State v. Victor L. (In re Interest of Victor L.)
| Decision Date | 23 April 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. S-20-312.,S-20-312. |
| Citation | 958 N.W.2d 413,309 Neb. 21 |
| Parties | IN RE Interest of VICTOR L., a child under 18 years of age. State of Nebraska, appellant, v. Victor L., appellee. |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
Natalie Killion, Deputy Douglas County Attorney, and Rachel Lowe, Senior Certified Law Student, for appellant.
Thomas C. Riley, Douglas County Public Defender, and Leigh A. Ellis, for appellee.
Heavican, C.J., Miller-Lerman, Cassel, Stacy, Funke, Papik, and Freudenberg, JJ.
The State filed a petition in the separate juvenile court of Douglas County, Nebraska, alleging Victor L. had been habitually truant from school and fell within the meaning of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-247(3)(b) (Reissue 2016). Victor moved to dismiss the petition, alleging he was not competent to be adjudicated. Following a court-ordered competency evaluation, the juvenile court found Victor was not competent and dismissed the petition. The State timely appealed, and we moved this case to our docket on our own motion.1 On this record, we affirm.
Victor was born in December 2004 and resides with his mother in Douglas County, Nebraska. During the 2018-19 school year, Victor was enrolled at a local middle school.
In April 2019, the State filed a petition against Victor in the separate juvenile court of Douglas County, alleging he had not attended school for more than 20 days during the current school year and therefore was habitually truant within the meaning of § 43-247(3)(b). The court appointed counsel to represent Victor in the proceeding.
Prior to the adjudication hearing, Victor moved to dismiss the truancy petition, alleging he was "incompetent to stand trial." Victor's motion referred to a 2018 competency evaluation which had concluded he was not competent " ‘due to cognitive deficits, limited legal understanding, and emotional [lability].’ " The 2018 competency evaluation is not in our record, but other information in the record suggests it was a court-ordered evaluation in an unrelated delinquency proceeding. In the instant proceeding, Victor's motion to dismiss alleged generally that adjudicative competency was one of the "essential requirements of due process and fair treatment" to which a juvenile is entitled and that "adjudication of an incompetent juvenile violates due process of law."
The motion to dismiss was taken up at a hearing on September 10, 2019. That hearing was not included in our bill of exceptions, but the court's written order indicates Victor appeared for the hearing with his counsel and Victor's mother was present pro se. A single unidentified exhibit was offered, which is not in our record. Based on the evidence adduced, the court continued the scheduled adjudication hearing and ordered Victor to undergo a new competency evaluation. Probation was appointed on a preadjudicative basis to assist with that evaluation.2
At a competency review hearing on December 17, 2019, the court received into evidence a "Juvenile Adjudicative Competency Evaluation" report authored by Kari Perez, Ph.D. In the report, Perez described Victor's complicated mental health history, which included prior hospitalizations for suicidal ideation, medication noncompliance, and a long history of " ‘school avoidance.’ " Testing revealed Victor's full-scale IQ was 68, placing him in the second percentile of children his age. Testing also revealed Victor had extremely low verbal reasoning abilities, markedly impaired abstract reasoning abilities, and substantial impairments in practical knowledge and judgment. The report suggested all of these skills were "directly related to [Victor's] ability to assist his attorney and to make decisions." Results from testing to assess Victor's understanding of the juvenile legal process showed he understood some aspects of the proceedings, but did not understand others. Among other things, he did not understand the basis for his current charges, how he could assist his counsel, what it meant to deny the allegations of the petition, the role of the juvenile court judge, the role of his defense attorney, or the role of the juvenile probation officer. Ultimately, the report concluded that "Victor does not have the capacities associated with competence to stand trial in juvenile court."
In a section of the report titled "Remediation Potential," Perez noted:
It may be possible for Victor's adjudicative competency to improve in the areas of understanding and appreciation of pleas, penalties, and the roles of the courtroom participants; however, this will require repeated, graded exposure to these concepts over time, substantially more than is required for most individuals his age. Even if he is able to improve in these areas, his ability to reason with that information in the service of assisting his attorney and making case decisions remains limited.
Perez suggested that Victor's competency deficits were due primarily to his developmental delays in reasoning and communication and his mental health condition. She opined these conditions were "likely to endure and to continue to negatively impact his competency."
No party disputed the findings or methodology of Perez, and no additional evidence bearing on Victor's competency was offered. Based on the evidence adduced, Victor's counsel urged the court to find that Victor was not competent and to dismiss the truancy petition on that basis.
The State did not dispute the report's conclusion that Victor was not competent; instead, it argued that a juvenile's "lack of competency, per se, is [not] grounds for dismissal." The State's primary contention was that competency was not required for adjudication of a status offense. Alternatively, the State proposed the court should consider either proceeding with the adjudication hearing after appointing a guardian ad litem (GAL) for Victor or ordering Victor to "go to some facility in order to regain competence." The State offered no evidence showing how the appointment of a GAL would allow Victor to meaningfully participate in the proceedings despite his incompetency. And when the court asked the State's counsel whether Nebraska had a facility focused on competency restoration for juveniles, the State responded that it would need to do some research. The court took the matter under advisement, and our record contains no information from the State regarding competency restoration.
In an order entered March 25, 2020, the court found that Victor was not competent, and it dismissed the truancy proceeding on that basis. The order of dismissal directed that all records relating to the matter be sealed3 and recited that information concerning the proceedings was deemed never to have occurred. The State appeals.
The State assigns, restated and renumbered, that the juvenile court erred in dismissing the truancy petition because (1) competency is not required in juvenile adjudications for a status offense; (2) even if competency is required for status offense adjudications, the court could have adequately protected the juvenile's competency right through other procedures; and (3) the juvenile court should not have dismissed based on a finding of incompetency before ordering appropriate treatment to restore competency or making a judicial finding that competency could not be restored.
We have not previously articulated a standard of review for appeals from a juvenile court's preadjudication determination that a petition should be dismissed because the juvenile is not competent. Ordinarily, an appellate court reviews juvenile cases de novo on the record and reaches a conclusion independent of the juvenile court's findings.4 But in some cases, we have said the appropriate standard of review is de novo on the record for an abuse of discretion.5 We have applied the latter standard of review when considering a juvenile court's decision to transfer a juvenile delinquency case to county court or district court,6 when considering a juvenile court's determination that a juvenile was denied the statutory right to a prompt adjudication,7 and when considering a juvenile court's determination that a juvenile's waiver of counsel was voluntary, knowing, and intelligent.8
We now conclude that a juvenile court's determination that a juvenile petition should be dismissed because the juvenile lacks competency to participate in the proceedings involves the sort of discretion that warrants review de novo on the record for an abuse of discretion. An abuse of discretion occurs when a trial court's decision is based upon reasons that are untenable or unreasonable or if its action is clearly against justice or conscience, reason, and evidence.9
Statutory interpretation presents a question of law, on which an appellate court is obligated to reach a conclusion independent of the determination reached by the court below.10
In a juvenile case, as in any other appeal, before reaching the legal issues presented for review, it is the duty of an appellate court to determine whether it has jurisdiction over the matter before it.11 Victor argues we lack jurisdiction because the State has not appealed from a final order. We disagree.
Pursuant to Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-2,106.01 (Reissue 2016), the county attorney is among those expressly authorized to appeal from "[a]ny final order or judgment entered by a juvenile court ... in the same manner as an appeal from [the] district court to the Court of Appeals." The county attorney's appeal process differs in delinquency cases once the juvenile "has been placed legally in jeopardy,"12 but that appeal process has no application here. As such, the county attorney's right to appeal turns on whether the juvenile court's dismissal was a final order.
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-1902 (Cum. Supp. 2020) authorizes appeals from four types of final orders: (1) those...
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