## Facts

- Fifteen-year-old Hulda Marcum was called as a witness in a Mingo County circuit court proceeding involving George Marcum.
- George had been arrested on a warrant charging him with rape (statutory rape) of Hulda, and the court was conducting a hearing on George’s request for bail.
- Hulda testified that she did not have sexual intercourse with George.
- On cross-examination, Hulda testified that she had engaged in sexual intercourse with another man, described as a member of the armed forces near her home, but she refused to identify him.
- At the conclusion of the bail hearing, the circuit court admitted George to bail and immediately sentenced Hulda to the West Virginia State Industrial Home for Girls at Salem.
- Hulda was placed in the Mingo County jail to await transportation to the institution.
- No indictment, arrest warrant, juvenile petition, or other formal pleading was filed to charge Hulda or to initiate a delinquency proceeding against her.
- After the commitment order, Hulda’s parents retained counsel, who asked the circuit judge to grant Hulda a jury trial and to release her (including into her parents’ custody pending trial); the court denied these requests, and counsel renewed them the next day with the same result.
- Hulda, as relator, filed an original petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia against Elmer Ferrell, Sheriff and Jailer of Mingo County, challenging the legality of her detention under the commitment order.
- The Supreme Court of Appeals issued the writ and required the sheriff to produce Hulda and show cause for her detention.

## Issues

1. Whether a circuit court has jurisdiction to commit a 15-year-old to the State Industrial Home for Girls based on testimony given as a witness in an unrelated criminal matter, when no juvenile petition (or comparable initiating process) was filed and the statutory procedure for juvenile delinquency was not followed.
2. Whether habeas corpus is an available remedy to obtain release when the confinement rests on a commitment order alleged to be void for lack of jurisdiction and lawful procedure.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia granted habeas corpus relief and ordered Hulda Marcum discharged from custody.
- The Court held that the circuit court’s summary action committing Hulda to the State Industrial Home for Girls was void because it was not taken through the procedure required by law for adjudicating and committing a juvenile.
- The Court concluded that habeas corpus properly lies when a person is restrained under an order entered by a court without jurisdiction or under a proceeding that is void, and that standard was met here.

## Legal Principles

- Habeas corpus is an appropriate remedy when a person is detained by order of a court that lacks jurisdiction, or when the proceeding under which the person is held is void.
- A circuit court may not commit a juvenile to a state industrial home through a summary order entered in the course of another case; jurisdiction to adjudicate delinquency and impose commitment depends on compliance with the statutory method for bringing the child before the court.
- Where no indictment, warrant, petition, or other lawful initiating process exists to charge the juvenile and start delinquency proceedings, the court does not acquire authority to impose an institutional commitment, and the resulting order is void.
- Detention based solely on a void commitment order is unlawful restraint and requires release in habeas corpus.

## Conclusion

Because Hulda Marcum was committed to the State Industrial Home for Girls immediately after testifying as a witness, without any juvenile petition or other lawful initiating process and without the required statutory procedure, the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to order her commitment; the commitment was void, and habeas corpus was properly granted to secure her discharge.


State ex rel. Marcum v. Ferrell, 83 S.E.2d 648 (1954)