Facts
Concerning Mountain Park and Missouri Legal Statutes:
In the Interest of M. I.,
a Minor, No. 58,159, Supreme Court of Mississippi, 519 So. 2d 433; 1988
(January 27, 1988, Decided)
From this hearing the
special referee appointed to the case entered an order adjudicating the home to
be a detention center within the meaning of the Youth Court Act, § 43-21-315
(1972), and the Rev. Wills to be its custodian of law. This order was not
contested in the years following, and the [*435] designation of the facility as
a detention center is admitted on appeal.
FACT:
Bob Wills knew that he was founding a juvenile detention facility in Missouri
when he opened Mountain Park, and that was his full intent after being run out
of the State of Mississippi: Because of Bob Wills moving to Missouri and taking
children out of the State of Mississippi without reporting the removal to the
court, a complaint and motion was filed with the U.S. District Court requesting
that Bob Wills be charged with criminal contempt of court for Bob Wills failure
to abide by a Consent Decree.(EXHIBIT #1) These events are aptly set forth in
two newspaper articles:
|
September 6, 1987
Officials, students sought HATTIESBURG,
Miss. (AP) -- A lawsuit has been reopened against Christian Life Baptist
Boarding Academy, the object of scrutiny by state and federal courts, and
Forrest County officials are trying to locate its operators and pupils. |
|
|
|
"We're
investigating as the result of being told no girls are out there,"
county prosecutor Tom Zachary said Friday. The school was
established almost a year ago by Central Baptist Church in buildings
originally used by the Rev. Bob Wills for the Bethesda Home for Girls, a home
for troubled teen-agers that was closed by the state after allegations of
abuse. A woman who
answered the phone at Christian Life Academy said she was taking Wills'
messages and he might be back next week. She didn't identify herself. The Rev. C.R.
Williams, pastor of Central Baptist, said Friday he didn't know where Wills
and the students were but expected them back. "I'm in
contact with them," Williams said. "They're on tour now. They're
traveling several states, they're in and out of here." Wills was found
in civil contempt of court last Oct. 13 by Special Youth Court Judge Michael
Ward for failing to comply with earlier court orders. Those orders required
Wills to provide Youth Court with the names and addresses of all residents.
Ward also established guidelines for the operation of the home and school. When the contempt
petition was filed against Wills, the state Welfare Department assumed
temporary custody of about 110 girls until their parents could take them home.
The resulting controversy led the Rev. Jerry Falwell to hold a "Freedom
Rally" at Central Baptist in October. The school also
operates under an order issued last December by U.S. District Judge Myron
Thompson. The order approved a consent decree governing privileges of the
residents and ended a civil lawsuit begun in 1982 by the Southern Poverty Law
Center on behalf of a girl at Bethesda. Morris Dees,
founder of the Law Center, said the case has been reopened with a motion
asking Thompson to find Wills in criminal contempt of court. "From the
evidence that we've gathered, Bob Wills has violated the consent decree by
failing to inform the girls of their rights," Dees said. Wills has 14 days
from Thursday to respond to the motion. He said Wills
hasn't given copies of the federal court order to parents enrolling girls in
the school and that the girls' telephone calls have been monitored in
violation of the order. Wills has been
unavailable for comment, although officials said he apparently is in
Piedmont, Mo. Personnel at
Victory Baptist Academy in Piedmont had a telephone number where Wills could
be reached. A woman who answered at that number asked who was calling, came
back on the line and said, "He isn't available." She refused to
answer any questions, saying, "I don't give out information." |
MINISTER RAN SCHOOL BEFORE BAPTIST ACADEMY
March
29,1996
Copyright
© 1996, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
by
Tim O'Neil of The Post-Dispatch staff
A Baptist minister whose
school for troubled youths was the site of a killing had closed a similar
school in Mississippi in 1987 after losing a lengthy battle with that state.
The Rev. Bobby Wills and
his wife, Betty Wills, run the Mountain Park Baptist Church and Boarding School
about 12 miles east of Piedmont, in southeastern Missouri. On Monday afternoon,
a 16-year-old male student was found slain outside the boys' dormitory. Three
fellow students were arrested.
The school is in Wayne
County, about 110 miles south of St. Louis.
The victim, William
Andrew Futrelle II, 16, of Boca Raton, Fla., is to be buried today in
Wilmington, N.C. Investigator's said Futrelle's throat had been cut and his
head had been beaten. They found a 4-inch knife, club and brick near his body.
Anthony G. Rutherford,
18, of Siloam Springs, Ark., was held without bond on charges of first-degree
murder and armed criminal action. Two 15-year-old fellow male students from
California may also face charges as adults.
Investigators have
declined to discuss a motive. The school has declined to comment on the killing
or the conflict in Mississippi.
Wills opened Mountain
Park some time after he began buying the school's 164-acre tract in Wayne
County in August 1987. Until that year, he had operated the Christian Life
Boarding Academy south of Hattiesburg, Miss.
In September 1986, a
youth court judge in Forrest County, Miss., ordered the Mississippi Department
of Public Welfare to take emergency custody of the 117 residents of Christian
Life. One month later, Wills was convicted of civil contempt for failure to
turn over information about his students.
The clash was between the
court's insistence that only it could confine minors and Wills' claim that he
was protected by religious liberties. At the height of the fuss, the Rev. Jerry
Falwell flew to Hattiesburg and led a rally in support of Wills.
Until then, Wills had
called his school the Bethesda Home for Girls. He had opened it in 1972.
Lawyers for Wills fought
the contempt conviction all the way to the Mississippi Supreme Court. Wills
contended that the state had no right to regulate a church-run school. But in
1988, that court affirmed the conviction, and Wills' $44 million suit in
federal court against the youth court judge and guardians was thrown out later
that year.
According to lawyers in
Mississippi and articles published back then by the Jackson, Miss.
Clarion-Ledger, and the youth court in Hattiesburg had determined in 1984 that
Wills ran a detention center because students were confined to grounds. The
court said the school was subject to court review of the status of all
students.
The contempt order did
not relate directly to the treatment of students. But during the controversy,
Wills signed a federal-court consent decree banning the use of paddling
pregnant residents and forced confinement in his school. That decree ended a
separate lawsuit on behalf of a former student that was filed in 1982 by Morris
Dees, head of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala.
In Missouri, the state
does not monitor private, religious schools. Daniel Wise, a former special
youth judge in Hattiesburg who issued the order allowing Mississippi to take
custody of Wills' students, said Thursday he believed that's why Wills moved to
Missouri.
Wills' school in
Mississippi got many of its students from other states. His Mountain Park
School also gets most of its students from other states.
The Missouri Division of
Youth Services has received no complaints about treatment at Mountain Park
School. The Wayne County sheriff's office has said it has handled only an
occasional case involving a runaway.
But Mountain Park does
have a dispute with Wayne County. The county cancelled the school's tax
exemption for 1995 and billed the school $9,766 in property taxes that were due
Dec. 31. The school has yet to pay or file a protest, the county collector's
office reported.
County assessor Don Kemp
said he proposed revoking the tax exemption after the school built a home in
1994 that Kemp valued at $132,000. He said the school also built a home in 1993
that he valued at $90,300. Kemp said the Willses and one of their sons live in
the two homes.
"We put it back on
the tax rolls because we think it's a commercial operation rather than a
nonprofit,"" Kemp said Thursday. "I wanted proof of the cash
flow."
Kemp said the school
never had provided information about its revenue or assets.
RSMo 211.151. 4. (2)
As used in this section, the term "juvenile detention facility" means
a place, institution, building or part thereof, set of buildings or area,
whether or not enclosing a building or set of buildings, which has been
designated by the juvenile court as a place of detention for juveniles and
which is operated, administered and staffed separately and independently of a
jail or other detention facility for adults and used exclusively for the
lawful custody and treatment of juveniles. The facility may be owned or
operated by public or private agencies. A juvenile detention
facility may be located in the same building or grounds as a jail or other
adult detention facility if there is spatial separation between the facilities
which prevents haphazard or accidental contact between juvenile and adult
detainees; there is separation between juvenile and adult program activities;
and there are separate juvenile and adult staff other than specialized support
staff who have infrequent contact with detainees. (Emphases added.)
RSMo 211.063. 2. (1)
"Secure detention", any public or private residential
facility used for the temporary placement of any child if such facility
includes construction fixtures designed to physically restrict the movements
and activities of children held in the lawful custody of such
facility; (Emphases added)
RSMo 211.063. 1. A
child accused of violating the provisions of subdivision (2) of subsection 1 of
section 211.031 shall not be held in a secure detention placement for a period
greater than twenty-four hours, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and legal
holidays, unless the court finds pursuant to a probable cause
hearing held within that twenty-four-hour period, that the child has
violated the conditions of a valid court order and that:
(1) The child has a
record of willful failure to appear at juvenile court proceedings; or
(2) The child has a
record of violent conduct resulting in physical injury to self or others; or
(3) The child has a
record of leaving a court-ordered placement, other than secure detention,
without permission.
(Emphases added.)
RSMo 167.031. 1.
Every parent, guardian or other person in this state having charge, control or
custody of a child not enrolled in a public, private, parochial, parish school
or full-time equivalent attendance in a combination of such schools and between
the ages of seven and sixteen years is responsible for enrolling the
child in a program of academic instruction which complies with subsection 2 of
this section.... A parent, guardian or other person in this state having
charge, control, or custody of a child between the ages of seven and
sixteen years of age shall cause the child to attend regularly some
public, private, parochial, parish, home school or a combination of such
schools not less than the entire school term of the school which the child
attends; except that... (Emphases added.)
RSMo 211.221. In
placing a child in or committing a child to the custody of an individual or of
a private agency or institution the court shall whenever practicable select
either a person, or an agency or institution governed by persons of the same
religious faith as that of the parents of such child, or in case of a
difference in the religious faith of the parents, then of the religious faith
of the child or if the religious faith of the child is not ascertainable, then
of the faith of either of the parents.
Hate
crimes--provides enhanced penalties for motivational factors in certain
crimes--definitions.
RSMo 557.035. 2. For
all violations of section 565.070, RSMo [Assault in the third degree];
subdivisions (1), (3) and (4) of subsection 1 of section 565.090, RSMo;
subdivision (1) of subsection 1 of section 569.090, RSMo; subdivision (1) of
subsection 1 of section 569.120, RSMo [property damage in the second degree];
section 569.140, RSMo; or section 574.050 [Rioting], RSMo; which the state
believes to be knowingly motivated because of race, color, religion,
national origin, sex, sexual orientation or disability of the victim or victims,
the state may charge the crime or crimes under this section, and the violation
is a class D felony. (Emphasis added.)
RSMo 565.070. 1. A
person commits the crime of assault in the third degree if:
(1) The person
attempts to cause or recklessly causes physical injury to another person; or...
(3) The person
purposely places another person in apprehension of immediate physical injury;
or...
(5) The person
knowingly causes physical contact with another person knowing the other person
will regard the contact as offensive or provocative; or ...
RSMo 569.120. 1. A
person commits the crime of property damage in the second degree if:
(1) He knowingly
damages property of another; or...
RSMo 574.050. 1. A
person commits the crime of rioting if he knowingly assembles with six or more
other persons and agrees with such persons to violate any of the criminal laws
of this state or of the United States with force or violence, and thereafter,
while still so assembled, does violate any of said laws with force or violence.
DESIGNATION
OF DETENTION FACILITY
a. Each juvenile court
shall by order designate the detention facility or facilities to which
juveniles shall be taken when within judicial custody. Copies of the order
shall be made available to all law enforcement agencies within the territorial
jurisdiction of the court.
b. Pending disposition of
the case, the juvenile court may order in writing the detention of the juvenile
in one of the following places:
(3) A suitable place of
detention maintained by an association having for one of its objects the care
and protection of children;
(4) Such other suitable
custody as the court may direct.
d. A detention facility
shall be operated to provide for:
(1) housing and physical
spaces for each juvenile consistent with the physical and emotional needs of
the juvenile;
(2) the continued
availability of adequate personnel capable, by training or experience, of
maintaining the purposes of the facility;
(3) the educational,
moral, medical, physical, and mental well-being of the juvenile;
(4) the protection of the
juvenile from physical and emotional harm from other juveniles, from
themselves, and from other reasonably anticipated dangers; and
(5) the preservation and
protection of the legal rights of the juvenile.
SECTION
4. PROGRAMS AND SERVICES
Essential Elements.
4.1 Procedures for the
delivery of all programs and services consistent with the juvenile's rights.
4.3 The provision of an
education program by the local school district as required by law for all
juveniles held beyond
their detention hearings or seventy-two hours, whichever occurs first. Every
attempt should be made to
maintain continuity with the juvenile's local/home educational pro-gram.
4.4 Juveniles have access
to programs and services in the areas of:
a) Religion,
(b) Mental health,
(c) Crisis intervention,
and
(d) Medical services.
4.5 Facilities utilizing
volunteers provide an orientation program for the volunteers specifying duties
and obligations and delineating lines of authority, responsibility and
accountability.
SECTION
6. INTAKE AND ADMISSIONS
Essential Elements.
6.1 Orientation for newly
admitted juveniles at each stage of the intake and admission process.
Orientation includes
notification of rights, review of detention purpose and procedures, and
advisory on rules and expectations of the facility.
6.2 Procedures governing
the admission process for juveniles shall include:
(a) Verification of
authority to detain,
6.6 Procedures that
provide that every juvenile admitted is properly informed, from the
point of intake and admission
and throughout the detention experience, of their rights, responsibilities, and
expectations, and of procedures for reporting any concern or complaint.
SECTION
7. JUVENILE RIGHTS
Essential Elements.
7.1 Juveniles shall not
be subject to discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, creed
or handicap.
7.2 The provision of a
safe and healthful environment includes:
(a) Twenty-four (24) hour
supervision by
7.3 Participation in
educational and recreational activities.
7.4 Participation in religious
services of the juvenile's choice on a voluntary basis, subject to
the safety, security and
control needs of the facility.
7.5 The right to
determine the length and style of their own hair, including facial hair, if
desired, except where
such restrictions are deemed necessary for health or safety reasons.
7.6 Procedures for the
possession and use of personal items.
7.7 Juveniles shall not
be subject to corporal or unusual punishment, mental abuse, or the
punitive restriction of
daily living needs.
7.8 Procedures for the
reporting of any allegation of child abuse or neglect to the state child
abuse/neglect hot line
for the independent investigation of any such complaints.
7.9 Written grievance
procedures provided to the juvenile upon admission to the facility.
SECTION
8. COMMUNICATION PROVISIONS
Essential Elements.
8.1 Procedures provided
to juveniles and their custodians governing the right of communication
between the juvenile, the
juvenile's custodians, counsel and significant others.
8.2 A provision for
contact visits between the juvenile and the juvenile's custodians consistent
with the safety and
security requirements of the facility. Visitors must be registered upon entry
to
the facility and may be
subject to a security scan or search consistent with specific procedures.
8.3 Procedures for access
and use of a telephone by newly admitted juveniles and residents of the
facility.
8.4 Procedures to govern
any necessary screening of correspondence or packages consistent with the well
being of the juvenile, peers, personnel or the facility.
8.5 Juveniles may
communicate without screening with counsel or the assigned officer of the
court.
8.6 The provision of
postage sufficient for weekly correspondence as indicated above.
SECTION
9. RULES AND DISCIPLINE
Essential Elements.
9.1 Rules of conduct that
specify prohibited activity within the facility and outline the possible
range of disciplinary
actions that can be taken when a rule is violated.
RSMo
211.081.
2.
Placement in any institutional setting shall represent the least restrictive
appropriate placement for the child or person seventeen years of age and shall
be recommended based upon a psychological or psychiatric evaluation or both.
Prior to entering any order for disposition of a child or person seventeen
years of age which would order residential treatment or other services inside
the state of Missouri, the juvenile court shall enter findings which include
the recommendation of the psychological or psychiatric evaluation or both; and
certification from the division director or designee as to whether a provider
or funds or both are available, including a projection of their future
availability. If the division of family services indicates that funding is not
available, the division shall recommend and make available for placement by the
court an alternative placement for the child or person seventeen years of age.
The division shall have the burden of demonstrating that they have exercised
due diligence in utilizing all available services to carry out the
recommendation of the evaluation team and serve the best interest of the child
or person seventeen years of age. The judge shall not order placement or an
alternative placement with a specific provider but may reasonably designate the
scope and type of the services which shall be provided by the department to the
child or person seventeen years of age.
RSMo
574.050. 1. A person commits the crime of rioting if he knowingly assembles
with six or more other persons and agrees with such persons to violate any of
the criminal laws of this state or of the United States with force or violence,
and thereafter, while still so assembled, does violate any of said laws with
force or violence.
2.
Rioting is a class A misdemeanor.