Commonwealth v. Croft

285 A.2d 118, 445 Pa. 579, 1971 Pa. LEXIS 713

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: December 20, 1971
• Docket: Appeals, 232, 237 to 240
• Status: Published

Opinions

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Jones,

The Court of Common Pleas, Family Court Division, Juvenile Branch, of Philadelphia, adjudged each of the five appellees to be delinquent on various charges but permitted them to remain in their respective homes subject to some form of juvenile probation. Timely petitions for rehearing were filed by each appellee alleging only that “errors of law and/or fact were made at the time of said hearing and that said Order was improvidently made.” Each petition was subsequently denied as the juvenile court judge concluded that a rehearing is discretionary when the juvenile is not removed from his home. On appeal, the Superior Court reversed, two judges dissenting, and held that a rehearing was mandatory even with these limited forms of probation. Moore Appeal, 217 Pa. Superior Ct. 206, 269 A. 2d 395 (1970). We granted the Commonwealth’s petitions for allocatur.

These appeals do not present the question of a constitutional right to a rehearing; nor is there present any question of the denial of a juvenile’s right to appeal. “The action of the juvenile court is always subject to appellate review and correction for errors of law or abuse of discretion.” Holmes Appeal, 175 Pa. Superior Ct. 137, 146, 103 A. 2d 454, 459 (1954); aff’d, 379 Pa. 599, 109 A. 2d 523 (1954), cert. denied, 348 U.S. 973 (1955).

The sole question of law presented by these appeals is whether a rehearing, following a probation order, is mandatory or discretionary under Section 15 of The Juvenile Court Law (Act of June 2, 1933, P. L. 1433, §15, 11 P.S. §257) which provides:

“Within twenty-one (21) days after the final order of any judge of the juvenile court, committing or placing any dependent, neglected or delinquent child, such child shall, as a matter of right, by his or her parent or parents or next friend, have the right to present to the court a petition to have Ms or her case or cases reviewed and reheard, if, in the opinion of such parent, parents, or next friend, an error of fact or of law, or of both, has been made in. such proceedings or final order, or if the said order has been improvidently or inadvertently made.

“Upon the presentation of such petition the court shall grant such review and rehearing as a matter of right.” (Emphasis added.)

The juvenile court judge relied on our language in Com. v. McIntyre, 435 Pa. 96, 98, 254 A. 2d 639, 641 (1969), that, “‘committing or placing’ as used in 11 P.S. §257 envisions an order of the juvenile court judge ‘placing’ the juvenile in a home or institution.” As correctly demonstrated by the Superior Court, McIntyre is inapposite as it involved the issue whether a rehearing is mandatory following the juvenile court’s certification of the case to the criminal court. Such certification does not “commit” or “place” the juvenile and, moreover, certification is not a final order.

We also agree with the Superior Court’s determination that an order of the juvenile court allowing a juvenile to remain at home subject to some form of probation is a “final order”. We similarly recognize and approve the Superior Court’s conclusion that even limited forms of probation “constitute some interference with the adjudicated youth’s civil liberty.” 217 Pa. Superior Ct. at 208, 269 A. 2d at 396. However, none of these legal principles resolve the pivotal issue posed by these appeals: Hoes a juvenile court order allowing the delinquent youth to remain at home subject to some form of probation constitute a final order committing or placing the juvenile which entitles the juvenile to a rehearing as a matter of right?

Prom our examination of the entire Juvenile Court Act, we conclude it was not the legislative intent to grant rehearings as a matter of right from this type of order. Although the Act nowhere specifically defines “allow”, “place”, or “commit”, such a distinction is drawn by Section 8 of The Juvenile Court Law (Act of June 2, 1933, P. L. 1433, §8, as amended, 11 P.S. §250) which deals with permissible orders after adjudication. Whereas Section (a) of that statute vests the juvenile court with power to “alloio a child to remain in its home . . . subject ... to the supervision and guardianship of a probation officer.” (emphasis added), the remaining sections refer to orders which "commit a child” (emphasis added), to the care of an individual, institution or school. Thus, a child is not “committed” on probation when he is allowed to recer. In our view, a juvenile is “committed” or “placed” main at home under the supervision of a probation offionly when the child is taken from the custody of his or her parents or guardian.

A second and important reason for this interpretation concerns the great impact of the Superior Court’s statutory construction on the administration of juvenile court justice. This point is graphically illustrated by reference to the following table of dispositions by the juvenile court of Philadelphia.¹

Discounting miscellaneous cases—the vast majority of which are cases that have been dismissed, discharged or held open without further action²—it is evident that probation is the overwhelming method of disposition of delinquency adjudications by the juvenile court of Philadelphia. If each juvenile released on probation were to demand and receive a rehearing, the impact on the courts of this Commonwealth would be staggering. Nothing in our case law or The Juvenile Court Law requires such a meaningless misallocation of limited judicial resources especially when the petitions for rehearing merely allege that “errors of law and/or fact were made at the time of said hearing and that said Order was improvidently made.”

Although we earlier concluded that the teaching of McIntyre did not cover this situation, we do achieve the identical result in a different context: “ ‘committing or placing’ as used in 11 P.S. §257 envisions an order of the juvenile court judge ‘placing’ the juvenile in a home or institution.” 435 Pa. at 98, 254 A. 2d at 641. Accordingly, we are of the opinion that a juvenile allowed to remain at home subject to probation is not entitled to a rehearing as a matter of right. We do wish to emphasize, however, that our ruling does not affect the juvenile court’s discretionary power to grant rehearings when the best interests of the juvenile would be served by such a rehearing.

The orders of the Superior Court are reversed and the orders of Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Family Court Division, Juvenile Branch, are affirmed.

¹

2 Choosing 1970 as a representative year, 9,408 eases were dismissed, discharged or pending as compared to 9,858 cases in the total category of miscellaneous cases.