U.S. v. David A.

• Decision Date: 03 February 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04-2284.,04-2284.
• Citation: 436 F.3d 1201
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DAVID A., a juvenile, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

436 F.3d 1201

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DAVID A., a juvenile, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 04-2284.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

February 3, 2006.

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James E. Bierly, Albuquerque, NM, for Defendant-Appellant, NM, for Defendant-Appellant, David A.

Terri J. Abernathy, Assistant United States Attorney (David C. Iglesias, United States Attorney, with her on the brief), Las Cruces, NM, for Plaintiff-Appellee, United States of America.

Before EBEL, HENRY and McCONNELL, Circuit Judges.

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

The Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act ("FJDA"), 18 U.S.C. §§ 5031-5042, requires that a juvenile who has been charged with a crime occurring after his sixteenth birthday and who "has previously been found guilty of an act which if committed by an adult" would fall within a specific category of offenses, must be transferred to the district court to be tried as an adult. 18 U.S.C. § 5032. In this appeal, we consider the proper procedures applicable to such a mandatory transfer under § 5032. We conclude that 1) the Government's filing a transfer motion tolls the juvenile's thirty-day speedy trial rights provided under 18 U.S.C. § 5036; 2) the Government's good faith search for the juvenile's records in this case satisfied § 5032's requirement that "[a] juvenile shall not be transferred to adult prosecution . . . until any prior juvenile records of such juvenile have been received by the court;" 3) a juvenile's prior juvenile delinquency adjudication meets § 5032's requirement that the juvenile have been previously "found guilty of an act which if committed by an adult would have been one of the offenses set forth" by the statute; and 4) the Government met its burden in this case of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that the juvenile had a prior juvenile delinquency adjudication by submitting certified documents stemming from that delinquency adjudication, where the juvenile failed to assert any evidence contradicting those certified documents.

I. Procedural background

On July 12, 2004, the United States charged then sixteen-year-old David A. by criminal information with "knowingly violat[ing] the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act [by] unlawfully, knowingly and intentionally distribut[ing] 50 grams or more of methamphetamine," contrary to 18 U.S.C. § 2 and 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A).¹ The Government also certified its intent to proceed against David A. in federal court.² Federal authorities took David A. into custody the next day, July 13, 2004.

On July 26, 2004, the Government filed a motion to proceed against David A. as an adult. In that motion, the Government asserted that the FJDA, see 18 U.S.C. § 5032, mandated transferring David A. to the United States district court to be tried as an adult because he was charged with a drug trafficking offense allegedly committed after he had turned sixteen years of age, and New Mexico had previously adjudicated David A. a juvenile delinquent based upon an earlier residential burglary charge. The district court conducted a hearing on that transfer motion on August 25, 2004, but postponed that hearing after discovering that David A.'s parents were not given notice of the hearing. The district court continued the hearing until October 18, 2004. At the conclusion of the October 18 hearing, the district court granted the Government's motion to transfer David A. to the district court to be tried as an adult. David A. timely appeals from that transfer.

II. Appellate jurisdiction.

It is clear that this court has appellate jurisdiction to consider this appeal because "an order transferring a juvenile to be tried as an adult is immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine. . . . Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 . . . (1949)." United States v Angelo D., 88 F.3d 856, 858 (10th Cir.1996).

The legal and practical benefits of being tried as a juvenile — which include pretrial detention in a foster home or community-based facility near the juvenile's home instead of an adult prison, see 18 U.S.C. § 5035, and the sealing of the records and the withholding of the juvenile's name and picture from the media, see 18 U.S.C. § 5038 — would be destroyed if the defendant were forced to wait until after trial and a final judgment in order to appeal. Our belief that an appeal from a final judgment would do little to resurrect the special protections afforded juvenile defendants leads us to join our sister circuits in concluding that an order transferring a juvenile to adult status is immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine.

Id. (citations omitted).

In this case, however, one of the bases on which David A. challenges his transfer is that the Government violated David A.'s speedy trial rights guaranteed under 18 U.S.C. § 5036. The Ninth Circuit has held that, while the district court's transfer decision is itself immediately appealable, an appeal challenging the district court's refusal to dismiss a juvenile claim for a speedy trial violation under 18 U.S.C. § 5036 is not. See United States v. Brandon P., 387 F.3d 969, 972-74 (9th Cir.2004), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 2936, 162 L.Ed.2d 871 (2005).

This case, however, is distinguishable from Brandon P. because David A. never moved to have the charge against him dismissed based upon the alleged violation of his § 5306 speedy trial rights. Rather, he relies upon the district court's delay in deciding the transfer motion as one ground precluding his transfer to be tried as an adult. And, as explained above, the district court's decision to transfer David A. to district court to be tried as an adult is immediately appealable.

Moreover, we agree with the Sixth Circuit that a circuit court does have jurisdiction to consider an interlocutory appeal involving a juvenile's speedy trial rights under § 5036. See United States v. A.R., 203 F.3d 955, 962-63 & 963 n. 6 (6th Cir.2000) (limiting its holding "to speedy trial claims filed after the district court has issued a transfer order").

A speedy trial claim following a transfer order in the juvenile context implicates the very concern which allows us to hear appeals on the merits of transfer orders under the collateral order doctrine — namely, if [juvenile] defendants . . . have to wait until after trial and a final judgment to appeal the claim, the adult trial would have already sacrificed the "legal and practical benefits of being tried as a juvenile."

Id. at 963 (quoting Angelo D., 88 F.3d at 858 (further quotation omitted)); see also United States v. Doe, 49 F.3d 859, 864-65 (2d Cir.1995) (addressing juvenile's speedy trial rights in interlocutory appeal from decision to transfer juvenile to be tried as adult). For these reasons, we are satisfied we have appellate jurisdiction to consider David A.'s interlocutory appeal.

III. Issues

David A. asserts four reasons why the district court erred in transferring him to district court to be tried as an adult: 1) the district court delayed in granting the Government's motion to transfer David A. to be tried as an adult, violating his speedy trial rights provided under 18 U.S.C. § 5036; 2) the Government failed to comply with 18 U.S.C. § 5032's requirement that the district court, before transferring a juvenile, have all the juvenile's records before it; 3) mandatory transfer under § 5032 was not appropriate in this case because David A. was not "found guilty" of any offense in the prior state-court proceeding, but was instead only adjudicated a delinquent; and 4) the Government failed to meet its burden of proving that the David A. charged in these federal proceedings is the same juvenile that was adjudged delinquent in the earlier New Mexico proceeding. For the following reasons, we reject David A.'s arguments and AFFIRM the district court's decision to transfer David A. to the district court to be tried as an adult.

A. 18 U.S.C. § 5036's speedy trial rights

Title 18, U.S.C. § 5036 requires that

[i]f an alleged delinquent who is in detention pending trial is not brought to trial within thirty days from the date upon which such detention was begun, the information shall be dismissed on motion of the alleged delinquent or at the direction of the court, unless the Attorney General shows that additional delay was caused by the juvenile and his counsel, or consented to by the juvenile and his counsel, or would be in the interest of justice in the particular case. Delays attributable solely to court calendar congestion may not be considered in the interest of justice. Except in extraordinary circumstances, an information dismissed under this section may not be reinstituted.

Section 5036's speedy trial period begins to run from the date the Government took David A. into custody, on July 13, 2004. See United States v. Female Juvenile, A.F.S., 377 F.3d 27, 34 (1st Cir.2004) (noting § 5036's "thirty-day time limitation . . . begins to run when the juvenile is taken into federal custody pending trial on federal delinquency charges"); United States v. Doe, 366 F.3d 1069, 1070, 1074 (9th Cir.2004) (same) (reh'g en banc); see also United States v. Doe, 642 F.2d 1206, 1208 (10th Cir.1981). Thirty days from that date would have been August 12, 2004. The Government, however, filed its transfer motion on July 26, 2004, thirteen days after taking David A. into custody. The district court held the first transfer hearing on August 24, but continued that hearing after discovering that David A's parents had never received notice of the hearing. The district court conducted a second hearing on October 18, 2004, verbally granted the transfer motion that day, and then filed a written order the next day, on October 19, 2004, approximately ninety-nine days after David A. was taken into custody.

On appeal, David A. argues both that the district court violated 18 U.S.C. § 5036 by not either...