As many residents who live in such areas will tell you, once the graffiti moves into their communities, the crime and violence is quick to follow.”

He said residents of California cities are “fed up with the coddling of juvenile graffiti vandals” and suggested his bill would provide “quick, effective and decisive punishment” to taggers who thumb their noses at existing laws.

Conroy contends traditional forms of punishment, such as putting juvenile offenders in California Youth Authority facilities, are seen by hardened teen-agers as a “badge of honor” and do little to curb problems with graffiti.

Conroy’s bill would allow a judge to order a parent to deliver four to 10 strokes with a wooden paddle in the courtroom. If the parent declined or the judge found the force of the spanking unsatisfactory, a bailiff would do the paddling. The paddle would be three-quarter-inch-thick hardwood, 18 inches long and six inches wide with a six-inch handle.

In addition, the bill requires that the names of juvenile offenders who get the paddle be made public, a tactic designed to heighten the humiliation and deter other would-be vandals.

Conroy began pursuing the idea after being prodded by constituents and staff members caught up in the highly publicized debate over the Singapore case. Michael Fay, an 18-year-old high school senior from Dayton, Ohio, got four strokes of a rattan cane May 5 after being found guilty of vandalism in the island nation in the South China Sea.

Some critics worry that Conroy’s proposal and similar ideas circulating in Florida, Maryland and Texas could begin to tug the country back toward a style of court-ordered punishment abandoned decades ago.

Many critics cite research showing that corporal punishment can lead to embitterment, anger and post-traumatic stress while teaching impressionable youths the contradictory lesson that violence is the way to solve problems.

The constitutionality of Conroy’s bill remains in the eye of the beholder. The California legislative counsel, which provides legal opinions to state lawmakers, said that Conroy’s bill is unconstitutional, but the staff counsel for the Public Safety Committee said the issue remains “an open question” and that there is “no bright line” setting the limit for what is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

Conroy also has been particularly optimistic because U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia--the intellectual leader of the court’s conservative wing--predicted in a recent talk that caning, a far more brutal form of punishment than paddling, could pass the high court’s muster.

Although paddling is outlawed in California schools, the practice remains legal in public schools in 23 states. Many legal scholars say the constitutionality of school paddlings is an issue distinct from corporal punishment for juvenile offenders, but Conroy argues that youngsters would be guaranteed more solid protections in a court of law than in a schoolroom.

Even as Conroy pushed his proposal, opponents were confident that the bill would be defeated in committee--until Tuesday.

“I thought it had no chance,” said Dreyfuss of the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice. “Now people are going to have to wake up. There’s a lot of opponents out there who thought this bill was so stupid they wouldn’t have to make it an issue. I think they now understand that this is possibly going to get out. Now we really have to come to our senses and fight the bill.”