247 N.E.2d 335 | Ohio Ct. App. | 1969
In this case in Juvenile Court, the judge heard and determined delinquency status of two juveniles without a jury. Only one appealed. In lower terms, the charge was abusing a police officer, resisting arrest and assault and battery.
Under the existing law of Ohio, the trial judge was within his authority. He was equally within his authority in deciding the case on what he deemed to be the preponderance of the evidence.
There was substantial evidence in support of conflicting versions of the facts. This posed a classic instance in which the trier of the facts had the right and the duty to resolve the evidential dispute by weighing and assessing the credibility of the witnesses. This the trial judge did, saying specifically that he credited the police version of the facts and not that of the respondent and his witnesses. On the record here, having in mind that sufficient *98
proof in a juvenile status inquiry presently requires only a preponderance, the evidential conclusions of the trial judge meet the standards of Hamden Lodge v. Ohio Fuel Gas Co. (1934),
One of the issues saved by the appellant is the question of a right to a jury trial in a delinquency hearing in Juvenile Court. Another not raised, but which we may notice under our duty to see justice done, State v. Domer (1964),
Only recently has the Supreme Court of the United States vouchsafed to juveniles, tried in state courts to determine delinquency, some of the constitutional rights which the state procedure in a similar case would necessarily extend to adults charged with crime as a matter of due process or equal protection. In re Gault (1967),
Despite the forecasts which Gault and Duncan might support, the Supreme Court of this state has not departed significantly from the traditional view that proceedings under Juvenile Acts are essentially civil in nature, are not trials in the usual sense (thus the quantum of proof required is a mere preponderance of the evidence) and the constitutional safeguards of Section
The case which we now affirm exemplifies the fiction which allows the elision from "crime" to "delinquency" where a child is involved. In the present case, the respondent, although charged in terms of adult statutes for misdemeanors (Section
Nevertheless, as an intermediate Court of Appeals we stand between what the court immediately superior to us has done and the anticipation of what the highest court in the land may do. This is no limbo. Our place in the judicial hierarchy clearly requires us to follow the rule of our immediate superior unless and until the Supreme Court of the United States changes the rule or gives a clearer signal that it will. This it has not done. With deference, but reluctance, we conclude that juveniles in this state, whose status is tested on matters criminal in adults, have no right to a jury trial nor to have their condition measured by standards of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt." "The condition of being a boy" still spells less procedurally than the condition of being a man in otherwise identical circumstances.
The judgment below is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
SILBERT, C. J., and WASSERMAN, J., concur.