COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND RELEASED October
5, 1995 |
NOTICE |
A party may file with the Supreme Court a petition to review an
adverse decision by the Court of Appeals.
See § 808.10 and Rule 809.62,
Stats. |
This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound
volume of the Official Reports. |
No. 95-1860
STATE OF WISCONSIN IN
COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT IV
IN THE
INTEREST OF KRYSTAL G.J.,
A
PERSON UNDER THE AGE OF 18:
STATE
OF WISCONSIN,
Petitioner-Respondent,
v.
KRYSTAL
G.J.,
Respondent-Appellant.
APPEAL
from orders of the circuit court for Rock County: J.R. LONG, Judge. Affirmed.
VERGERONT,
J.[1] Krystal
G.J., a minor, appeals from an order imposing a sanction on her for violating
two conditions of a dispositional order entered after she was found delinquent,
and from an order denying her motion to vacate the sanction. The sanction imposed was twenty days in
secured detention with credit for one day served, ten of those days to be
served on weekends, commencing March 3, 1995, and nine days stayed until November
2, 1995. Krystal argues that the sanction
violates § 48.355(6), Stats.,[2]
because that statute authorizes the imposition of no more than ten days in
secured detention, even though two conditions of the dispositional order were
violated. Krystal also argues that the
trial court did not have the authority to stay imposition of any part of the
sanction. We conclude that
§ 48.355(6) authorizes a court to impose a separate sanction for each
condition violated and that the court had the authority to stay imposition of
any part of the sanction or sanctions imposed.
We therefore affirm the trial court orders.
The
delinquency petition alleged that Krystal intentionally gave a false alarm to a
public officer or employee by means of a fire alarm system, contrary to
§ 941.13, Stats. After a consent decree was entered, the
State petitioned for revocation of the consent decree alleging that Krystal
skipped school on September 16, 1994, and ran away from home on September
17 and 18, 1994. The court reinstituted
the proceedings on the delinquency petition and found Krystal delinquent. The court-ordered terms of supervision,
entered on November 2, 1994, included among other conditions, these two: (1) "You are ordered to obey the
curfew set for you by the Probation Department. Your curfew is 9:00 p.m. on week nights and 11:00 p.m. on
weekends. Your parents may set a
stricter curfew;" and (2) "Unless legally excused, you [must]
attend school all day and maintain an acceptable behavior record and acceptable
grades."
On
February 20, 1995, the State moved for the imposition of sanctions on
Krystal. The motion alleged that
Krystal was a runaway from home, not returning home on February 2, 1995
through February 19, 1995; and that she had therefore violated the curfew
condition and the school attendance condition.
The State requested as a sanction twenty days' secured detention with
ten days stayed.
At
the hearing on the State's petition, Krystal admitted the allegations. Her counsel argued that twenty-five hours of
community service for each violation would be more appropriate than secured
detention. But if the court saw fit to
order detention, her counsel requested that detention be on weekends so that
Krystal would not get further behind in her schooling. The court imposed as a sanction twenty days
in secured detention, with one day credit.
Ten days were ordered to be served beginning after the hearing, and the
remaining nine days were stayed until November 2, 1995.[3] In imposing the sanction, the court
emphasized to Krystal how dangerous it is for a person her age (Krystal was
then seventeen) to run away from home and be with "people who may or may
not have any interest in seeing whether you live or die."
Krystal
filed a motion to vacate the nine-day sanction on the ground that the court did
not have the authority under § 48.355(6), Stats., to impose any more than ten days in secured
detention. The trial court denied the
motion. This appeal followed.[4]
This
appeal presents a question of statutory interpretation, a question of law that
we decide de novo. In re
Leif E.N., 189 Wis.2d 480, 484, 526 N.W.2d 275, 276 (Ct. App.
1994). The purpose of statutory
construction is to ascertain the intent of the legislature, and our first
resort is to the language of the statute itself. Kelley Co. v. Marquardt, 172 Wis.2d 234, 247, 493
N.W.2d 68, 74 (1992). If the words of
the statute convey the legislative intent, that ends our inquiry. We will not look beyond the plain language of
a statute to search for other meanings; we will simply apply the language to
the case at hand. Id.
Section
48.355(6)(a), Stats., provides
that "[i]f a child who has been adjudged delinquent violates a condition
specified in sub. (2)(b)7., the court may impose on the child one of the
sanctions specified in par. (d)."
There are four different sanctions listed in para. (d), and secured
detention for not more than ten days is one of the listed sanctions.
Krystal
argues that the statutory language is ambiguous because there are two
reasonable interpretations. One
interpretation is that each violation of a condition in a dispositional order
may be sanctioned by a ten-day period of secured detention; if there is more
than one violation, more than one ten-day period of secured detention may be
imposed for each violation. The other
reasonable interpretation, according to Krystal, is that when there are
multiple violations, no more than one ten-day period of secured detention may
be imposed for all violations.
We
do not agree with Krystal that there is more than one reasonable interpretation
of § 48.355(6)(a) and (d), Stats. The plain language of para. (a) permits the
imposition of "one of the sanctions specified in par. (d)"
when a child "violates a condition." (Emphasis added.) There
is no hint in the language of either para. (a) or para. (d) that the trial
court may impose only one sanction at a time or one sanction regardless of the
number of violations of conditions.
Krystal
appears to contend that because both the violation of curfew and the violation
of school attendance took place during the time that she ran away from home,
only one sanction should be imposed.
However, there are two distinct conditions--one relating to evening
curfew and one relating to school attendance--and there was distinct conduct on
Krystal's part that violated each of the two conditions. The failure to be home at night by curfew
involves different conduct than the failure to attend school during the day.
Krystal
argues that § 48.355(6g), Stats.,[5]
relating to contempt procedures for "a 2nd or subsequent violation of a
condition" of the dispositional order, demonstrates that the trial court
was authorized to impose only one sanction on Krystal for the two conditions
violated. We disagree. The fact that the legislature authorizes the
increase of consequences for the second and subsequent violations of a
condition does not indicate that a separate sanction may not be imposed for the
first violation of each condition.
Krystal
points out that unless § 48.355(6)(a), Stats.,
is limited as she contends, it would be possible for the State to seek a
separate sanction of ten days in secured detention for each night Krystal
failed to return home by curfew and each day Krystal failed to attend school,
leading to an excessive period in detention.
The answer to this concern is that the State did not seek to impose such
a sanction. Appellate courts may set
aside, as a misuse of the trial court's discretion, the imposition of a
sanction that constitutes an unreasonable use of secured detention. In re B.S., 162 Wis.2d 378,
396, 469 N.W.2d 860, 867 (Ct. App. 1991).
However, the imposition of one ten-day secured detention for all the
curfew violations that occurred while Krystal was a runaway and one ten-day
secured detention for all the truancy violations that occurred while Krystal
was a runaway is not, we conclude, a misuse of the trial court's discretion.
Krystal
also contends that the trial court did not have the authority to stay the
imposition of the nine-day sanction because § 48.355(6), Stats., does not expressly permit
this. We reject this argument. The purpose of the trial court's stay of the
nine-day period in detention was to permit Krystal to demonstrate compliance
with the conditions of the dispositional order thereby, perhaps, obviating the
need to serve the additional nine days.[6] Since, as we have held, the trial court had
the authority to impose this additional nine-day sanction, it also had the
authority to stay it rather than require Krystal to serve it immediately.
By
the Court.—Orders affirmed.
This
opinion will not be published. See
Rule 809.23(1)(b)4, Stats.
[2] Section 48.355(6), Stats., provides in part:
Sanctions
For Violation Of Order. (a) If a child who has been
adjudged delinquent violates a condition specified in sub. (2)(b)7., the court
may impose on the child one of the sanctions specified in par. (d) if, at the
dispositional hearing under s. 48.335, the court explained the conditions to
the child and informed the child of the possible sanctions under par. (d) for a
violation.
....
(d) The
court may order any one of the following sanctions:
1. Placement
of the child in a secure detention facility or juvenile portion of a county
jail that meets the standards promulgated by the department of corrections by
rule, for not more than 10 days and educational services consistent with his or
her current course of study during the period of placement.
2. Suspension
of or limitation on the use of the child's operating privilege, as defined
under s. 340.01(40), or of any approval issued under ch. 29 for a period of not
more than 90 days. If the court
suspends the child's operating privileges or an approval issued under ch. 29,
it shall immediately take possession of the suspended license or approval and
forward it to the department that issued it, together with the notice of
suspension.
3. Detention
in the child's home or current residence for a period of not more than 20 days
under rules of supervision specified in the order. An order under this subdivision may require the child to be
monitored by an electronic monitoring system.
4. Not
more than 25 hours of uncompensated community service work in a supervised work
program authorized under s. 48.34(9).
[4] With her notice of appeal, Krystal filed a
motion for a three-judge panel and a motion to shorten the time periods for
briefing so that this appeal could be decided before November 2, 1995. We granted the motion to shorten the appeal
deadlines and denied the motion for a three-judge panel, stating that we would
consider whether we should, on our own motion, decide the appeal as a
three-judge panel following the submission conference. We determine that this case is appropriate
for disposition by one judge.
[5] Section 48.355(6g), Stats., provides in relevant part:
Contempt
For Continued Violation Of Order. (a) If a child upon whom the court has imposed a sanction under sub.
(6)(d) commits a 2nd or subsequent violation of a condition specified in sub.
(2)(b)7., the district attorney may file a petition under s. 48.12 charging the
child with contempt of court, as defined in s. 785.01(1), and reciting the
disposition under s. 48.34 sought to be imposed.
[6] This is the purpose the State ascribes to the
stay in its brief and Krystal does not contend otherwise in her reply. A position asserted by a respondent on
appeal and not disputed by the appellant's reply is taken as admitted. See Schlieper v. DNR, 188
Wis.2d 318, 322, 525 N.W.2d 99, 101 (Ct. App. 1994).