J.R. v. State

• Decision Date: 18 May 2021
• Docket Number: No. 05-20-00920-CV,05-20-00920-CV
• Citation: 624 S.W.3d 851 (Mem)
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals
• Parties: J.R., a Juvenile, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee

624 S.W.3d 851 (Mem)

J.R., a Juvenile, Appellant

v.The STATE of Texas, Appellee

No. 05-20-00920-CV

Court of Appeals of Texas, Dallas.

Opinion Filed May 18, 2021

Niles S. Illich, Dallas, for Appellant.

John Creuzot, Dallas, Jessie R. Allen, for Appellee.

OPINION DISSENTING FROM THE DENIAL OF EN BANC RECONSIDERATION

Opinion by Justice Schenck

This case involves the State's effort to transfer a minor accused of having committed capital murder from the juvenile court system, which is geared towards providing measures of guidance and rehabilitation, to what will be capital proceedings against him for plenary disposition in the adult criminal justice system. The State's right to seek such a transfer is beyond question. See TEX. FAM. CODE ANN. § 54.02. The findings necessary to support the transfer are laid out in a statute. See id. § 54.02(h) (juvenile court waiving jurisdiction must make findings and state specifically in the order its "reasons" for waiver). The findings in this case are described as "boilerplate," listing those factors that support transfer with no substantive discussion of other factors or any of the competing evidence that weighed against transfer.

Because of the seriousness of the posture of the case before us, and because the Texas Supreme Court has not addressed the method of analysis and review of orders transferring jurisdiction in juvenile cases, I believe reconsideration en banc would be helpful to develop this question. I write separately to urge the Texas Supreme Court, in this or some other case, to further explain what appellate courts should do to acquit themselves of the serious task laid out before them on a direct appeal such as this.

PROOF AND REVIEW— MOON V. STATE AND IMPACT OF EX PARTE THOMAS

The standard of proof and review that historically applied in the lower court and this Court, respectively, is less than clear. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals attempted to draw those lines in Moon v. State and, as I read that opinion, appeared to impose a far more reaching obligation on the trial court than the State urges in this case or the panel opinion embraced. 451 S.W.3d 28, 47 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (limiting appellate review to reasons explicitly stated in the transfer order). Recently, however, the court of criminal appeals vacated its decision in Moon . See Ex parte Thomas , No. WR-89,128-01, 623 S.W.3d 370 (Tex. Crim. App. Mar. 31, 2021) (case-specific fact-findings to support the reasons for transfer not required by the text of former statute or constitution). I pause to note that Thomas looked at the issue on collateral, not direct review. As the court of criminal appeals was careful to point out, Thomas did not appeal his transfer order but allowed "decades [to] pass" before seeking habeas relief on the theory that the court that tried him lacked jurisdiction as a result of infirmities in the transfer order. Id. at 372. Applying Moon in that context would have subjected that, and all other like convictions, no matter how stale, to collateral, jurisdictional attack on habeas corpus review, which is much narrower than our review in this case on plenary, direct appeal.

Shortly after Moon , the legislature repealed Article 44.47 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and added Section 56.01(c)(1)(A) to the Family Code. That statute took review of transfer orders away from the court of criminal appeals and created a vehicle for immediate, interlocutory appeal to the courts of appeals and then to the Texas Supreme Court. See Act of May 12, 2015, 84th Leg., R.S., ch. 74 § 3, 2015 Tex. Gen. Laws 1065, 1065–66. While the legislature completely altered the review mechanism, it made no attempt to change the standard or the operative language in the transfer statute that had recently been read by a terminal court to require a trial court to "show its work" to acquit itself of the obligation to give its "reasons" for the transfer and to facilitate "meaningful" appellate review. Thus, what doomed Moon in the eyes of Thomas — namely the lack of any prior supporting judicial interpretation—may be seen to compel a contrary result here. Kennedy v. Hyde , 682 S.W.2d 525, 529 (Tex. 1984) ("The legislature may reasonably be presumed to have been aware of these decisions construing [the statute] and to have consented to those interpretations...."); Chakrabarty v. Ganguly , 573 S.W.3d 413, 416 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2019, no pet) (en banc).

Regardless of the statutory-construction questions, I believe that the interests at stake from the perspective of the accused and the State alike are better served in reading the vesting of jurisdiction in the intermediate courts of appeal to signal an intention to have the transfer meaningfully scrutinized before trial and thus avoid the potential for collateral attack of the type raised in Thomas .

DUE PROCESS CONSIDERATIONS AND MEANINGFUL REVIEW

The United States Supreme Court in Kent v. United States reviewed the procedures in the District of Columbia for the transfer of juveniles to the adult system in capital cases, such as this, as against the federal due process guarantee. 383 U.S. 541, 553–54, 557, 86 S.Ct. 1045, 16 L.Ed.2d 84 (1966). Two holdings stand out from the Court's decision in that case and should inform the reading of our own transfer statute. First, the process in the juvenile court must reflect the seriousness of the charge and the implications of the decision to surrender jurisdiction: "there is no place in our system of law for reaching a result of such tremendous consequences without ceremony—without hearing, without effective assistance of counsel, without a statement of reasons ." Id. at 554, 86 S.Ct. 1045 (emphasis added). Second, the appellate review must be "meaningful." Id. at 561, 86 S.Ct. 1045. In order to undertake such meaningful review, particularly where, as here, the ultimate decision is subject to a deferential abuse of discretion standard of review, the appellate court should have access to "a statement of the reasons motivating the waiver including, of course, a statement of the relevant facts ." Id. (emphasis added).

As noted supra , in Thomas , the court of criminal appeals read the review provisions of the transfer statute (and the Supreme Court's Kent decision) not to compel the "show your work" rule it had announced in Moon . As read by Thomas, Kent (and our review provisions) required only a recitation of what in the civil context we would understand as the equivalent of recitations that would satisfy the pre- City of Keller¹ no-evidence sufficiency review. Under that standard, the findings made by the trial court need not be weighed against other evidence before it and would stand as sufficient so long as they are supported on their face without regard to other evidence. City of Keller changed that standard, holding that it was not the proper rule for civil cases, and required, instead, that the reviewing court look at all of the evidence because "the lack of supporting evidence may not appear until all the evidence is reviewed in context." City of Keller v. Wilson , 168 S.W.3d 802, 811 (Tex. 2005). That said, putting the review provisions in the civil system, after Moon , could also have been seen as both (1) necessary to satisfy the meaningful-review requirements that would be unique to direct review, but not a basis for collateral attack years or decades later,² and (2) signaling acceptance of the modern City of Keller analysis of the underlying decision.

1. Requiring the Transferring Court to State "Reasons" for Transfer Can Be Read Either as in Moon or as in Thomas

The operative statute here requires a transferring court to "state specifically in the order its reasons for waiver and certify its action, including the written order and findings of the court." TEX. FAM. CODE ANN. § 54.02(h). The word "reason" can be understood to be synonymous with a free-standing rational justification, per Thomas , or "explanation." See WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INT'L DICTIONARY 1891 (1981).

As noted, civil litigants challenging the results at trial were, before City of Keller , left to attack only that evidence in favor of the judgment. That is thus certainly one plausible reading of a "reasoned" judgment, and one I would understand in the context of Thomas . On the other hand, consider the scenario where a party to an arbitration commits to pay for a "reasoned decision." Clearly, under those circumstances he would expect more than a selective recitation of one side of the case. See Stephen L. Hayford, A New Paradigm for Commercial Arbitration: Rethinking the Relationship Between Reasoned Awards and the Judicial Standards for Vacatur , 66 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 443, 445 (1998). Likewise, when a court performs a "rule of reason" analysis in an antitrust case, it looks at all of the evidence that bears on the ultimate conclusion. See Cont'l T.V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania, Inc. , 433 U.S. 36, 49, 97 S.Ct. 2549, 53 L.Ed.2d 568 (1977). Thus, Moon 's reading was not wholly implausible.

As I understand the due process considerations at issue here, it would be hard to explain why the defendant in a civil case involving perhaps a very low money damage award would be entitled to consideration and review of all of the evidence that bore on an issue, while a minor facing transfer for capital sentencing would be entitled to less—with the reviewing court deferring so long as the trial court cited "some evidence" in support of its conclusion with no indication that it was aware of or weighed contrary evidence. As the United States Supreme Court explained in Addington v. Texas , 441 U.S. 418, 99 S.Ct. 1804, 60 L.Ed.2d 323 (1979), due process compels different standards of proof (and presumably review) along a "continuum" with "private disputes" over monetary issues at the lowest end and criminal proceedings at the highest. Id. at 423, 99 S.Ct. 1804. Capital proceedings involving juveniles are surely among the most sensitive. See, e.g., Jones v. Mississippi , ––– U.S....