No. 96, Oct. T., 1902
SUPERIOR COURT OF
22
October 7, 1902, Argued
February 11, 1903, Decided
OPINION: W. D. Porter, J.,
February 11, 1903:
This proceeding purports to have been commenced and carried on in the court of oyer and terminer and general
jail delivery and the court of quarter sessions of the peace, in the juvenile
court of the
The act in question is the only foundation
for the jurisdiction exercised by the court below, and the only allegation of
authority for the arrest, trial and commitment of this defendant is based upon
the 4th section of the statute, which provides that the jurisdiction may be
invoked by filing "with the clerk of the court having jurisdiction in the
matter, a petition in writing, setting forth facts verified by affidavit."
A petition was presented to the court below setting forth that this defendant,
a boy of about the age of fourteen years, was a delinquent person in this:
"That he broke into a store at
The title of the act is long and complex, but the only part of it which is
material to the consideration of the question here presented is the first
sentence in these words: "An act to regulate the treatment and control of
dependent, neglected and delinquent children, under the age of sixteen years;
providing for the establishment of juvenile courts, and regulating the practice
before such courts." This title contained no intimation that it was the
purpose of the act to deal with the treatment and control of all children, and
the natural and inevitable conclusion of one who read the title was that the
descriptive words were intended to limit and define the classes of children
with which the legislation dealt. All children may be said to be dependent in
the sense that they are the objects of the care of their parents, but the word
could not have that signification here, for it was manifestly used as one of
limitation. The term "dependent and neglected children," as here
used, unmistakably suggests children who are neglected
by their natural protectors and dependent upon the public for the supply of the
necessaries of life. The title of an act must suggest its own meaning, and
cannot by any definition in the body of the legislation be extended to include
what its own words do not imply. When in defining the terms "dependent
child" and "neglected child," in the 1st section of the act, it
was attempted to make them include more than such terms ordinarily suggest and
make certain specific acts by the child, having no relation to the manner in
which the parent took care of his offspring, such as singing, or playing a
musical instrument upon the street, to bring the child within the meaning of
the term "dependent," this expanded the legislation beyond the limits
indicated by the title. Under the provisions of this statute, if it is valid, a
boy who plays a jew's-harp or mouth organ upon the public street becomes a
dependent child, subject to the jurisdiction of the so-called juvenile court
and may, until he is twenty-one years of age, be consigned to the care of some
charitable person or institution. Such charitable individual or institution
would become the guardian of his person, and might, without consulting either parent or child, consent to the adoption of the
latter by a stranger to his blood. The right of parents to rear, care for and
protect their children is natural, but it is not excepted
by the declaration of rights out of the subjects of ordinary legislation. The
legislature might, in a constitutional manner, enact a law which would take
every child in the commonwealth from the protecting care of its parents: Ex parte
Crouse, 4 Whart. 9. The existence of this
power is not to be questioned; the abuse of it would lead to prompt
constitutional restriction. While the right of parents to
the custody of their children is not indefeasible, the legislation which limits
it or takes it away must comply with the requirements of the constitution. The
provisions of the act of 1901, in relation to dependent and neglected children,
went far beyond anything that could reasonably have been inferred from the
title, and the legislation was to that extent invalid: Dorsey's Appeal, 72 Pa. 192;
Union Passenger Railway Company's Appeal, 81 * Pa. 91; Road in Phoenixville, 109 Pa. 44.
When we come to consider the act in its relation to the provision with regard
to delinquent children, the violation of article 3, section 3, of the
constitution: No bill, except general appropriation bills,
shall be passed containing more than one subject which shall be clearly
expressed in its title" is manifest. The title of the act, as applied to
these provisions, is "An act to regulate the treatment and control of
delinquent children." This would indicate a purpose to deal with the
treatment and control of children who have failed to perform some positive
duty. It might refer to the manner in which parents or others to whom the duty was owing should enforce performance or be permitted to
punish the failure. This title conveys not even the most remote intimation that
the legislation changes the whole course of judicial procedure in criminal
proceedings and actions for penalties, in all the courts of the commonwealth,
whether of record or not of record; nor that it changes the punishment or
penalty of every offense, arising at common law or created by statute or
municipal ordinance; yet this is what the act proposes to do.
The 1st section enacts that "the words 'delinquent child' shall include
any child under the age of sixteen years, who violates any law of this state,
or any city or borough ordinance." The 2d section confers upon the courts
of oyer and terminer and
general jail delivery, and the courts of quarter sessions of the peace,
original jurisdiction in all cases coming within the terms of this act. The
10th section provides that when "a delinquent child under the age of
sixteen years is arrested, with or without warrant, such child may, instead of
being taken before a justice of the peace or police magistrate be taken
directly before such (juvenile) court; or, if the child is taken before a
justice of the peace or police magistrate, it shall be the duty of such justice
of the peace or police magistrate to transfer the case to such court. . . . And
in such case the court may proceed to hear and dispose of the case in the same
manner as if the child had been brought before the court upon petition, as
herein provided." The 4th section provides for the inception of the
prosecution by the filing of a petition and affidavit in the court. These
provisions leave no doubt that it was the legislative intention to forbid the
prosecution of any "delinquent" child for the violation of any law of
the state or any city or borough ordinance in any forum other than the juvenile
court, and in any manner other than that provided by this act. The inferior tribunals in which preliminary hearings in all criminal
cases are required by law to be held, are in the cases coming under this act
prohibited from proceeding to a hearing, the cases must be transferred to the
juvenile court. The 5th section provides for the issuance of summons or
warrant, and, after the child and its parent or guardian have been brought in
for the trial, then comes this novel and drastic provision: "On the return
of the summons or other process, or as soon thereafter as may be, the court
shall proceed to hear and dispose of the case in a summary manner." The 2d
section contains a provision that in all trials under the act any person
interested therein may demand a jury trial. The 3d section after regulating the
manner in which trials shall be held and the manner in which a jury, in case
one is demanded, shall be drawn, enacts: "And provided, further, that in
all cases of riot, conspiracy and the like, where two or more persons are
charged with the commission of the joint offense, and one or more of the
persons so charged shall be under the age of sixteen, it shall not be necessary
to hold the trial of such case or cases in the said juvenile court, but the
trial of such offender shall be conducted as heretofore, anything in this act
to the contrary notwithstanding." That it was the legislative intention
that the trial of delinquents under this act should be a trial of the accused
for a specific offense, is by this provision removed from the realm of doubt.
When the offense was necessarily joint, and one of the
offenders did not come within the provisions of the statute, then all were to
be tried under previously existing laws, but for all other offenses those
coming under the provisions of the act must be tried according to its terms, in
the juvenile court. It has been argued that those coming within the operation
of the act may still be prosecuted and punished for criminal offenses in the
ordinary manner, and that the provisions of this statute for the treatment and
control of a delinquent are only to come into operation after the criminal
statutes have been satisfied. The reply to this is that such was not the
legislative intention. In so far as this statute regulates criminal procedure,
the title is positively misleading, and all the provisions which relate to
delinquent children must fall.
The substance of the act, even if the title were sufficient, violates the
fundamental law. The opening sentence of the enactment proclaims that
"this act shall only apply to children under the age of sixteen years, not
now or hereafter inmates of a state institution or any training school for boys
or industrial school for girls, or some institution incorporated under the laws
of this state." The effect of this when considered in connection with the
provisions with regard to delinquent children, is to divide the citizens of the
state into two classes for the purposes of criminal procedure. The first class
embraces all citizens over sixteen years of age and all those under that age
who are inmates of a state institution, or training school for boys or
industrial school for girls or some other institution incorporated under the
laws of this state, which would include all asylums, schools and other public
and private institutions controlled by any incorporated society; the second
class includes all other children under sixteen years of age. When carried into
effect novel results would ensue. Three boys, one sixteen years of age, the
second fifteen years old, being an inmate of some institution incorporated
under the laws of the state, and the third fifteen years of age, but living at
home with his parents, commit the crime of murder; they are all above the age
when the law, which in this respect has not been changed by this act, presumes
responsibility for crime; they are entitled to separate trials; if this statute
can be sustained, then two of them must be tried in the court of oyer and terminer and punished
according to pre-existing laws, but the third must be tried in the juvenile
court and his case disposed of under the provisions of this statute. If the
same boys sell newspapers on Sunday in violation of the act of assembly, or
play ball upon the public street, in contravention of a municipal ordinance,
the first two would be tried before a justice of the peace and escape with a
small fine; the third would go to the juvenile court and remain under the
control of the judges of that tribunal until he was twenty-one years of age,
they having the power to confine him in the house of refuge or some other
institution during that period, and, in the meantime, under the authority of
this statute, he might be legally adopted by some stranger, without the consent
of the boy or any person of his blood. We must hold that this
classification for the purpose of trials for violations of law offends against
the provisions of article 3, section 7, of the constitution, which forbid the
passage of any special law regulating practice and jurisdiction in judicial
proceedings, or granting to any individual any special or exclusive privilege
or immunity.
There is also a grave question whether this act does not come into conflict
with the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the
Should it be held that proceedings against "delinquents" under this
act are not prosecutions for criminal offences, then
the violation of all the constitutional provisions referred to is still clear;
for the statute forbids prosecutions of those within that class in any other
manner.
Larceny is a common-law offense; in
The motives of those whose influence procured this legislation are worthy of
the highest commendation, those who labor to shield the young from evil
influences benefit humanity; but benevolent enterprises must be carried out in
a constitutional manner. The act of 1901 is an exotic, transplanted from a
foreign soil, and sufficient care was not exercised to accommodate it to the
conditions prescribed by our organic law.
The judgment is reversed and it is ordered that the defendant be discharged
from custody.