Suit Challenges Daytime Curfew

A coalition of private school and home-schooled children and their parents sued Monrovia on Monday, alleging that the city’s curfew law--among the toughest in the nation and the model for dozens of anti-truancy statutes--is unconstitutional.

The Monrovia law, which allows police to hand out $125 tickets to truants, has been credited with reducing truancy by at least 44% and was singled out by President Clinton last year as a model program.

But some parents and students disagree and claim they have been unfairly targeted by the law because their educational schedules vary from those of the public schools.

“Curfews are a tool of martial law and are designed to bring people under control who are living in a war zone,” said Michael Farris, president of the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Assn. “We don’t believe that the All-American city of Monrovia is a war zone.”

The Monrovia law allows police to stop unsupervised youths between the ages of 12 and 17 who are in public places between 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on school days. If they are found to be truant, they can be cited for a $125 fine or 27 hours of community service.

The lawsuit is thought to be the first in the nation targeting daytime curfews, and is the latest step in an ongoing battle between advocates of daytime curfews and parents whose children do not attend public school. In Orange County, plans for anti-truancy laws modeled after Monrovia’s have fallen amid strenuous opposition from private schools and home-schoolers. The California Assembly is considering a statewide daytime curfew.

Because Monrovia “touts itself as the mother of all curfews” and spreads them with “missionary zeal,” opponents decided to target the Monrovia ordinance in an attempt to nullify all daytime curfews, Farris said.

Farris was accompanied to Los Angeles Superior Court by several parents and students who said in court documents that police harassment ranges from the mundane to the bizarre:

Melinda Isenberger, 15, was stopped by two officers in an unmarked car on her lunch break from Calvary Road Baptist Church. The home-schooled Harrahill brothers, Jess and Ben, have been stopped by police 20 times in the past nine months--and were once forbidden from going to the store by an officer. And Rachella Rodarte, a 21-year-old high school graduate, was stopped by officers who didn’t believe she was out of high school. She had to call her mother to prove to police she was an adult, Farris said.

None of the plaintiffs in the suit have been wrongfully cited, thanks in part to an orange card children in nontraditional schools carry to identify themselves to police. Still, Farris said, “People who have to explain themselves to the police don’t live in a free society.”

Monrovia Mayor Bob Bartlett defended the law. “I think parents and children should be grateful that people care,” he said. Monrovia Police Chief Joseph Santoro said he believed his officers have acted constitutionally and children legally away from school have nothing to fear.