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• Title: Matter Arthur M.
• Author : Supreme Court of New York
• Release Date : January 12, 1970
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 54 KB

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[34 A.D.2d 761 Page 761] The order of adjudication was based upon a finding that appellant had committed acts which if done by an adult would have
constituted the crimes of burglary and arson. Since the sole evidence connecting appellant with the acts of arson and burglary
consisted of testimony by an accomplice to those acts, the delinquency adjudication, as the Corporation Counsel forthrightly
concedes, may not be sustained. To deny to appellant the safeguard of section 399 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that accomplice
testimony be supported by independent proof linking the accused to the crime, would be to deprive the juvenile of fair treatment
and equal protection of the law. The testimony of an accomplice does not become more reliable because the accused is a juvenile
rather than an adult. In fact, the necessity for supporting evidence is even more essential in view of the nature of the juvenile
proceedings. Tried informally without a jury, the finding that appellant committed arson will prejudice him for a lifetime.
Upon a hearing on a charge of juvenile delinquency there must be a full compliance with due process requirements. (People
v. Fitzgerald, 244 N. Y. 307; Matter of Steven B., 30 A.D.2d 442; Matter of Lang, 60 Misc. 2d 155.) The Corporation Counsel,
while acknowledging that the absence of corroborative evidence would seem to require that the petition be dismissed, argues
that otherwise the evidence established the acts charged "by a preponderance of the evidence." This assertion was made prior
to counsel having seen the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in the Matter of Samuel Winship (397 U.S. 358, revg.
24 N.Y.2d 196). The Supreme Court holds in Winship that subdivision (b) of section 744 of the Family Court Act of this State*
is unconstitutional and that a finding of guilt in a delinquency proceeding must rest upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
"In sum," Justice Brennan for the court declared, "the constitutional safeguard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is as much
required during the adjudicatory stage of a delinquency proceeding as are those constitutional safeguards applied in Gault
-- notice of charges, right to counsel, the rights of confrontation and examination, and the privilege against self-incrimination.
We therefore hold, in agreement with Chief Judge Fuld in dissent in the Court of Appeals, 'that where a 12-year-old child
is charged with an act of stealing which renders him liable to confinement for as long as six years, then, as a matter of
due process * * * the case against him must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt." Reviewing the adjudication of juvenile delinquency
in the light of the law as it presently exists (People v. Loria, 10 N.Y.2d 368, 371), the order is reversed and the petition
dismissed.

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