Detention Required / Not Eligible for Bond
A youth subject to a warrant issued under ICJ jurisdiction is not eligible for bond. Moreover, ICJ Rule 7-104(4) specifically prohibits any court or paroling authority in any holding state from releasing a juvenile in custodial detention to bail. Given that the ICJ and its rules carry the weight of statutory law in every member state, the “not eligible for bond” provision of ICJ Rule 7-104(4) is equivalent to statutory law promulgated by that state’s legislature. See Interstate Compact for Juveniles, art. IV (2008).
The bond-ineligibility provision in ICJ Rule 7-104(4) is not novel. In fact, state constitutions generally prohibit or significantly limit eligibility of bail for adjudicated or convicted offenders, including adjudicated delinquents. This is also the case with regard to adult offenders under similar requirements of the Interstate Compact for Adult Offender Supervision (ICAOS). The rationale for denial of bail to both adjudicated juveniles and convicted adult offenders has been concisely stated in Ogden v. Klundt, 550 P.2d 36, 39 (Wash. Ct. App. 1976)(“Absent express statutory authorization, the courts of Washington are without power to release on bail or bond a parolee arrested and held in custody for violating his parole.”) See ICJ Ad. Op. 01-2022 (Interstate Comm’n for Juveniles 2026).
ICAOS also provides that a parole violator shall be held and makes no provision for bail or bond. The person on parole remains in constructive custody until his sentence expires. Restated, their liberty is an extension of their confinement under final judgment and sentence. Whether the convicted person is in actual custody within the prison walls or in constructive custody within the prison of his parole, the rule is unchanging; there is simply no right to release on bail or bond from prison.”). Moreover, officials in a receiving state have been held to be bound by no bail determinations made by officials in a sending state under the predecessor statute to ICAOS. See, e.g., State ex rel. Ohio Adult Parole Auth. v. Coniglio, 610 N.E.2d 1196 (Ohio Ct. App. 1993) (probationer transferred from Pennsylvania and could not be released on personal recognizance as Ohio authorities were bound under the Compact by Pennsylvania decision as to consideration of probationer for release). States have recognized the propriety of the “no bail” requirements associated with ICAOS, even where there was no expressed prohibition. In State v. Hill, 334 N.W.2d 746 (Iowa 1981), the State Supreme Court held that Iowa authorities were agents of Nevada, the sending state, and that they could hold the parolee in their custody pending his return to Nevada. The trial court’s decision to admit the offender to bail notwithstanding a prohibition against such action was reversed. In Ex parte Womack, 455 S.W.2d 288 (Tex. Crim. App. 1970), the court found no error in denying bail to an offender subject to retaking as the Compact made no provision for bail. See also Aguilera v. California Department of Corrections, 247 Cal.App.2d 150 (1966); People ex rel. Tucker v. Kotsos, 368 N.E.2d 903 (Ill. 1977); People ex rel. Calloway v. Skinner, 300 N.E.2d 716 (N.Y. 1973); Hardy v. Warden of Queens House of Detention for Men, 288 N.Y.S.2d 541 (N.Y. Sup. 1968); January v. Porter, 453 P.2d 876 (Wash. 1969); Gaertner v. State, 150 N.W.2d 370 (Wis. 1967).
These concepts are equally compatible with Supreme Court guidance in cases involving juvenile detention. In Schall v. Martin, supra. the United States Supreme Court noted that ajuvenile’s “interest in freedom from institutional restraints . . . must be qualified by the recognition that juveniles, unlike adults, are always in some form of custody. Children, by definition, are not assumed to have the capacity to take care of themselves. They are assumed to be subject to the control of their parents, an if parental control falters, the State must play its part as parens patriae.” 467 U.S. 253, 265 (1984). Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court reiterated that juveniles do not enjoy the same level of constitutional protection as adults.
But adjudicated youths cannot be held indefinitely. See Windsor v. Turner, 428 P.2d 740 (Okla. Crim. App. 1967) (offender on parole from New Mexico who committed new offenses in Oklahoma could not be held indefinitely under the compact and was therefore entitled to writ of habeas corpus when the trial in Oklahoma would not take place for a year and New Mexico authorities failed to issue a warrant for his return). See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481, 488 (1972) (“The revocation hearing must be tendered within a reasonable time after the parolee is taken into custody. A lapse of two months, as respondents suggest occurs in some cases, would not appear to be unreasonable”). See also Doggett v. United States, 505 U.S. 647, 651 (1992) (‘delays of less than a year (between indictment and trial) are as a general matter constitutionally adequate . . .’); accord Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530 (1972).
PRACTICE NOTE:
The ICJ and its rules impose upon the member states (including courts of a member state) an absolute prohibition against admitting a juvenile to bond when the home/demanding state enters a warrant into NCIC as “not eligible for bond.”