State ex rel. Romley v. Superior Court In and For County of Maricopa
| Decision Date | 24 September 1991 |
| Docket Number | CA-SA,J-117523,No. 1,R,1 |
| Citation | 170 Ariz. 339,823 P.2d 1347 |
| Parties | The STATE of Arizona, ex rel. Richard M. ROMLEY, Maricopa County Attorney, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of Arizona, In and For the COUNTY OF MARICOPA, Honorable James McDougall a judge thereof, Respondent Judge, JUVENILE SUBJECT TO MARICOPA COUNTY JUVENILE ACTION NO.eal Party in Interest. 90-255. |
| Court | Arizona Court of Appeals |
Is the juvenile court bound to transfer a juvenile for criminal prosecution as an adult when the state and the juvenile have stipulated, as part of a plea agreement, that such a transfer should occur? Or does the juvenile court have the responsibility, independent of the parties' agreement, to determine whether a transfer serves the best interests of the juvenile and the state?
These questions are presented in this special action, brought by the state, to challenge the juvenile court's refusal to transfer the juvenile (hereinafter "J.") for prosecution as an adult. When the petition was presented, we accepted jurisdiction, denied relief, and advised the parties that this opinion would follow.
On June 1, 1990, J. and other juveniles surrounded and taunted an older, intoxicated woman. As the confrontation proceeded, J. shoved the woman to the sidewalk, where she struck her head and died. J. was six days short of his seventeenth birthday at the time.
The state charged J. with second degree murder and moved that he be transferred to adult court. J. and the state later entered an agreement that J. would waive a juvenile court hearing on the issue of transfer and plead as an adult in a criminal division of the superior court to a charge of nondangerous manslaughter. The juvenile court, however, refused to accept J.'s waiver of a transfer hearing and insisted that the question of a transfer be left to the juvenile court's discretion, independent of the plea agreement.
By the time of the transfer hearing, J. was seventeen years and four months old, and the state submitted evidence that the possibility of rehabilitation before his eighteenth birthday was slim. At least one expert, however, found a prospect for rehabilitation; and in a detailed minute entry order, which we quote at length below, the court found that it would not serve the best interests of society or of J. to order his transfer to adult court. Rather, the court found the possibility of rehabilitation under the juvenile court system sufficient that it ought to be pursued.
The state appealed the juvenile court's ruling, but, recognizing a question whether this court had jurisdiction to consider such an appeal, brought this simultaneous petition for special action.
We have accepted jurisdiction of this matter as a special action because we lack jurisdiction to hear it as an appeal. 1 Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 8-236(A) and Rule 24(a) of the Arizona Rules of Procedure for the Juvenile Court authorize an appeal only "from a final order of the juvenile court." The delinquency proceeding in which the transfer request was filed was still pending before the juvenile court when the special action came our way. The juvenile court's order denying the state's transfer request did not finally dispose of the delinquency proceeding and was not a "final order of the juvenile court." Cf. In re Appeal in Maricopa County Juvenile Action No. J-74222, 20 Ariz.App. 570, 571, 514 P.2d 741, 742 (1973) (). To await final disposition of delinquency proceedings, however, would preclude an adequate remedy if the refusal to transfer were erroneous. Thus, this matter is appropriate for special action jurisdiction.
The state acknowledges the juvenile court's authority to determine whether J.'s waiver of a transfer hearing was knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily made. The state argues, however, that the juvenile court had no authority to substitute its judgment for that of the parties on the question whether the transfer should occur.
The state relies for this proposition upon State v. Superior Court of Pima County, 7 Ariz.App. 170, 436 P.2d 948 (1968), a case far different than this. There, a juvenile pled guilty to felony charges and reached the brink of sentencing as an adult before revealing his true age. The trial court then granted the juvenile's motion to quash the information, and Division Two of this court reversed on appeal, holding that "a defendant may waive his right to question the jurisdiction of the court on the grounds of his minority when he fails to file a motion to quash the information before pleading thereto." Id. at 176, 436 P.2d at 954.
Division Two categorized the juvenile court's original jurisdiction over questions of transfer as a matter of jurisdiction over the person, not over the subject matter. Id. at 175, 436 P.2d at 953. We need neither accept nor reject that categorization in this case to hold that here the parties could not divest the juvenile court of its responsibility to decide the transfer question. As the court in State v. Superior Court of Pima County explained, a "factor to be weighed is the stage of the proceedings at which the question is raised." Id. at 176, 436 P.2d at 954. There, the juvenile had concealed his age, the juvenile court had been given no opportunity to consider a transfer, and the issue was whether its failure to do so negated proceedings that had advanced to the stage of sentencing in criminal court. Here, by contrast, the original jurisdiction of the juvenile court has been properly invoked by parties seeking that court's transfer order, and the very different issue is whether the parties, by stipulation, can convert such an order from a discretionary to a ministerial act. We find multiple authorities that preclude such abridgment of the juvenile court's discretion.
Foremost among these authorities is article VI, § 15, of our state constitution, which explicitly submits the transfer decision to the discretion of a juvenile judge:
The superior court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction in all proceedings and matters affecting dependent, neglected, incorrigible or delinquent children, or children accused of crime, under the age of eighteen years. The judges shall hold examinations in chambers for all such children concerning whom proceedings are brought, in advance of any criminal prosecution of such children, and may, in their discretion, suspend criminal prosecution of such children. The powers of the judges to control such children shall be as provided by law.
Ariz. Const., art. VI, § 15 (emphasis added).
The discretionary element in the transfer decision also has been described by the Arizona Supreme Court:
Under the law in Arizona, until the juvenile court, which has exclusive jurisdiction of all delinquent children or children accused of crime, has considered the matter and decided that the particular individual is not one who will benefit from its special treatment, a child offender remains in the juvenile jurisdiction.
State v. Shaw, 93 Ariz. 40, 47, 378 P.2d 487, 491 (1963) (en banc) (footnote omitted); see also McBeth v. Rose, 111 Ariz. 399, 403, 531 P.2d 156, 160 (1975) ().
The responsibility of the juvenile court to exercise an independent judgment in transfer matters was reinforced by our supreme court's adoption in 1984 of amended Rules 12 and 14 of the Rules of Procedure for the Juvenile Court: Rule 12 provides that the county prosecutor may request that the juvenile court waive jurisdiction. Ariz.R.Juv.P. 12. Rule 14 mandates that "the court shall ... determine whether the public safety or interest would best be served by the transfer of the child...." Ariz.R.Juv.P. 14 (emphasis added).
Rule 14 also catalogues the factors that "the court shall consider" before any transfer is effected. Id. (emphasis added). These factors include "the sophistication and maturity of the child"; "the child's physical, mental, and emotional condition"; "the prospects for adequate protection of the public"; and "the likelihood of reasonable rehabilitation of the child." Id. Nowhere do the Rules suggest that such a determination by the court is optional, or that the parties may foreclose the juvenile court's evaluation through their independent agreement.
We conclude that the juvenile court properly treated the transfer decision as one entrusted to its independent discretion by Arizona's constitution, case law, and rules of court, and that it properly treated the agreement of the parties as ineffective to divest it...
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