Bernier v. State - The Right to Counsel in Entrustment Revocation Proceedings

Theodore Bernier was adjudicated a juvenile offender in September, 1966, and was subsequently committed to the Boys Training Center (BTC) for the term of his minority. In February, 1968, he was released on entrustment to his parents. Almost a year and a half later, Bernier was questioned by local police regarding his possible involvement in the theft of greenstamps from a local store. Although he was released without the police taking further action, they notified an aftercare and placement worker assigned to the BTC of the questioning. As a result, the BTC revoked the entrustment, and the police took him into custody for return to the Center. He subsequently was returned without a hearing and the original indefinite commitment was reinstated. To seek relief Bernier filed an action in state court for post-conviction relief. Bernier contended in his writ that the entrustment revocation without a hearing and in the absence of counsel violated the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, and he also complained that because state probationers and parolees received a statutory hearing, the entrustment procedure discriminated against him in violation of the equal protection clause. Additionally, Bernier argued that the statute from which the superintendent of the BTC derived his authority to revoke entrustments was impermissibly vague. Following dismissal of the writ, appeal was taken to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The court answered the vagueness claim by maintaining that upon commitment to the BTC, the juvenile's rights were defined by the state in its role as parens patriae. The lack of specificity of the superintendent's powers under the statute was considered irrelevant because he properly possessed unlimited discretion to act for the juvenile's best interest., Although the court recognized that Maine statutes required hearings for probation and parole revocations, it found this right grounded within the statute rather than the Constitution. Hence, the failure to provide juveniles with a hearing and counsel at entrustment revocation did not contravene due process or equal protection because probation and parole violators also had no right to a hearing and counsel beyond the statutory grant. The court left unresolved defendant's procedural due process argument that the entrustment revocation by the superintendent of the BTC so as to effectuate indeterminate confinement was unconstitutional because it constituted an imposition of sentence without the presence of counsel.