J.D.C. v. District Court of Eighteenth Judicial Dist. of State of Colo., 95SA377

• Decision Date: 12 February 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95SA377,95SA377
• Parties: J.D.C., Petitioner, v. THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE EIGHTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF COLORADO, and Jack F. Smith, one of the Judges thereof, Respondents.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 684

910 P.2d 684

J.D.C., Petitioner, v. THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE EIGHTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF COLORADO, and Jack F. Smith, one of the Judges thereof, Respondents.

No. 95SA377.

Supreme Court of Colorado En Banc.

Feb. 12, 1996.

Isaacson, Rosenbaum, Woods & Levy, P.C., Gary Lozow, Richard K. Kornfeld, Denver, for Petitioner.

Robert R. Gallagher, Jr., District Attorney, Eighteenth Judicial District, Pamela Gorden, Chief Deputy District Attorney, James C. Sell, Chief Deputy District Attorney, Christine N. Chauche, Deputy District Attorney, Englewood, for Respondents.

Chief Justice VOLLACK delivered the Opinion of the Court.

In this original proceeding, ¹ J.D.C., a juvenile, petitioned this court to issue to the Arapahoe County District Court a rule to show cause for allowing the criminal division of the district court to exercise jurisdiction over the juvenile petitioner. We directed the district court to show cause why the relief requested by the petitioner--an order dismissing the action in the criminal division of that court and returning this case to the juvenile division of the court for a transfer hearing--should not be granted. The juvenile division of the Arapahoe County District Court dismissed the juvenile petition against J.D.C. on the grounds that it lacked the discretion to prevent the district attorney from directly filing this case in the criminal division of that court.

We hold that the district attorney may not directly file this case in the criminal division of the district court because he initially filed an information containing the identical charges against J.D.C. in the juvenile division of the district court, where a transfer hearing was pending pursuant to section 19-2-806, 8B C.R.S. (1995 Supp.). We therefore make the rule absolute.

I.

On August 8, 1995, the district attorney filed a delinquency petition against J.D.C., a seventeen-year-old, in the juvenile division of the Arapahoe County District Court (hereinafter referred to as "juvenile court") charging him with vehicular homicide, vehicular assault, driving under the influence of drugs, and careless driving involving death. ² In this filing, the district attorney included a transfer count, in which the district attorney requested that the case be transferred to the criminal division of the Arapahoe County District Court (hereinafter referred to as "district court"), pursuant to section 19-2-806.

On August 23, 1995, the juvenile court set the transfer hearing for November 9, 1995. Prior to the transfer hearing, on November 7, 1995, the district attorney directly filed an information in the district court containing the identical charges against J.D.C. that he had previously filed in the juvenile court. On November 9, 1995, the parties appeared before the juvenile court for the scheduled transfer hearing. The district attorney informed the juvenile court of the direct filing in the district court and moved to dismiss the juvenile petition. On November 15, 1995, the juvenile court held a hearing on the district attorney's motion to dismiss the juvenile petition, and held that the juvenile court was without discretion to prevent the district attorney from directly filing the case in the district court. J.D.C. then petitioned this court pursuant to C.A.R. 21 and we issued the rule to show cause.

II.

J.D.C. contends that the district attorney may not directly file this case in the district court because section 19-2-806 of the Colorado Children's Code requires a transfer hearing before the district court may have jurisdiction over J.D.C. We agree. Section 19-2-806(1)(a), 8B C.R.S. (1995 Supp.), states:

When a petition filed in juvenile court alleges a juvenile fourteen years of age or older to be a juvenile delinquent by virtue of having committed a delinquent act which constitutes a felony and if, after investigation and a hearing, the juvenile court finds it would be contrary to the best interests of the juvenile or of the public to retain jurisdiction, it may enter an order certifying the juvenile to be held for criminal proceedings in the district court.

This statute further provides that "[a] petition may be transferred from the juvenile court to the district court only after a hearing as provided in this section." § 19-2-806(1)(b), 8B C.R.S. (1995 Supp.) (emphasis added). This provision then lists fourteen factors that a juvenile court must consider at a transfer hearing in deciding whether to waive its jurisdiction over the juvenile. § 19-2-806(3)(b)(I)-(XIV), 8B C.R.S. (1995 Supp.).

It is well settled that appellate courts should give effect to legislative intent and not impute their own meaning to otherwise clear statutory language. People v. White, 870 P.2d 424, 445 (Colo.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 841, 115 S.Ct. 127, 130 L.Ed.2d 71 (1994); People v. Schuett, 833 P.2d 44, 47 (Colo.1992). To discern legislative intent, a court should look first to the statutory language, People v. Warner, 801 P.2d 1187, 1190 (Colo.1990), and give statutory words and phrases effect according to their plain and ordinary meaning, People v. District Court, 713 P.2d 918, 921 (Colo.1986).

According to the plain language of section 19-2-806, once a juvenile petition is filed in juvenile court, the only proper method for transferring the case to the district court is a transfer hearing before the juvenile court. Nowhere in the statute is there a provision that allows a prosecutor to refile identical charges in district court as those filed in juvenile court after having requested a transfer hearing in juvenile court. By including the terms "when" and "only" in section 19-2-806, the legislature manifested its intent that a prosecutor, having exercised his or her prosecutorial discretion to file charges in juvenile court, cannot later try to avoid the transfer hearing by directly filing the same charges in district court.

Moreover, section 19-2-102(1)(b), 8B C.R.S. (1995 Supp.), provides that "the juvenile court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction in proceedings concerning any juvenile to which section 19-2-806 applies." This jurisdictional provision of the Colorado Children's Code makes clear that once a district attorney files a case in juvenile court and requests a transfer hearing, the juvenile court obtains exclusive original jurisdiction over the juvenile.

In the case before us, J.D.C. is seventeen years of age and thus a child covered by the Colorado Children's Code. § 19-1-103(4), 8B C.R.S. (1995 Supp.). We nevertheless recognize that Colorado law has long allowed certain juvenile offenders to be charged as adults at the discretion of the prosecuting attorney. See, e.g., People v. Thorpe, 641 P.2d 935 (Colo.1982). However, in the present case, the district attorney exercised his prosecutorial discretion by electing to file a juvenile petition in the juvenile court, thereby triggering the statutory scheme which requires a transfer hearing in order to move the case to district court. The plain language of section 19-2-806 indicates that once a petition is filed in juvenile court, the juvenile court obtains sole jurisdiction, which it may only surrender to the district court after a hearing as set forth in the statute. Consequently, after filing a petition in the juvenile court, the district attorney cannot later shift forums without providing J.D.C. an opportunity to contest the transfer to the district court at a transfer hearing in the juvenile court.

The juvenile court relied on People v. District Court, 191 Colo. 28, 549 P.2d 1317 (1976), in deciding that it lacked the discretion to prevent the district attorney from directly filing this case in district court. Such reliance is misplaced because People v. District Court is distinguishable from the current case. In People v. District Court, the district attorney initially filed a petition in juvenile court charging the juvenile with a class 2 felony, a charge which would have required a transfer hearing in juvenile court in order to transfer the case to district court. The district attorney later amended the petition to add an additional charge of a class 1 felony. We held in People v. District Court that when the district attorney elected to amend the petition to include a class 1 felony, the juvenile court was without discretion to deny the motion to transfer the case to the criminal division of the district court. 191 Colo. at 30-31, 549 P.2d at 1319. The...