Seven Minors, Matter of

• Citation: 99 Nev. 427,664 P.2d 947
• Decision Date: 09 June 1983
• Docket Number: 13483,Nos. 12966,13679 and 13819,13488,13494,13296,s. 12966
• Parties: In the Matter of SEVEN MINORS. THOMAS R., a Minor, Appellant, v. JUVENILE DIVISION, EIGHTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT OF the STATE of Nevada In and For the COUNTY OF CLARK, Respondent. MICHAEL S., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent. TERRY M., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent. BRETT G., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent. PARRIS W., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent. SANDRA C., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent. AMANDA C., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.
• Court: Supreme Court of Nevada

Page 947

664 P.2d 947

99 Nev. 427

In the Matter of SEVEN MINORS.

THOMAS R., a Minor, Appellant, v. JUVENILE DIVISION, EIGHTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT OF the

STATE of Nevada In and For the COUNTY OF CLARK,

Respondent.

MICHAEL S., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

TERRY M., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

BRETT G., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

PARRIS W., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

SANDRA C., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

AMANDA C., a Minor, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

Nos. 12966, 13296, 13483, 13488, 13494, 13679 and 13819.

Supreme Court of Nevada.

June 9, 1983.

Morgan D. Harris, Public Defender, Victor John Austin, Deputy Public Defender, Las Vegas, for appellants.

D. Brian McKay, Atty. Gen., Carson City, Robert J. Miller, Dist. Atty., James Tufteland, Deputy Dist. Atty., Las Vegas, for respondent.

OPINION

SPRINGER, Justice:

The subject matter of these appeals is the practice of transferring certain serious juvenile offenders out of the juvenile division for criminal prosecution in district court. NRS 62.080 ¹ authorizes the juvenile court to certify ² for adult criminal proceedings 16 and 17 year old juveniles chargeable with felony offenses. These appeals, presented by juveniles facing adult criminal prosecutions, give us occasion to examine an important and critical aspect of juvenile court law and to establish certain procedural and substantive standards for the guidance of juvenile courts in dealing with these matters.

Transfer has played an important role in juvenile court jurisprudence since its earliest days and has acted as a safety valve through which offenders who were within the statutory age of juvenile court jurisdiction could in appropriate circumstances be held accountable for their criminal acts by referral to the adult criminal justice system.

The transfer process is based upon the sound idea that there is no arbitrary age at which all youths should be held fully responsible as adults for their criminal acts and that there should be a transition period during which an offender may or may not be held criminally liable, depending on the nature of the offender and the offense. ³

Other than the requirement of a "full investigation" the statute places no limitations on the discretion of the juvenile courts in such matters. The latitude of this discretion has been limited in some degree by our opinion in Lewis v. State, 86 Nev. 889, 478 P.2d 168 (1970), wherein we adopted the so-called Kent ⁴ criteria to be followed by juvenile courts in transfer matters.

Although the Kent criteria give some guidance to judges making transfer decisions, our adoption of these criteria in Lewis still did not provide a definitive, substantive rule to be applied in transfer proceedings. ⁵

It is the office of this opinion, building on the Juvenile Court Act and on Kent and Lewis, to construct an understandable and usable transfer rule to be applied by juvenile court judges in making transfer decisions. We start with the Juvenile Court Act.

The Juvenile Court Act requires that juvenile courts function in a manner which is conducive to the child's welfare and to the best interests of the state. NRS 62.031(1).

Juvenile courts have traditionally been preoccupied with the interests of the child, and the interests of the state, as such, did not become a declared, joint purpose of our Juvenile Court Act until 1949.

The juvenile court from its inception in Illinois in 1899 until approximately the middle of this century was a child-centered institution based on theories taken from the positive school of criminology and especially on the deterministic principle that youthful law violators are not morally or criminally responsible for their behavior but, rather, are victims of their environment--an environment which can be ameliorated and modified much in the way that a physician modifies the milieu interieur of a sick patient.

Under such a doctrine the juvenile court tended to lose its identity as a court and became more of a social clinic than a court of law. Lost to such an institution was the moralizing and socializing influence associated with the operation of criminal courts; and, more importantly, lost too were society's ageless responses to criminal behavior: punishment, deterrence, retribution and segregation. So it was that juvenile courts in Nevada prior to 1949 were not charged with administering the criminal law for the protection of society against juvenile criminality but were required to treat the youthful law violator "not as a criminal, but as misdirected, and misguided and needing aid, encouragement and assistance." NCL § 1032.

This kind of kindly, paternalistic approach was eventually seen as being ill-suited to the task of dealing with juvenile crime. The legislative response to this realization was that toward the middle of this century a number of state legislatures, including our own, made changes in the purpose clause of juvenile court acts so that juvenile courts were required to consider the public interest as well as the child's interest. This departure from traditional juvenile justice philosophy is significant. We take it to indicate that the status of juvenile courts as courts is to be recognized and that protection of the public against juvenile criminal offenders may be effected by invocation of the means traditionally employed in the judicial administration of the criminal law. Juvenile courts may under such legislative direction properly consider the punitive, deterrent and other accepted adjuncts of the criminal law.

Although juvenile courts may have difficulty at times in balancing the interests of the child and the public, there is no irreconcilable opposition between the two. By formally recognizing the legitimacy of punitive and deterrent sanctions for criminal offenses juvenile courts will be properly and somewhat belatedly expressing society's firm disapproval of juvenile crime and will be clearly issuing a threat of punishment for criminal acts to the juvenile population.

Juvenile delinquents are brought before the court for committing crimes. They should be made to recognize that they have done something wrong and be prepared to accept unpleasant consequences together with the treatment and rehabilitation normally forthcoming in juvenile court proceedings. The two are related, and punishment has in many cases a rehabilitative effect on the child and consequently will serve the child's best interests as well as the state's.

Enforcing the state's interests in a manner designed to hold juveniles responsible for their violations of the criminal laws need not by any means dilute the strength of educative and rehabilitative measures properly taken by the juvenile courts in attempting to socialize and civilize errant youth. Guidance, understanding and care still have the same place in juvenile court proceedings. Even youths who commit more serious crimes can profit from a separation from adult offenders and from the special treatment and special programs which are available in juvenile courts; this does not mean that they should go unpunished.

While juvenile courts must balance these sometimes conflicting interests, the court's duty to the public is paramount. The primary purpose of juvenile court intervention in delinquency cases is social control; and when one interest must predominate, it should be that of the public.

Generally speaking, in the juvenile court's weighing of the treatment and rehabilitative aspects of the juvenile process against the public protection aspects (accountability, punishment, deterrence and the like), the less serious and repetitive the criminal acts and the younger and more immature the child, the more can parens patriae be invoked for the care, rehabilitation and advancement of the best interest of the child. By the same token, the older and more mature the child and the more serious and repetitive the offenses, the more emphasis must be placed on public protection. We reach the extreme of this spectrum when we come to the matter of transfer. Here we have an all-or-none situation, one in which the basic decision is whether the public interest and safety will permit the youth before the court to be treated as a child. The public interest and safety require that some youths be held accountable as adults for their criminal misconduct and be subjected to controls, punishment, deterrence and retribution found only in the adult criminal justice system. This is the reason for transfer.

Once transfer is justified on the basis of public interest and safety, there is no need to consider the "best interests of the child" or the youth's amenability to treatment in the juvenile court system except insofar as such considerations bear on the public interest. Once in a given case transfer is decided upon on this basis, the youth is no longer presumed to be a child in the eyes of the law and no longer entitled to the grace provided by the Juvenile Court Act in that particular case. Accordingly, the juvenile court need not consider the youth's best interests (and comfort) as such; although, in weighing the public necessity for transfer, the court may consider, for example, that the probability of a given youth's becoming a productive and law abiding citizen is much greater under juvenile court cognizance and that retention in the juvenile system may therefore be more in the long-term public interest than would be transfer for adult prosecution. As mentioned below, such subjective factors may be properly considered in determining which youths should not be transferred to adult court in those cases where the public interest does not clearly demand transfer.

Adoption of a rule for transfer based primarily on public safety interests is not in harmony with the rules commonly seen in operation throughout the...