State v. Wright

• Decision Date: 23 May 1990
• Docket Number: No. 88-1187,88-1187
• Citation: 456 N.W.2d 661
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Rondold Reece WRIGHT, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 661

456 N.W.2d 661

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Rondold Reece WRIGHT, Appellant.

No. 88-1187.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

May 23, 1990.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Sheryl A. Soich, Asst. Atty. Gen., and James Smith, Polk County Atty., for appellee.

Raymond E. Rogers, State Appellate Defender, and Andi S. Lipman and James F. Whalen, Asst. Appellate Defenders, for appellant.

Considered by McGIVERIN, C.J., and HARRIS, SCHULTZ, CARTER, and LAVORATO, JJ.

LAVORATO, Justice.

In this appeal we consider whether a juvenile has a right of confrontation in a waiver hearing conducted pursuant to Iowa Code section 232.45 (1987). We conclude not. We vacate the court of appeals decision and affirm the judgment of the district court.

On February 5, 1988, the State filed a petition alleging the juvenile had committed the delinquent act of sexual abuse. Several days later the State filed another petition concerning the juvenile. This time the State alleged the juvenile had committed the delinquent act of first-degree burglary. Both delinquent acts allegedly arose out of the same incident. At the time the two petitions were filed, the juvenile was six months short of his eighteenth birthday.

On the same date the second delinquency petition was filed, the State also filed a motion to waive the juvenile court's jurisdiction. In a detention hearing held earlier, the juvenile court referee had determined that there was probable cause to believe the juvenile had committed the delinquent acts. So the referee ordered the juvenile's detention pending further order of the court.

On March 1 the district court heard the waiver motion and waived jurisdiction of the juvenile for the alleged commission of the offenses. The court then transferred the case to the adult division of the Polk County District Court.

Dan Corsbie, a Polk County juvenile probation officer, prepared a report for the district court, recommending waiver of jurisdiction. At the hearing on the waiver motion the State offered Corsbie's report through Dave Tomason, Corsbie's immediate supervisor. Corsbie was not available to testify at the time because he was on military leave with the National Guard.

A jury found the juvenile guilty of sexual abuse in the third degree. See Iowa Code § 709.4(1). The court sentenced him to a term not to exceed ten years. See Iowa Code §§ 902.9(3), 902.3. This appeal followed. On appeal the juvenile argues that he has both a statutory and constitutional right to confrontation at a waiver hearing. He premises his statutory right on Iowa Code section 232.45 and his constitutional right on the sixth and fourteenth amendments under the United States Constitution.

We transferred the case to the court of appeals, which reversed. The court of appeals concluded that the juvenile's sixth and fourteenth amendment rights under the United States Constitution were violated when Corsbie's report was admitted. These rights were violated--the court of appeals found--because the juvenile was denied the right to confront and cross-examine Corsbie. The State filed an application for further review which we granted.

I. Statutory Right to Confrontation.

Iowa Code section 232.45 provides the procedure the juvenile court must follow for waiver hearings. The juvenile court must provide notice and an opportunity to be heard on the motion. See Iowa Code § 232.45(2), (3).

Before the hearing,

the juvenile probation officer or other person or agency designated by the court shall conduct an investigation for the purpose of collecting information relevant to the court's decision to waive its jurisdiction over the [juvenile] for the alleged commission of the public offense and shall submit a report concerning the investigation to the court. The report shall include any recommendations made concerning waiver. Prior to the hearing the court shall provide the [juvenile's] counsel and the county attorney with access to the report and to all written material to be considered by the court.

Id. at § 232.45(4).

At the waiver hearing, all relevant and material evidence is admissible. Id. at § 232.45(5). The State contends this provision means exactly what it says: all relevant and material evidence is admissible. So even hearsay evidence is admissible if it is relevant and material.

The juvenile, on the other hand, contends that the language of section 232.45(5) means only that the strict rules of evidence shall be relaxed at the waiver hearing. It does not mean--the juvenile argues--that the legislature intended to allow admission, without cross-examination, of a waiver report prepared pursuant to section 232.45(4). In support of his contention, the juvenile cites two of our cases: State v. Anthony, 239 N.W.2d 850 (Iowa 1976) and In re Brown, 183 N.W.2d 731 (Iowa 1971). Both cases stand for the proposition that the waiver hearing afforded "must be a meaningful one, including the production of evidence relied on in asking for the transfer and the right to cross-examine with the assistance of counsel." Anthony, 239 N.W.2d at 851 (emphasis added); accord Brown, 183 N.W.2d at 733.

The State responds on two grounds. First, at the time Anthony and Brown were decided the broad admissibility language now found in section 232.45(5) was not in our juvenile code. So when the legislature added section 232.45(5) in 1977, it signaled its intent to allow all relevant and material evidence at a waiver hearing whether it is hearsay or not.

Second, section 232.45(5) is analogous to the rule of evidence in administrative law that permits an agency to receive and consider hearsay evidence. See McConnell v. Iowa Dep't of Job Serv., 327 N.W.2d 234, 236-37 (Iowa 1982).

In In re T.D.S., 289 N.W.2d 137 (Minn.1980), a juvenile raised similar statutory and constitutional challenges to the admissibility of hearsay evidence in a waiver hearing. At the hearing, the court allowed two officers to testify to the basic facts of the offenses. One officer had interviewed the victim; the other had interrogated the codefendant. The juvenile contended that the court should have excluded this testimony as hearsay under the Minnesota Rules of Evidence. The State argued that the statutory rules of evidence did not govern the waiver hearing (referred to as a reference hearing in the Minnesota juvenile code). The Minnesota Supreme Court agreed with the State. Id. at 141.

In T.D.S. the court focused on various provisions of the Minnesota juvenile code. One provision allowed juvenile proceedings to be conducted in an informal manner. Another provided that the juvenile had a right to be heard, to present evidence, and to cross-examine witnesses appearing at the hearing. Id. at 139.

In addition the Minnesota Supreme Court considered rules promulgated by the juvenile court to govern proceedings under the juvenile code. One such rule allowed the juvenile court to consider any relevant evidence including hearsay and conclusions "except at trials governed by the Minnesota Rules of Evidence." Id. Another rule governed dispositional and waiver hearings. In those instances the rule allowed "all material and relevant" evidence "including hearsay and opinion evidence." Id. at 139-40. With respect to adjudicatory proceedings, the rule was different: evidence inadmissible in civil proceedings was inadmissible in adjudicatory proceedings. Id. at 140.

Finally, the court considered the American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Standards:

The ABA Juvenile Justice Standards Relating to Transfer Between Courts, § 2.2C (Tent.Draft 1977), also treat reference proceedings as dispositional proceedings with respect to evidentiary questions. The ABA Juvenile Justice Standards Relating to Dispositional Procedures, § 2.5 (Tent.Draft 1977), suggest that evidence should be "relevant and material." The comment indicates that hearsay evidence is not objectionable where there are indicia of trustworthiness and where the evidence was not obtained in violation of the juvenile's constitutional rights.

Id.

Concluding that the rules properly allowed hearsay evidence in waiver hearings, the Minnesota Supreme Court explained:

We agree that a [waiver] hearing is properly distinguished from an adjudicatory hearing. For purposes of the hearing the charges are assumed to be true and the only issues for the court are public safety and the juvenile's amenability to treatment. We conclude that the evidence challenged in this case was relevant and material and that it was sufficiently reliable to be admitted on the issue of public safety. The two accounts of the facts and circumstances of the offense as related by the officers were in substantial agreement, and other evidence introduced concerning investigation of the crime tended to corroborate them. Moreover, the reports of the officers were provided to defense counsel prior to the hearing and the codefendant's statements were disclosed at the hearing. Defense counsel was afforded an opportunity for informed cross-examination of the officers and was free to present witnesses rebutting unfavorable testimony. When hearsay is reliable and an opportunity to dispute it is afforded, application of strict exclusionary rules of evidence to reference hearings would impede both the State and the juvenile in fully advising the court of relevant considerations. We therefore hold that the admission of the officers' hearsay testimony was not contrary to applicable statutes and rules.

Id.

One court has allowed hearsay testimony in waiver hearings without reference to statutes but simply on the nature of the proceeding itself. See Matter of Puma County, Juvenile Act No. J.-47735-1, 26 Ariz.App. 46, 48, 546 P.2d 23, 25 (1976). The court viewed a waiver hearing as having two stages. Stage one deals with whether an offense has been committed and whether probable cause exists to believe the juvenile committed it. An affirmative answer to both questions triggers stage two. Stage two deals with whether the...