Scope of Juvenile Courts' Contempt Authority

Facts of the Case

On the day of his birth, both Nolan W. and his mother, Kayla W., tested positive for amphetamines. Ms. W. admitted to using drugs and alcohol during her pregnancy and agreed that she needed residential treatment. The San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency then filed a juvenile dependency petition asserting that her substance usage constituted neglect of her child. The child was placed with a maternal aunt, and Ms. W. agreed to participate in a reunification plan. She was then ordered to obtain drug treatment through the San Diego County Court's Substance Abuse Recovery Management System (SARMS), a court-implemented substance abuse treatment program. The juvenile court warned Ms. W. that if she did not follow the program she could be held in contempt and sentenced to five days in jail for each violation of the court-ordered treatment. The contempt and incarceration authority relied on by the juvenile court was pursuant only to a local county court rule (Superior Court San Diego County Local Rule 6.1.19).

On July 31, 2006, her first day in SARMS, Ms. W. tested positive for methamphetamine and was instructed to take part in counseling sessions. Over the next month, she continued to be out of compliance with the requirements of the SARMS program. She missed both counseling sessions and drug testing appointments. Further, she failed to appear for scheduled court hearings. Her failure to participate in the SARMS program resulted in her removal from the program on October 18, 2006. Her inability to adhere to the program was a significant breach of the reunification plan that had been set out at the time that the juvenile court took jurisdiction of her child. Ms. W. appeared in court on December 4, 2006, for a hearing related to a petition to change her son's placement. At that time, she admitted to her SARMS violations and was found in criminal contempt of court on 60 counts of noncompliance and sentenced to five days each per violation. Enforcement of this 300-day incarceration sentence was deferred pending her enrollment and compliance with a residential drug treatment program. She failed to comply with the mandated treatment, and she failed to appear at a contested six-month review hearing. The juvenile court then terminated reunification services and set the matter of Nolan for a permanency planning hearing.

Ms. W. was subsequently arrested and returned to court. The court then imposed the 300-day sentence, notwithstanding arguments from her attorney and Nolan's guardian ad litem (GAL) that the sentence should not be imposed because she was no longer receiving any reunification services and that the reunification program had ended. Indeed the court was moving forward toward termination of her parental rights. Despite that, the juvenile court then enforced the previously deferred criminal contempt sentence and ordered Ms. W. to 300 days in custody because she “broke her promise” of entering treatment (Nolan, p 459). Ms. W. served only 32 days of an ordered 75-day sentence, as counsel was successful in arguing that further confinement was worthless, because reunification services had been terminated. The juvenile court expressed its intent to impose future contempt sentencing for noncompliance.

Ms. W. then appealed the contempt order by a petition to the court of appeal. The appellate court noted jurisdiction, since the juvenile court had not vacated its contempt order and the dependency proceedings had not reached finality. The court of appeal ruled that the 300-day sentence, imposed after reunification services were terminated, was an abuse of discretion. It did not reach the broader question as to whether a juvenile court had the authority to impose a criminal contempt sentence on a parent for failure to comply with a voluntary reunification plan.

With the broader question of the juvenile court's claim of contempt authority left unanswered by the appellate court, Ms. W. then petitioned the California Supreme Court for review of two issues: whether a juvenile court has authority to require a parent to participate in a drug abuse program as part of a reunification plan and whether the state's Welfare and Institution Code authorizes contempt charges and incarceration for noncompliance with a reunification plan.

Ruling and Reasoning

The supreme court began its analysis of the incarceration of the parent due to contempt by reviewing the law relating to the contempt power of the courts, noting that the contempt power is inherent to the courts to allow them “…to exercise a reasonable control over all proceedings connected with the litigation before it …” (Nolan, p 462). The court then noted that its precedents allowed for the incarceration of juveniles who violated lawful orders (In re Michael G., 747 P.2d 1152 (Cal. 1988)). It went on to distinguish the incarceration of minors, who fall directly under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, from that of parents, over whom it has jurisdiction only by reason of the court's jurisdiction over the child. The court then noted that its means of obtaining a parent's compliance with a court order is by making compliance a condition of reunification of child and parent. Because only the child becomes the ward of the juvenile court, the power to incarcerate as found in In re Michael G. applies only to the child, not the parent.

Thus, any jurisdiction that the court has over parents is ancillary to its jurisdiction over the child. In dependency proceedings, the juvenile court has the authority to issue orders to parents, but the leverage for compliance with those orders is the juvenile court's power to affect and determine whether there will be parent-child unification. The supreme court went on to note that reunification is not a compelled process and that a parent's participation in a reunification plan is voluntary (Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 361.5(b)(14)).

The supreme court next ruled that there was no California published appellate authority bearing on the juvenile's court power to punish parents for noncompliance with reunification orders. The court observed that “reunification orders are unlike orders in other types of civil cases” and “reunification orders also differ from court orders in criminal cases” (Nolan, p 463). Citing the unique nature of the exercise of contempt powers against parents in reunification orders and observing that a parent's participation in the reunification process is voluntary, the supreme court held that the imposition of a criminal contempt punitive incarceration of a parent for failure to participate in a voluntary reunification plan exceeded the powers of the juvenile court. Indeed the court implied that the imposition of a criminal (punitive as against civil) contempt sanction violated the parent's constitutional rights. “The routine imposition of criminal contempt sanctions for noncompliance with SARMS underscores the troubling aspect of injecting punitive measures into reunification. Dependency proceedings are not designed to prosecute parents” (Nolan, p 467).

The court then held: Rule 6.1.19 of the San Diego Superior Court Local Rules is disapproved to the extent that it calls for imposition of a fine or jail sentence under the mechanism of contempt solely for the purpose of punishing a parent's failure to comply with a condition of a reunification case plan [Nolan, p 467].

The court also held that the juvenile court could issue orders for a parent's participation in the SARMS program for drug abuse treatment, but consistent with its holding on punitive contempt, it held that the sanction for a parent's noncompliance with such orders would be the negative impact that the noncompliance would have on the likelihood of reunification, an impact potentially leading to termination of parental rights.

Discussion

This case explores the scope of the juvenile court's contempt power in its ancillary jurisdiction over parents as it pursues the goal of family reunification. In In re Nolan W., the California Supreme Court specifically addressed the juvenile court's use of criminal contempt merely to punish a parent who failed to comply with certain orders of the court. Specifically, the punitive power was used after the goal of reunification had been foreclosed by the court. The California Supreme Court held that neither the inherent powers of the juvenile court nor any state statute relating to that court permitted the punitive jailing of parents. There is an odd but familiar symmetry between Nolan and the U.S. Supreme Court landmark case concerning the powers of juvenile courts. In In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967), the Supreme Court examined and critiqued the way in which juvenile courts exercised their authority over juveniles. The Court found that juveniles were sometimes treated harshly and that the juvenile courts sometimes acted in an arbitrary and unfettered exercise of judicial decrees. The Gault decision strictly limited the juvenile courts' power over juveniles by providing them basic due process protections. In Nolan, the California Supreme Court limited the juvenile court's arbitrary exercise of the contempt power over parents by simply taking away that power.

The Supreme Court of California did not object to the juvenile court's decision to mandate treatment; the disagreement is focused on how to enforce a reunification order. In fact, the supreme court noted that there is an appropriate use of contempt orders when directly imposed on juveniles (In re Michael G.), holding that the juvenile courts have the power to enforce their orders. In an interesting dissenting opinion in In re Nolan W., which recognizes that reunification services are not mandated and need not be provided to a disinterested parent, the argument was made that the use of criminal contempt over parents might be justified as furthering the over-arching goal of family reunification, for example in punishing a parent for failure to participate in a drug treatment program. The dissent argues that if there are no adverse consequences such as punitive jailing, the power of the juvenile court is marginalized and it will be less able to achieve its basic goals.