State v. Burnight
| Decision Date | 16 April 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 24179,24179 |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. James Joseph BURNIGHT, Defendant-Appellant. Boise, January 1999 Term |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
Anderson, Kane & Tobiason, Boise, for appellant. Michael J. Kane argued.
Hon. Alan G. Lance, Attorney General; Alison A. Stieglitz, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. Alison A. Stieglitz argued.
This is an appeal from the district judge's judgment and sentence entered upon James Joseph Burnight's (Burnight) pleas of guilty to attempted robbery and two counts of attempted murder in the first degree with firearm enhancements. Burnight also appeals the district judge's denial of his Rule 35 motion.
On October 4, 1996, Burnight and Steve Fabney attempted to rob Benny's Pawn Shop in Meridian, Idaho. During the attempted robbery, Burnight shot the two clerks working at the pawn shop. Burnight was charged with two counts of first degree attempted murder, attempted robbery, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and grand theft by possession of stolen property. At the time of the offense, Burnight was seventeen years old. However, because attempted murder falls within the enumerated offenses for which juveniles are automatically waived into adult jurisdiction, Burnight was charged and proceeded against as an adult.
In return for Burnight's plea of guilty to both counts of attempted murder, attempted robbery and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, the State dismissed the grand theft charge and the firearm enhancement as it related to the robbery charge. The district judge sentenced Burnight to concurrent thirty-year sentences with fifteen years fixed for the enhanced attempted murder charges and to a consecutive, indeterminate fifteen years for the attempted robbery charge.
After pronouncement of sentence, Burnight filed a timely notice of appeal to this Court asserting abuse of discretion in sentencing. Subsequent to filing his appeal In making his claim that his sentence was illegal, Burnight asserted that the district judge was unable to apply sentence enhancements to his conviction and that he was improperly treated as an adult for the attempted robbery charge. Burnight made both of these claims to the district judge in his Rule 35 motion. In denying Burnight's claim that sentence enhancements for firearm possession during commission of a crime could not be applied to juveniles, the district judge held that I.C. § 20-509 allows for sentence enhancements because the statute states that such juveniles "shall ... be handled in every respect as an adult." The district judge also denied Burnight's claim that he should have been afforded a waiver hearing before being charged with attempted robbery. The district judge noted that no objection to joining the robbery charge with the attempted murder charges had been raised below and went on to hold that, regardless of the failure to raise the issue, Burnight had suffered no prejudice because the attempted robbery charge was within I.C. § 20-509(1)(i), which allows for automatic waiver of crimes that are "based on the same act or transaction or on one or more acts or transactions" as those crimes enumerated in the statute.
Burnight filed a Rule 35 motion with the district court for correction of an illegal sentence and a sentence reduction. The district judge partially granted Burnight's Rule 35 motion finding that the indeterminate sentence for the attempted robbery was not a legal sentence. The district judge re-sentenced Burnight to a term of zero years fixed and fifteen years indeterminate for attempted robbery to run consecutive to the sentence imposed for the attempted murder counts. The district judge denied the remainder of Burnight's Rule 35 motion. Burnight subsequently filed an amended notice of appeal to this Court to include the district judge's denial of the Rule 35 motion.
As this issue involves solely a question of law, our standard of review is one of independent, or free review. State v. Larios, 125 Idaho 727, 728, 874 P.2d 538, 539 (1994); In re Hanson, 121 Idaho 507, 509, 826 P.2d 468, 470 (1992).
Burnight argues that in order for the district judge to have proceeded against him as an adult for the attempted robbery charge, Burnight should have first been afforded a waiver hearing to determine if indeed the attempted robbery was based on the same act or transaction as the attempted murder charges. However, Burnight raised this issue for the first time in his Rule 35 motion. The State first argues that a Rule 35 motion is the incorrect procedural mechanism for raising the issue. Second, the State asserts that Burnight waived this claim by pleading guilty because "[a] valid plea of guilty, voluntarily and understandingly given, waives all non-jurisdictional defects and defenses, whether constitutional or statutory, in prior proceedings." State v. Tipton, 99 Idaho 670, 673, 587 P.2d 305, 308 (1978) (quoting Clark v. State, 92 Idaho 827, 832, 452 P.2d 54, 59-60 (1969)).
We agree with the State and hold that Burnight, by failing to attack the district court's jurisdiction over him for the attempted robbery charge, waived his right to raise the issue either in later motions to the district court or to this Court on appeal. In so holding, we follow our previous decision, State v. Harwood, 98 Idaho 793, 572 P.2d 1228 (1977). 1
In State v. Harwood, this Court held that a review of the juvenile jurisdiction waiver issue must be sought before charges as an adult have proceeded to trial. Harwood, 98 Idaho at 794-95, 572 P.2d at 1229--30. The Court in Harwood adopted the reasoning of a California case and quoted the following language from that case:
To allow a defendant who has been convicted in the superior court to question on appeal the propriety of the juvenile court's finding would afford him an opportunity to secure a reversal of judgment of conviction even though he was found guilty after an errorless trial. Such a defendant should not be allowed to silently speculate on a favorable verdict and then after an adverse judgment is entered proclaim that the juvenile court's finding was erroneous. Moreover, it is in the accused's best interest to seek immediate relief from an improper finding in the juvenile court so he may be spared the burden and public scrutiny associated with a criminal trial. Additionally, the delay inherent in criminal prosecutions may substantially prejudice a juvenile court reconsideration of its prior finding of unfitness should the cause be remanded after a review of criminal proceedings.
Id. (quoting People v. Chi Ko Wong, 18 Cal.3d 698, 135 Cal.Rptr. 392, 557 P.2d 976, 985 (1976)).
Although in Harwood, the Court addressed the situation where an actual waiver hearing had been conducted, we find the reasoning of Harwood to be equally applicable to a situation where a crime has been automatically waived into adult court jurisdiction. The juvenile has every opportunity, prior to proceeding to trial, or as in this case, prior to entry of a guilty plea, to challenge the propriety of the automatic waiver. Waiver of juvenile jurisdiction, especially in cases where the crime challenged is a companion crime to one automatically waived, is a unique jurisdictional question. The legislature, by determining that automatic waiver is allowed for various crimes, has designated juvenile jurisdiction as a type of jurisdiction subject to waiver. Thus, the jurisdictional bar may be overcome if not properly and timely challenged. See id. at 795, 572 P.2d at 1230 (quoting Chi Ko Wong, 135 Cal.Rptr. 392, 557 P.2d at 985-86). As the Court noted in Harwood, no public policy is offended by allowing personal jurisdiction over a juvenile to be estopped or lost by waiver. Id. The juvenile is aware throughout the entire process that through the automatic waiver statute, jurisdiction has been waived for the juvenile. Thus, if the juvenile desires to challenge that waiver, he or she must attack the validity of the jurisdiction prior to proceeding to trial. Moreover, when addressing the court's jurisdiction over the juvenile for crimes waived into adult jurisdiction as a crime committed within the "same act or transaction," the nature of the issue is more procedural than jurisdictional. In other words, the question involves the district court's capability to take under its jurisdiction the companion cases which are a part of the crime that falls within those crimes enumerated in the automatic waiver statute. The procedural nature of the process further supports our holding that a juvenile can waive the right to challenge adult court jurisdiction by not challenging jurisdiction prior to entry of a plea or proceeding to trial.
Accordingly, because Burnight did not object to the district court's jurisdiction over him for the attempted robbery charge until after he had entered his guilty plea, Burnight waived the right to challenge the district court's jurisdiction and we thus decline to address the merits of his claim on appeal.
The State asserts that, like the attempted robbery issue, Burnight's sentence enhancement issue was also improperly raised through a Rule 35 motion. Here, the issue was properly raised in a Rule 35 motion because enhancements are not considered to be a new offense for which there is a separate sentence. Rather, the enhancement is an additional term and is part of a single In the instant case, Burnight argues that the district judge could not enhance his sentence because the language of I.C. § 20-509, which states that "[o]nce a juvenile has been found ... guilty ... the juvenile shall thereafter be handled...
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