Miller v. Quatsoe

332 F. Supp. 1269, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11188
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedOctober 19, 1971
DocketCiv. A. 70-C-203
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 332 F. Supp. 1269 (Miller v. Quatsoe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miller v. Quatsoe, 332 F. Supp. 1269, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11188 (E.D. Wis. 1971).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

REYNOLDS, Chief Judge.

This is an application for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to Title 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Petitioner is presently incarcerated in the Wisconsin State Reformatory, having been convicted of armed robbery (Wis.Stats. § 943.32) and sentenced to an indeterminate term of not more than twelve years in the Wisconsin state prisons. Petitioner took no appeal from his conviction for armed robbery but sought a writ of habeas corpus in the Wisconsin Supreme Court on the grounds that Wisconsin unlawfully acquired jurisdiction over him and that the juvenile waiver hearing in which the juvenile court waived jurisdiction over him was defective. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, after an evidentiary hearing, denied per curiam, the application for a writ (Unpublished Opinion Miller v. Quatsoe, Case No. 70-81 (1970)). Petitioner, for the reasons presented to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, now seeks a writ of habeas corpus from this court. The parties have submitted briefs and orally argued the matter before me. For the reasons set out below, I grant petitioner’s application but stay it pending action by the State of Wisconsin.

On April 16, 1968, knowing that Mr. Miller, the petitioner (then age 17 — born September 10, 1950), was in Indiana, the Children’s Court of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, issued a request for the return of petitioner from Indiana to Wisconsin to face allegations of delinquency. On April 18, 1968, detectives from the Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, Police Department took custody of petitioner and returned him to the detention facility at the Children’s Court Center in Wisconsin. Mr. Miller was held without a hearing until April 20, 1968, a Saturday.

*1271 While in custody at the detention facilities, Mr. Miller was apparently involved in some disturbance, and the detention facility personnel wished to remove him. In any event, in the early morning of Saturday, April 20, an assistant district attorney phoned the county judge, and the judge agreed to hold a juvenile waiver hearing for Mr. Miller and two other juveniles. No petition for a waiver hearing was ever served on Mr. Miller, nor were his parents contacted. Pursuant to the judge’s request, an attorney was contacted about 8:00 A.M., and he agreed to act as guardian ad litem for petitioner and the two other juveniles (apparently all three were involved in the same incident). The attorney arrived at the Children’s Court Center at about 8:30 A.M., reviewed the records furnished by the district attorney’s office and Children’s Court Center, and conferred (for the first time) with Mr. Miller and the two other juveniles. On the record before me, all that is known about the files which were reviewed by the appointed attorney is that they were the files of the district attorney and the Children’s Court. What background information they contained about petitioner, a resident of Minnesota who prior to escape was incarcerated in Minnesota’s Circle Pine Boys’ Home, is unknown.

The waiver hearing was commenced at about 9:30 A.M. with neither a clerk nor a court reporter present. An attempt was made to call a court reporter but none was available and the guardian ad litem stipulated that a dictation machine could be used to record the proceedings. The guardian ad litem also informed the court that he was prepared for a hearing. At the hearing, which lasted about an hour and a half, testimony was taken. At the end of the hearing, the judge waived juvenile court jurisdiction over the petitioner after making specific findings to explain his decision to waive. Subsequently Mr. Miller was tried as an adult and convicted of armed robbery. Sometime during the week following April 20, it was discovered that because of either a malfunction or erasure, the tape recording of the waiver hearing could not be transcribed. As a result, the only records of the waiver hearing are the judge’s personal notes taken at the hearing (which are not before me) and the formal order waiving Children’s Court jurisdiction. Neither petitioner nor his guardian ad litem was notified of this discrepancy. At the evidentiary hearing ordered by the Wisconsin Supreme Court pursuant to petitioner’s application for state habeas relief, none of the participants at the waiver hearing had more than a dim recollection of that event.

Petitioner advances four grounds for issuance of a writ: (1) The State of Wisconsin improperly brought petitioner back from Indiana; (2) petitioner was not afforded effective counsel at the waiver hearing; (3) inadequate notice was given petitioner of the waiver hearing; and (4) no reviewable record of the waiver decision was made.

Petitioner’s first ground that Wisconsin improperly brought Mr. Miller back from Indiana is without merit. Even assuming that Mr. Miller’s return to Wisconsin was improper under state or federal law, such impropriety does not impair the power of a court to try a person for a crime. Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 522, 72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541 (1952); United States v. Ruffin, 389 F.2d 76, 77 (7th Cir. 1968); United States v. Hoffman, 385 F.2d 501, 503-504 (7th Cir. 1967); O’Shea v. United States, 395 F.2d 754 (1st Cir. 1968); LaFranca v. Immigration and Natural ization Service, 413 F.2d 686, 689 (2d Cir. 1969); Government of Virgin Islands v. Ortiz, 427 F.2d 1043, 1044 (3rd Cir. 1970); McCord v. Henderson, 384 F.2d 135, 136 (6th Cir. 1967); Sewell v. United States, 406 F.2d 1289, 1292 (8th Cir. 1969); Charron v. United States, 412 F.2d 657, 659 (9th Cir. 1969); Hobson v. Crouse, 332 F.2d 561 (10th Cir. 1964).

*1272 Petitioner’s remaining grounds for issuance of a writ are founded on the supposition that constitutional guarantees of Fourteenth Amendment due process are applicable to juvenile waiver proceedings held pursuant to Chapter 48 of the Wisconsin Statutes. Chapter 48 as it is pertinent to this case is described in Gibson v. State, 47 Wis.2d 810, 815 177 N.W.2d 912, 914 (1970):

“The Children’s Code (ch. 48, Stats.) provides that ‘exclusive jurisdiction’ is vested in the juvenile court over any child who is alleged to be delinquent because he has ‘violated any state law’ (sec. 48.12(1), Stats.). ‘Child’ is defined as a person under eighteen (sec. 48.02(3)). Only if juvenile jurisdiction is waived as provided in sec. 48.18 can a child charged with a crime against the state be prosecuted in an adult criminal court.’’ (Emphasis added.)

The United States Supreme Court in Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 86 S.Ct. 1045, 16 L.Ed.2d 84 (1966), dealt with the juvenile waiver proceedings of the District of Columbia.

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Bluebook (online)
332 F. Supp. 1269, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11188, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miller-v-quatsoe-wied-1971.