49 N.Y.2d 328 | NY | 1980
OPINION OF THE COURT
We hold that subdivision 2-a of section 753-a of the Family Court Act, which provides for mandatory restrictive placement of the State’s most violent juvenile offenders, is constitutional. However, an error in the fact-finding stage of this proceeding mandates reversal of appellant’s juvenile delinquency adjudication.
The statute under attack here provides that, where a youth between 14 and 15 years of age is found to have committed a designated felony act involving the infliction of serious physical injury upon a person who is 62 years of age or more, the Family Court is required to order restrictive placement of the juvenile in a secure facility operated by the Division for Youth
Before addressing the constitutional challenge, the relevant statutory scheme should be outlined. Alarmed at what was perceived to be a dramatic increase in crime by seemingly remorseless juveniles, and in an attempt to deal more effectively with these juveniles without surrendering them to the criminal justice system, the Legislature enacted the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 1976 (L 1976, ch 878). The purpose of the juvenile justice system was redefined to direct the courts to consider "the needs and best interests of the [juvenile] as well as the need for protection of the community” (Family Ct Act, § 711; see People ex rel. Wayburn v Schupf, 39 NY2d 682, 687). The act accommodates the needs of the juvenile and society at large by affording the offender intensive rehabilitative treatment, albeit in a setting removed from his previous environment (see, generally, Gottfried, Barsky & Baron, Juvenile Crime: Report of Recommendations and Summary of Findings, NYS Assembly Comm on Child Care [1976]).
Perhaps the most significant change made by the Juvenile Justice Reform Act is availability of restrictive placements for those juveniles found to have committed a designated felony act. In most cases, restrictive placement is ordered where the court, after a dispositional hearing, finds that the juvenile requires such placement (Family Ct Act, § 753, subd 1; § 753-a, subd 2). But where a juvenile is found to have committed a designated felony act which causes serious physical injury to a person 62 years of age or older, the court must restrictively place the juvenile without regard to the availability of other alternatives for treatment (id., § 753-a, subd 2-a). The majority of restrictive placements are composed of three distinct phases during which the juvenile is afforded rehabilitative and thera
Appellant maintains that the mandatory aspect of subdivision 2-a of section 753-a transgresses both his procedural and substantive rights. This argument proceeds on the premise that during the adjudicatory stage of a juvenile proceeding the juvenile surrenders some of the basic rights which are available in the criminal justice system. Notable among these are the right to trial by jury (McKeiver v Pennsylvania, 403 US 528), bail (People ex rel. Wayburn v Schupf, supra) and indictment (see Matter of Vega v Bell, 47 NY2d 543). This relinquishment, appellant maintains, imposes a correlative duty on the State to furnish treatment in the least restrictive setting appropriate to the juvenile’s individualized needs as well as the needs of the community. The statute, however, renders the presentation of evidence at the dispositional hearing an empty ritual except for the limited purpose of determining the initial duration of secure confinement. This loss of liberty with no evidence that the restrictive placement was necessary for community safety or appropriate for his needs constitutes, according to appellant, a deprivation of due process.
In assessing appellant’s due process challenge, it is well to remember that the primary thrust of article 7 of the Family Court Act is treatment and rehabilitation, rather than deterrence or retribution — concerns traditionally associated with criminal law (see Mack, The Juvenile Court, 23 Harv L Rev
At the same time, however, it must be remembered that proceedings such as this are, at the very least, quasi-criminal in nature (Matter of Gregory W., 19 NY2d 55, 62). While supervision and even confinement of the juvenile is aimed primarily at rehabilitation, the incapacitative and deterrent aspects of restrictive placement cannot be disguised. Any restrictive placement necessarily combines, in varying degrees, elements of deterrence, punishment and rehabilitation. Enactment of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act, where the Legislature recognized that confinement of juveniles, whose conduct endangers the public safety as a legitimate State concern, acknowledges this fact. Good intentions on the part of the court and flexible vocabulary as to the goals of the juvenile justice system do not alter this reality.
Thus, restrictive placement is a deprivation of liberty which the State may not accomplish without first affording appellant due process of law. But given a finding beyond a reasonable doubt (Family Ct Act, § 744, subd [b]), that appellant committed acts which would have been felonious if committed by an adult, appellant’s liberty interest has been diminished to the point where utilization of a rehabilitative program requiring restrictive placement is not violative of due process unless the selection of that program lacks a rational basis or its application constitutes cruel and unusual punishment (cf. Meachum v Fano, 427 US 215, 224). Thus, the notion that, in the postadjudicative stage, therapeutic treatment in the least restrictive setting is the cornerstone for an adjudication of juvenile delinquency is rejected. It is unnecessary to decide whether there is some right to treatment within the confines of the due process clause (compare Matter of Lavette M., 35 NY2d 136, 142, and Rouse v Cameron, 373 F2d 451, 452-456, with O’Connor v Donaldson, 422 US 563, 578-579 [Burger, Ch. J., concurring]), as it is undisputed that restrictively placed juveniles are indeed being afforded treatment.
In making this determination, moreover, the Legislature is certainly competent to take into account not only the rehabilitative needs of the juvenile himself, but also the nature . of his offense and the interests of the community. Thus, in mandating restrictive placement for youths such as appellant, the Legislature may be assumed to have recognized that for many juveniles treatment in the very environment that spawned the delinquency is inimical to vigorous rehabilitative efforts. For some, treatment in an institution removed from the setting in which the previous misconduct occurred is a more suitable alternative. Mandatory restrictive placement of those who prey on the elderly additionally affords the community a measure of protection from its most violent children while affording those children the individualized treatment they so desperately require (see Executive Law, §§ 515-a, 516).
Appellant’s equal protection argument is bottomed on the assumption that the discriminatory treatment visited upon juveniles who perpetrate crimes against the elderly may only
In enacting subdivision 2-a the Legislature was entitled to take into account not only the rehabilitative needs of juveniles but the special problems juvenile crime poses to the elderly as well. As stated, the elderly are peculiarly susceptible to crimes of violence for age has, to a large extent, diminished their physical capacities marking them out as easy prey for the criminally disposed. The Legislature thus could reasonably conclude that juveniles who prey upon the elderly present a problem requiring unique treatment. In this regard, it is important to recognize the means selected by the Legislature are directed at conduct deemed to present a special and serious problem and amounts to a considered policy choice by that branch of government vested with the power to make that selection (cf. Corbitt v New Jersey, 439 US 212).
Equal protection does not demand that classifications be ideal. Indeed where the Legislature undertakes to act in areas fraught with rehabilitative and sociological uncertainties, courts are reluctant to intervene. This is true in part because legislative policy entails an assessment of contemporary standards and community needs. This deference is enhanced with the recognition that specification of the nature of treatment to be afforded miscreant juveniles is peculiarly one within legislative parameters.
Notwithstanding the constitutionality of subdivision 2-a of section 753-a of the Family Court Act, an error of magni
Prior to the fact-finding hearing, Family Court was aware that both appellant and his alleged accomplice, one Darrell R, had made statements inculpating themselves in criminal activity. Though both statements were subsequently ruled voluntary and hence admissible, their content was markedly different. Darrell admitted that on the date complainant was robbed he had taken $15 from an elderly woman matching complainant’s description at her address in a manner consistent, to a fault, with that in which complainant was robbed. Darrell indicated that appellant had assisted him in perpetrating the robbery. Appellant’s statement, however, was appreciably less detailed than that of his cohort. While appellant admitted taking an undisclosed sum of money from a woman, he did not identify the date, time, location or the victim of the transaction. Moreover, while Darrell admitted striking complainant in a manner consistent with her testimony, appellant specifically denied inflicting any injuries upon the victim. Complainant could identify neither of her attackers.
Family Court denied appellant’s motion to sever and, over strenuous objection, ruled that the confessions were interlocking so that the two statements could be "read together and * * * supply the sufficient connection” to the offenses charged in the petition. Even given the dubious assumption that the two statements were in fact interlocking (see People v McNeil, 24 NY2d 550; Parker v Randolph, 442 US 62), it is a fundamental principle of evidence that, with limited exceptions not relevant here, a confession may be considered only against its maker (People v Payne, 35 NY2d 22, 26; People v Jackson, 22 NY2d 446, 450; People v Ryan, 263 NY 298, 305; People v Fisher, 249 NY 419, 432). In some cases, the court may avoid the necessity for a severance, by forcefully cautioning the trier of fact that admissions of one defendant may not be considered against another (compare People v Safian, 46 NY2d 181, with Bruton v United States, 391 US 123).
Here, however, rather than receiving each statement into evidence only against its maker, the court expressly stated that Darrell’s confession could be used to supply critical details absent from the statement of petitioner. This ruling mandates reversal.
Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be
Judges Jasen, Gabrielli, Jones, Wachtler, Fuchsberg and Meyer concur.
Order reversed, etc.
The essence of procedural due process is that a person must be afforded notice and an opportunity to be heard before government may deprive him of liberty or a recognized property interest (Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v Craft, 436 US 1, 9; Board of Regents v Roth, 408 US 564, 577). Since Family Court may not order restrictive placement until after it affords a juvenile a statutorily required dispositional hearing on notice (Family Ct Act, §§ 743, 746, 753), the statute fully comports with procedural due process strictures.
