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Ida BROWN et al., Appellants, v. Joseph YELDELL et al.

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit1973-11-29No. No. 72-1847
487 F.2d 1210

Summary

Holding. The court affirmed the District Court's denial of appellants' federal habeas corpus petitions, holding that their constitutional claims challenging the CINS reclassification were unavailing in light of the D.C. Court of Appeals' decision and that appellants suffered no present harm cognizable under habeas corpus law.

Brown and Johnson were committed as dependent wards by the D.C. Juvenile Court in the 1960s and placed at Cedar Knolls School. After the Court Reorganization Act of 1970 prohibited housing neglected and delinquent children together, a judge ordered a hearing on their continued detention. At that hearing, conducted without their notice or presence, they were reclassified as Children In Need of Supervision (CINS) and transferred to Maple Glen School. Their appointed attorney did not object to this reclassification.

Appellants filed federal habeas corpus petitions arguing their CINS commitments violated their Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to notice and presence. The D.C. Court of Appeals had previously determined that the CINS hearing was not legally required, meaning appellants should be viewed as continuing in their original dependent ward status. The federal appellate court affirmed the District Court's denial of their habeas petitions, finding their constitutional claims unavailing given the state court's decision. The court also noted that appellants suffered no present harm cognizable by habeas corpus, since their two-year CINS commitments had expired and the CINS designation itself had been invalidated by the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Whether CINS commitment hearing conducted without notice or presence of detainees violated Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights
  • Whether appellants could obtain federal habeas relief for reclassification during an allegedly unnecessary state court proceeding
  • Whether mootness and lack of present harm bar habeas corpus relief when original commitment period has expired

Procedural posture

Appellants' writs of habeas corpus were denied by the District Court; the D.C. Court of Appeals had previously affirmed dismissal of state habeas corpus petitions; appellants appealed the federal District Court denial to the federal appellate court.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

PER CURIAM:

These appeals are from denials of both appellants’ writs of habeas corpus by the District Court. 28 U.S.C. § 2241 et seq. Appellant Brown in 1967, and appellant Johnson in 1963, were committed as “dependent wards of the court,” 11 D.C.Code § 1551 (1967), by what was then called the District of Columbia Juvenile Court. Pursuant to their commitments, appellants were eventually sent to the Cedar Knolls School, a facility for delinquent youths. After the D.C. Court Reorganization Plan of 1970, Pub.L. 91-358, 84 Stat. 473, those designated “neglected children” (the new statute’s equivalent of “dependent wards”) could not be confined in the same facility as “delinquent children.” 16 D.C.Code 2320(b). As a result, Judge Braman of the D.C. Superior Court ordered, sua sponte, a hearing regarding the continued detention of appellants, and others similarly situated, at Cedar Knolls. In a hearing before Judge Ryan of the Family Division of the Superior Court, appellants were recommitted for two years as “Children In Need of Supervision” (CINS), and sent to the Maple Glen School. (The CINS classification was created under the Court Reorganization Act as an intermediate category between “neglected” and “delinquent” children. 16 D.C.Code § 2301.) Apellants were not notified of the hearing, nor were they present. They, and several others, were “represented” by an attorney who had been appointed shortly before the hearing, and who acquiesced in all the CINS dispositions.

Appellants then filed writs of habeas corpus in D.C. Superior Court alleging that their CINS commitments were in violation of their constitutional and statutory rights. The Superior Court dismissed their writs. On appeal, the D.C. Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal. It found that the hearing which classified appellants as CINS “was one not required by law,” and therefore they “must be viewed as continuing in the [dependent ward] status previously determined by the Juvenile Court.” I.B. v. D.C. Dep’t of Human Resources, D.C.App., 287 A.2d 827, 829-830 (1972).

Appellants next moved for writs of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that their commitments as CINS were in violation of their fifth amendment rights to notice and their sixth amendment rights to be present at the hearing. The District Court sum marily denied their writs without stating its reasons.

We affirm the District Court’s denial of appellants’ petitions because their constitutional claims are unavailing in light of the decision by the D.C. Court of Appeals. -Appellants maintain that they continued to suffer harm as a result of the CINS adjudication, despite the D.C. Court of Appeals -decision. They contend that they were confined in a facility in which they could not hav.e otherwise been kept, and appellant Brown claims that her commitment was extended seven and one half months because of the order issued pursuant to the hearing. The proper remedy in these circumstances, as the opinion of the D.C. Court of Appeals noted, was “an appropriate action delineating the issues” in Superior Court. 287 A.2d at 830. In any event, appellants suffer no present harm cognizable by a writ of habeas corpus. The two year commitments ordered at the inoperative CINS hearing have now lapsed. And, since their CINS status was invalidated by the D.C. Court, they can suffer no adverse “collateral consequences” as a result of that designation. See Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 88 S.Ct. 1556, 20 L.Ed.2d 554 (1968).

Affirmed.