In re Ellery C.

40 A.D.2d 862, 337 N.Y.S.2d 936, 1972 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3296
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedNovember 27, 1972
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 40 A.D.2d 862 (In re Ellery C.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Ellery C., 40 A.D.2d 862, 337 N.Y.S.2d 936, 1972 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3296 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

In a proceeding under article 7 of the Family Court Act, in which appellant was previously adjudged to be a person in need of supervision, the appeal is from an order of the Family Court, Kings County, ■ entered April 5, 1972, which directed that appellant be placed in the New York State training school. Order affirmed, without costs. The record reveals that appellant, who is now 15 years old, was adjudged a person in need of supervision in March, 1971. He was placed on probation for one year by an order dated April 15, 1971, but probation was revoked four months later for his violations. He was paroled to his uncle in Alabama for four months, but he returned home in two weeks. He was remanded to a Juvenile Center for placement planning, but this was unsuccessful. He was then referred to the Federal Addiction Services, but he voluntarily left that program. Other efforts to place him with the Samaritan Half-Way House and Alpha House were also unsuccessful. Finally, in April, 1972 after his mother indicated again that she could not control him, the order appealed from was entered. In placing appellant in the State Training School, the Family Court followed the recommendation, of the Probation Department. We are of the opinion that that was the proper course to follow. If any substantiation was needed, it was supplied on oral argument of this appeal, when this court was advised that appellant has run away twice from the temporary shelter where he has been staying pending this appeal. Where, as here, every effort to place the infant in question in a nonstructured facility meets with failure, the only suitable environment ” (see dissenting memorandum), unfortunately, is the confinement of a State Training Center (see Matter of Tomasita N., 37 A D 2d 698, affd. 30 N Y 2d 927). Munder, Latham and Christ, JJ., concur; Shapiro, J., dissents and votes to reverse the order and remit the proceeding to the Family Court for the purpose of placing appellant in a suitable environment (Family Ct. Act, § 756, subd. [a]), with the following memorandum, in which Rabin, P. J., concurs: The infant appellant, now a little over years of age, suffers from a drug, alcohol and mental problem. He has beehs,adjudioated a person in need of supervision on the petition of his mother. He has not, however, been adjudicated a juvenile delinquent and there has [863]*863been no finding that he ever committed any act which, if done by an adult, would constitute a crime (Family Ct. Act, § 742). The distinction between a finding of delinquency and a determination of a need for supervision is a fundamental one which may not be disregarded. Section 743 of the Family Court Act provides that a “ dispositional hearing ” in the case of a petition for delinquency is one to determine whether the respondent requires supervision, treatment or confinement, whereas such a hearing in a need-for-supervision case is to determine whether the respondent requires supervision or treatment. The omission of the word “confinement” is no mere oversight, as the Second Report of the Joint Legislative Committee on Court Reorganization (McKinney’s 1962 Session Laws, p. 3428) makes clear. In that report the committee said (pp. 3435-3436): “ The decision not to authorize a commitment in the case of a person in need of supervision is an important element of the statutory pattern. Any commitment—whether ‘civil’ or ‘criminal’, whether assertedly for ‘ punitive ’ or ‘ rehabilitative ’ purposes — involves a grave interference with personal liberty and is justified only by urgent reason. This urgent reason has not been shown in the instance covered by the statutory definition of ‘person in need of supervision’ * * * There is a second reason for this decision. The Committee has been advised by many persons that existing facilities for children are not wholly satisfactory. Demands on limited space, staff and facilities have increased with the rapid expansion of our young population since the end of World War II. Under normal circumstances, institutionalization presents difficulties. With increased demand not fully met, it becomes even more difficult to realize not in theory, but in practice, the asserted purposes of commitment in these cases. These facts, in the Committee’s judgment, make it even more difficult to justify a commitment in the absence of delinquency as defined here.” The committee also stated that “the common understanding is that such an adjudication [of delinquency] involves a youth who commits crimes and requires supervision, treatment or commitment ” (p. 3434). It also said that the proposed redefinition of “ juvenile delinquent ” and creation of the category of “ person in need of supervision ” grew out of its review of the then existing definition of delinquency, the procedures in the Children’s Courts and Domestic Relations Courts, and the practices with respect to detention and commitment (p. 3434). The committee also noted that it had been asked “to avoid the need for an adjudication of ' delinquency ’ ” by the expedient of not using that term or any similar name in describing the occasions for the exercise of the court’s jurisdiction, but that it rejected the proposal because it feared that the practical result “would be an indiscriminate grouping of all children within the court’s jurisdiction as ‘delinquent’” (p. 3435). The committee therefore decided “to retain, but redefine, the category of juvenile delinquency and add the new category of person in need of supervision” (p. 3435). It went on to express the expectation “that this pattern will reduce the instances of stigma and at the same time permit the court to use appropriate resources in dealing with persons in need of supervision” (p. 3435; italics supplied). Here, as in Matter of Lloyd (33 A D 2d 385) and in Matter of Jeanette P. (34 A D 2d 661), the learned Family Court Judge was faced with a dilemma and was doubtless trying to do “the best that he could for the appellant in a well-nigh impossible situation ” (Matter of Lloyd, supra, p. 386). This case, as did Matter of Jeanette P. (supra, p. 661), “points up again the increasingly urgent need for proper facilities to provide adequate supervision and treatment for infants found to be persons ‘ in need of supervision ’ pursuant to subdivision (b) of section 712 of the Family Court Act.” Although the Legislature, after first interdicting the [864]*864commitment to State Training Schools of young people in need of supervision on the basis of the finding that such facilities are hardly a beneficial haven for them, allowed such disposition of them as a stopgap measure for four successive years (L. 1964, ch. 518 [one year]; L. 1965, ch. 126, § 1 [one year]; L. 1966, ch. 705, § 1 [two years]) and thereafter permanently authorized such a disposition (L. 1968, ch. 874, § 1), it did so without in any way retracting the completely sound reasons which originally had led it to ban such action. In fact this court, .as recently as April, 1970, in Matter of Jeanette P. (34 A D 2d 661, supra), in speaking of the desirable effect of the statutory command that a person in need of supervision he given “supervision and treatment”, not “confinement”, quoted from Matter of Gault (387 U. S. 1, 27), in which the court said: “ The fact of the matter is that, however euphemistic the title, a ‘ receiving home ’ or an 1 industrial school ’ for juveniles is an institution of confinement in which the child is incarcerated for a greater or lesser time.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

In re the Commissioner of Social Services ex rel. Peter R.
171 Misc. 2d 278 (NYC Family Court, 1996)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
40 A.D.2d 862, 337 N.Y.S.2d 936, 1972 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3296, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-ellery-c-nyappdiv-1972.