S.A.S. v. District Court In and For Jefferson County

• Decision Date: 09 February 1981
• Docket Number: No. 80SA323,80SA323
• Citation: 623 P.2d 58
• Parties: S. A. S., Petitioner, v. The DISTRICT COURT, IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF JEFFERSON, First Judicial District, and the Honorable Robert K. Willison, One of the Judges Thereof, Respondents.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 58

623 P.2d 58

S. A. S., Petitioner, v. The DISTRICT COURT, IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF JEFFERSON First Judicial District, and the Honorable Robert K. Willison, One of the Judges Thereof Respondents.

No. 80SA323.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

Feb. 9, 1981.

Greg Walta, Colorado State Public Defender, Denver, Robert S. Patterson, Deputy State Public Defender, Golden, for petitioner.

Nolan L. Brown, Dist. Atty., Roberta J. Steinhardt, Stephen A. Jones, Deputy Dist. Attys., Golden, for respondents.

QUINN, Justice.

The petitioner-juvenile, S.A.S. (petitioner), filed this original proceeding seeking an order prohibiting the respondent court from granting the district attorney's request for a jury trial in connection with an adjudicatory hearing on a petition in delinquency. The claim for prohibitory relief asserts that the action of respondent court denied the petitioner his constitutional right to a court trial, contravened the provisions of the Children's Code by permitting the state to demand a jury trial as an interested party, and constituted an abuse of discretion because of the state's untimely demand for a jury trial. We issued a rule to show cause and now discharge the rule.

The sixteen-year-old petitioner is charged with being a delinquent child by committing acts of indecent exposure in violation of section 18-7-302, C.R.S. 1973 (1978 Repl. Vol. 8). The petition was filed on October 10, 1979. On November 15 the respondent court appointed the public defender to represent the petitioner and the allegations of the petition then were denied. The petitioner waited until February 19, 1980, to file a written demand for a jury trial. Trial was set to a jury commencing on April 8, 1980. One week prior to trial the petitioner withdrew his jury demand. On the day following the withdrawal the district attorney filed a jury demand, to which the petitioner objected. The court set the matter down for a hearing on its own motion and on April 3, 1980, ruled that the People as an "interested party" could validly demand a jury trial under section 19-1-106(4)(a), C.R.S. 1973 (1978 Repl. Vol. 8). The petitioner thereafter commenced an original proceeding in this court.

The petitioner asserts that the action of the respondent court in granting the People's request for a jury trial violated his fundamental right of choice between a jury and court trial for the adjudicatory phase of the proceedings. Next he claims that the respondent court exceeded its jurisdiction in granting the district attorney's request for a jury trial because the People do not qualify as an "interested party" under section 19-1-106(4)(a), C.R.S. 1973 (1978 Repl. Vol. 8). Lastly, the petitioner contends that the People's jury demand was untimely and the respondent court abused its discretion in permitting it to be filed. We are unpersuaded by his arguments.

I.

The petitioner claims a "fundamental right" to select either a jury trial or a court trial as the mode of resolving the allegations of delinquency. We do not agree with his claim.

A delinquency proceeding is statutory in origin and centers primarily on providing "measures of guidance and rehabilitation for the child and protection for society," rather than fixing "criminal responsibility, guilt and punishment." Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 554-55, 86 S.Ct. 1045, 1054, 16 L.Ed.2d 84, 94 (1966); see People ex rel. Terrell v. District Court, 164 Colo. 437, 444-45, 435 P.2d 763, 766 (1967). The first stated purpose of the Colorado Children's Code is "to secure for each child ... such care and guidance, preferably in his own home, as will best serve his welfare and the interests of society." Section 19-1-102, C.R.S. 1973 (1978 Repl. Vol. 8). In order to protect the young from the stigma frequently associated with criminal proceedings, a petition in delinquency is classified as civil in character. People in the Interest of R.A.D., 196 Colo. 430, 586 P.2d 46 (1978). The state's role in such a proceeding is not that of a prosecutor in a criminal case, but rather the role of parens patriae to protect the welfare of the child. Kent v. United States, supra; People in the Interest of R.A.D., supra.

This is not to say that the juvenile is bereft of basic constitutional protections traditionally associated with criminal proceedings. The juvenile must be accorded those essentials of fairness and procedural regularity implicit in due process of law before he may be subjected to a curtailment of his liberty interests. E. g., In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970) (requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt); In re Application of Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967) (right to notice of charge, right to counsel, rights of confrontation and cross-examination, and privilege against self-incrimination); Kent v. United States, supra (right to procedural regularity for hearing on transfer to adult court); see also People in the Interest of C.B., 196 Colo. 362, 585 P.2d 281 (1978). However, the United States Supreme Court in McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 91 S.Ct. 1976, 29 L.Ed.2d 647 (1971), specifically determined that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require a jury trial in the adjudicatory phase of a delinquency proceeding. Noting that the imposition of the jury trial on the juvenile system "would tend once again to place the juvenile squarely in the routine of the criminal process," 403 U.S. at 547, 91 S.Ct. at 1987, 29 L.Ed.2d at 662, the Court left to the states the choice of a jury system or some other procedural mode for the adjudication of petitions in delinquency.

Assuming that a juvenile, nevertheless, might claim a right to a jury trial in an adjudicatory proceeding under the Due Process Clause of the Colorado Constitution, Colo. Const. Art. II, Sec. 25, ¹ it does not follow that this right would include the converse right to trial by the court. Nor would the juvenile's right to a jury trial, even if originating in due process of law, necessarily include the unconditional power to cancel a statutory right of another party to a jury resolution of the adjudicatory stage of the proceeding. On the contrary, a rule disallowing the juvenile's waiver of a jury trial, where another party to the proceeding has made a jury demand, grants to the juvenile no less than the most favorable construction of the due process clause would guarantee him trial by an impartial jury. See Singer v. United States, 380 U.S. 24, 36, 85 S.Ct. 783, 790, 13 L.Ed.2d 630, 638 (1965). Thus, we reject petitioner's claim of a fundamental right to choose a court trial as the exclusive mode of adjudication in this matter. ²

II.

The Children's Code specifically authorizes jury trials for adjudicatory proceedings in delinquency. Section 19-1-106(4)(a), C.R.S. 1973 (1978 Repl. Vol. 8), provides that "(a) child, his parent or guardian, ³ or any interested party ⁴ may demand a trial by a jury of not more than six or the court on its own motion may order such a jury to try any case." Basically, the petitioner's argument is that the term "any interested party" is confined to those parties who, by virtue of a special relationship to the child, have a mutuality or identity of interests with those of the child. We do not believe the legislature intended such a restrictive application of that term.

If the General Assembly intended "any interested party" to include only those parties who stand in loco parentis to the child, as petitioner suggests, it could have and undoubtedly would have utilized terminology similar to that appearing in other sections of the Children's Code to express such limitation. E. g., section 19-3-102(2) ("parents, guardian or other legal custodian"); section 19-3-103(1) ("parents or guardian, or any other respondent"); section 19-3-103(3) ("person or persons having the physical custody of the child"). Subsections 19-1-106(1) and (2), which precede the jury demand provisions of subsection (4), refer to "the child and his parents, guardian, or other legal custodian" in outlining the protocol for advisement of rights on the first appearance of these parties before the court. Under these circumstances the legislative selection of "any interested party" in subsection 19-1-106(4)(a) stands out as a purposeful choice to extend the right of jury demand to all parties of record to the delinquency proceeding. ⁵

The state is a party of record to the delinquency proceeding. The petition itself is entitled "The People of the State of Colorado in the Interest of ..., a child ... and Concerning ... Respondent." Section 19-3-102(1), C.R.S. 1973 (1978 Repl. Vol. 8). Section 19-1-106(3) provides that, upon request of the court, "the district attorney shall represent the state in the interest of the child" in such proceedings. ⁶ The state's interest in the delinquency proceeding stems from its role as parens patriae, Kent v. United States, supra; People in the Interest of R.A.D., supra, and that interest is a significant one.

The statutory language of section 19-1-106(4)(a) clearly indicates a legislative intent to grant to the state, as an "interested party," the right to demand a jury trial. Conversely, there is no indication of an intent to bestow on the juvenile a veto power over the state's jury demand through a statutory right of jury waiver. When the General Assembly has allotted to one party only, such as the accused in a criminal...