State v. Randolph

• Decision Date: 17 June 1994
• Docket Number: No. 69449,69449
• Citation: 19 Kan.App.2d 730,876 P.2d 177
• Parties: STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Mickey A. RANDOLPH, Appellant.
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

Page 177

876 P.2d 177

19 Kan.App.2d 730

STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. Mickey A. RANDOLPH, Appellant.

No. 69449.

Court of Appeals of Kansas.

June 17, 1994.

Review Denied Sept. 9, 1994.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Once the juvenile court decides to waive jurisdiction, pursuant to K.S.A. 38-1636(f)(3), and the respondent appears in the criminal court as a defendant, the criminal court acquires personal and subject matter jurisdiction over the case. The criminal court can try any additional charges that might arise from the same set of facts that spawned the juvenile case, whether the charges come from the State filing additional charges prior to the preliminary hearing or by the trial court binding the defendant over on different charges at the preliminary hearing. The State does not have to return to juvenile court and again seek its waiver of jurisdiction. It is sufficient that the procedure starts in juvenile court.

2. A juvenile can stipulate to allegations made against him in a motion to waive juvenile court jurisdiction. The juvenile court must make the decision to waive jurisdiction and can take into account the juvenile's stipulation along with evidence concerning the eight factors in K.S.A. 38-1636(e).

3. An evidentiary stipulation made by a juvenile at a juvenile court hearing to waive jurisdiction is not rendered involuntary simply because the juvenile is not aware of all possible charges that could be filed against him as an adult.

Julie A. Gorenc, Asst. Appellate Defender, and Jessica R. Kunen, Chief Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Jo Ann Van Meter, Asst. Dist. Atty., Joan M. Hamilton, Dist. Atty., and Robert T. Stephan, Atty. Gen., for appellee.

Before BRISCOE, C.J., ROYSE, J., and STEPHEN D. HILL, District Judge, Assigned.

STEPHEN D. HILL, District Judge, Assigned:

This is an appeal from a conviction for aggravated battery, K.S.A. 21-3414. Mickey A. Randolph, who was 16 years old at the time of the offense, was tried as an adult.

The parties do not dispute the facts of the case. During the evening of January 16, 1992, Randolph and two other youths confronted and fought with Lester Berry in Topeka. One of them demanded money from Berry. When he produced about 30 cents, someone knocked it to the ground and then all three young men began hitting him. Berry testified that he believed that Randolph also hit him with a bottle. Randolph denied this. The three assailants were soon picked up by the police.

Randolph's prosecution commenced with a complaint filed in the juvenile court in accordance with the Kansas Juvenile Offenders Code, K.S.A. 38-1601 et seq. The State charged Randolph with one count of attempted aggravated robbery, K.S.A. 21-3427 and K.S.A. 21-3301. The State filed a motion to waive juvenile court jurisdiction pursuant to K.S.A. 38-1636. The State also wanted the juvenile court, at the hearing, to decide the waiver of jurisdiction, to consider evidence, and to make findings in lieu of a preliminary examination pursuant to K.S.A. 22-2902. The State, at the waiver hearing, withdrew its request for a preliminary hearing when Randolph agreed, before the hearing, to stipulate to the motion to waive jurisdiction.

At the jurisdiction waiver hearing in juvenile court, the State maintained that the underlying complaint before the court was one count of attempted aggravated robbery, an offense that would constitute a felony if the respondent Randolph were an adult. When asked by the juvenile court judge for the factual basis of the motion to waive, the prosecutor responded that (1) Randolph was under 18 years of age, (2) he is alleged to be a juvenile offender based on a violation of K.S.A. 21-3301 and 21-3427, attempted aggravated robbery, (3) he is over 16 years old but younger than 18 years old, (4) "such offenses would be felonies if committed by an adult," and (5) Randolph's record, the serious, violent nature of this offense, Randolph's lack of amenability to programs available in juvenile court, and the safety of the community all compelled Randolph's prosecution as an adult. Randolph, through his attorney, stipulated to all of the State's allegations.

Based on those allegations, Randolph's stipulation, and the consent of his court-appointed attorney, the juvenile court ordered Randolph to stand trial as an adult. The State never informed the juvenile court judge or Randolph that it intended to file additional felony charges against Randolph as an adult.

The State filed a three-count criminal complaint against Randolph, charging him as an adult with one count of aggravated battery, K.S.A. 21-3414, and one count of robbery, K.S.A. 21-3426, along with the original charge of attempted aggravated robbery. After a preliminary hearing on March 27, 1992, Randolph was bound over for trial on all three counts. At his trial, after objecting to the State filing the two additional felony charges, Randolph was found guilty of aggravated battery, not guilty of attempted aggravated robbery (the original charge in juvenile court), and not guilty of robbery. Randolph had never been charged in juvenile court with aggravated battery.

Randolph argues that the trial court committed three errors. He alleges that the criminal court was without jurisdiction to try his case because subject matter jurisdiction cannot be waived by a juvenile. Second, Randolph argues that the trial court allowed the State to improperly file two additional charges against him once he appeared in criminal court. Third, Randolph also argues that any stipulation he might have made about jurisdiction in juvenile court was not knowingly made because the State did not inform him, prior to his stipulation, that additional charges would or could be filed against him when he entered criminal court.

We will deal with Randolph's second assignment of error first. Whether the State can file two additional charges against a defendant, after the juvenile court has authorized his prosecution as an adult on a different charge, is a question of first impression in Kansas.

Courts in other jurisdictions that have ruled upon this matter rule in one of two different ways. The first group rules that jurisdiction over juveniles, both personal and subject matter, rests strictly and exclusively with the juvenile court. The juvenile court must first authorize any additional charges against a juvenile in those jurisdictions. Robidoux v. Coker, 383 So.2d 719 (Fla.Dist.App.1980), Benge v. Commonwealth, 346 S.W.2d 311 (Ky.App.1961), Gibson v. State, 47 Wis.2d 810, 177 N.W.2d 912 (1970). The second group rules that once the juvenile court waives jurisdiction, the criminal court has jurisdiction over the person and the subject matter. This means that the criminal court may try lesser included crimes and additional criminal charges arising out of the same set of facts, which were not first brought in juvenile court. Pharms v. State, 477 N.E.2d 334 (Ind.App.1985), Johnson v. State, 512 So.2d 1246 (Miss.1987), State v. Garcia, 93 N.M. 51, 596 P.2d 264 (1979). Since all these cases deal with statutes unique to their states, their value is in showing their approach to the problem and not the result.

In Kansas, prosecutions are public matters brought in the name of the State. The county or district attorney has total discretion in determining whether to prosecute, what charges to file, and whether to reduce charges. The power of the county or district attorney to determine the nature and severity of the charges against a defendant in a particular case is unrestricted. State v. Pruett, 213 Kan. 41, 515 P.2d 1051 (1973); see State ex rel. Rome v. Fountain, 234 Kan. 943, 678 P.2d 146 (1984).

Furthermore, in juvenile cases, the county or district attorney, alone, has the discretion to seek prosecution of a juvenile as an adult or to seek presentation of evidence to the juvenile court in lieu of a preliminary hearing.

"We agree with the State that it lies within the discretion of the prosecutor whether to present evidence of the alleged offenses at the waiver hearing. The prosecutor also has the discretion whether to request the court to make the findings required in a preliminary examination by K.S.A. 22-2902 and the finding that there is no necessity for a further preliminary examination. The court must then act judicially to determine whether it should consider the evidence as probative only on the issue of waiver or for the purpose of establishing probable cause." In re Davis, 234 Kan. 766, 771, 674 P.2d 1045 (1984).

In Kansas, the hearing to decide whether the court should waive juvenile jurisdiction is not adjudicatory.

"While a waiver hearing involves a substantial right subject to the requirements of due process, it is not adjudicatory in nature in that it does not result in any determination of guilt or innocence or in confinement or punishment. It is merely a preliminary process to determine the type of adjudicatory procedure to be carried out at a later date. The only decision is dispositional in that the court determines whether further proceedings will be under the juvenile offenders code or under the Kansas criminal code." State v. Muhammad, 237 Kan. 850, 856, 703 P.2d 835 (1985).

The nature of the charge (which is within the discretion of the prosecutor) is but one factor of eight for the juvenile court to consider when making the decision to waive jurisdiction over a juvenile pursuant to K.S.A. 38-1636(e). Once the court makes that judicial determination to waive juvenile court jurisdiction, then all the doctrines of law that apply in criminal court apply to the case of the juvenile when he is prosecuted as an adult.

One of those doctrines of law concerns the bindover at a preliminary hearing. At a preliminary hearing, the trial court can add or change charges. "Kansas has long held that a defendant may be charged with one offense and 'bound over for another, if it shall appear on the [preliminary] examination that he is guilty of...