Justia Juvenile Law Opinion Summaries

The principal of a Pleasanton high school observed that P.O., who was then 17 years old, appeared to be under the influence of drugs. P.O. admitted to using hashish oil earlier that morning, and a search revealed 11 tablets of Xanax in his pockets. The juvenile court order declared P.O. a ward of the court and placed him on probation after he admitted to a misdemeanor count of public intoxication. A condition of his probation required him to submit to warrantless searches of his “electronics including passwords.” The court of appeal modified the condition and struck two other conditions. While electronic search condition is reasonably related to future criminality, the condition was overbroad. Another condition, requiring him to “be of good behavior and perform well” at school or work and another requiring him to “be of good citizenship and good conduct” are unconstitutionally vague. View "In re P.O." on Justia Law

A firearm was discovered at the minor’s school. School administrators suspected his involvement, and in the course of questioning him, they seized and searched the minor’s cell phone. Interspersed with the text messages on the phone were a number of digital images, including a photograph of the minor holding what appeared to be the firearm found on campus. When the prosecution sought to use these images as evidence in the proceeding below, the minor unsuccessfully moved to suppress them. The juvenile court found the minor had possessed an assault weapon, and declared him a ward of the juvenile court (Welfare & Institutions Code 602.1). The court of appeal affirmed in part, finding the search of the cell phone reasonable. Considering all the circumstances, the juvenile court properly found the search was justified at its inception and permissible in scope. The order must be modified to reflect his maximum term of confinement and the matter must be remanded to the juvenile court so that it may calculate the custody credits to which he is entitled. View "In re Rafael C." on Justia Law

A firearm was discovered at the minor’s school. School administrators suspected his involvement, and in the course of questioning him, they seized and searched the minor’s cell phone. Interspersed with the text messages on the phone were a number of digital images, including a photograph of the minor holding what appeared to be the firearm found on campus. When the prosecution sought to use these images as evidence in the proceeding below, the minor unsuccessfully moved to suppress them. The juvenile court found the minor had possessed an assault weapon, and declared him a ward of the juvenile court (Welfare & Institutions Code 602.1). The court of appeal affirmed in part, finding the search of the cell phone reasonable. Considering all the circumstances, the juvenile court properly found the search was justified at its inception and permissible in scope. The order must be modified to reflect his maximum term of confinement and the matter must be remanded to the juvenile court so that it may calculate the custody credits to which he is entitled. View "In re Rafael C." on Justia Law

The juvenile court adjudicated Appellant, a juvenile, delinquent on sex offenses. At disposition, the juvenile court did not record a finding regarding Appellant’s age at the time the offenses were committed. Upon Appellant’s release from the Ohio Department of Youth Services, the court scheduled a sex-offender-classification hearing. Appellant opposed his classification as a juvenile-sex-offender registrant, arguing that he was ineligible for classification because he was under the age of fourteen when the offenses were committed and because classification would violate the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. After a hearing, the juvenile court found (1) Appellant had committed at least one offense when he was fourteen years of age, and (2) Appellant should be designated a juvenile offender registrant and classified as a Tier II offender. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) a determination of a juvenile sex offender’s age at the time of the offense can be made at any time prior to or during the classification hearing; and (2) the imposition of classification upon release from a secure facility and for a time period beyond the juvenile offender’s attainment of age eighteen or twenty-one does not violate the offender’s due process rights or the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. View "In re D.S." on Justia Law

In 1993, Kristopher Kirchner, age 16 at the time, and Damien Miller, age 15, executed a plan to rob a gun store in Vista owned by Ross Elvey. Once inside the store, Kirchner repeatedly hit 59-year-old Elvey in the head with a metal pipe causing severe trauma that ultimately resulted in Elvey's death after languishing in a coma for 40 days. Kirchner was initially charged in juvenile court, however, the court found Kirchner unfit to be prosecuted as a juvenile and he was charged as an adult. Kirchner was found guilty of one count of first degree murder, and remanded to the California Youth Authority (CYA). CYA concluded there was a reasonable probability that Kirchner's likelihood to commit further crimes could be reduced or eliminated within the available confinement time if sentenced as a juvenile. The trial court declined to follow the recommendation of the CYA and sentenced Kirchner to LWOP on the murder conviction, plus one year consecutive for the weapon enhancement. Kirchner filed a second petition for writ of habeas corpus in October 2014 contending that under "Miller v. Alabama" and "California v. Gutierrez," his sentence violated the Eighth Amendment. The district attorney's return argued Miller and Gutierrez could not be applied retroactively and Kirchner was, therefore, barred from collaterally attacking his sentence. The court granted the request to file a supplemental return. Kirchner filed a supplemental denial. In 2015, the superior court granted Kirchner's petition. The district attorney appealed. The Court of Appeal concluded after review that the trial court correctly concluded the holdings of Miller and Gutierrez applied retroactively in state collateral proceedings such as the one presented here and that the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution required that when inmates, such as Kirchner, were serving life terms for crimes committed while they were juveniles, they must, except in the most extraordinary circumstances, be given an opportunity to seek parole. However, where, as was the case in California, a legislature has provided inmates serving life sentences for crimes committed while they were juveniles with an opportunity to obtain a parole hearing, the state has remedied any constitutional defect in the inmate's sentence. View "In re Kirchner" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with first degree assault and an associated armed criminal action count under Mo. Rev. Stat. 571.015.1. Defendant, who was a juvenile at the time of the offenses, moved to dismiss the armed criminal action charge on the ground that the application of the sentencing provisions of section 571.015.1 to juvenile offenders is unconstitutional. The trial court agreed with Defendant, concluding that section 571.015.1 is unconstitutional as applied to all juvenile offenders and declared unconstitutional the three-year mandatory minimum incarceration requirement for juveniles who are certified to stand trial as adults. The State subsequently filed this interlocutory appeal challenging the trial court’s determination regarding the constitutional validity of section 571.015.1. The Supreme Court dismissed the State’s appeal, holding that the State has no right to appeal this interlocutory decision under section 547.200.1, nor does the trial court’s decision constitute a final judgment from which the State is entitled to appeal under section 547.200.2. View "State v. Smiley" on Justia Law

Montgomery was 17 years old in 1963, when he killed a deputy in Louisiana. The jury returned a verdict of “guilty without capital punishment,” which carried an automatic sentence of life without parole. Nearly 50 years later, the Supreme Court decided, in Miller v. Alabama, that mandatory life without parole for juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. The trial court denied his motion for relief. His application for a supervisory writ was denied by the Louisiana Supreme Court, which had previously held that Miller does not have retroactive effect in state collateral review. The Supreme Court reversed. Courts must give retroactive effect to new watershed procedural rules and to substantive rules of constitutional law. Substantive constitutional rules include “rules forbidding criminal punishment of certain primary conduct” and “rules prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense.” Miller announced a substantive rule of constitutional law, which is retroactive because it necessarily carries a significant risk that a defendant faces a punishment that the law cannot impose. A state may remedy a Miller violation by extending parole eligibility to juvenile offenders. This would neither impose an onerous burden nor disturb the finality of state convictions and would afford someone like Montgomery, who may have evolved from a troubled, misguided youth to a model member of the prison community, the opportunity to demonstrate the truth of Miller’s central intuition—that children who commit even heinous crimes are capable of change. View "Montgomery v. Louisiana" on Justia Law

The case centered Section 6105 of the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act of 1995. Although a Section 6105 violation, by default, is graded as a misdemeanor of the first degree, subsection (a.1)(1) elevated the offense grade to a felony of the second degree where the defendant was “convicted” of any felony offense enumerated in subsection (b). In 2011, Appellee was convicted, among other things, of a Section 6105 offense, apparently based upon his possession of a firearm and the fact of a previous juvenile adjudication in 2005 for conduct which would give rise to an aggravated assault conviction if committed by an adult. Prior to sentencing, the prosecution apparently took the position that the finding of delinquency should be considered a “conviction” for purposes of the subsection (a.1)(1) enhancement. On appeal, however, the Superior Court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. The intermediate court explained that the term “conviction” carried a discrete legal connotation that is not generally understood to encompass juvenile adjudications. The Supreme Court granted review to determine whether juvenile adjudications of delinquency qualify as “convictions” for purposes of grading within a particularized sentencing regime. The Court held that the concept of convictions, as embodied in Section 6105, did not encompass juvenile adjudications. View "Pennsylvania. v. Hale" on Justia Law

Appellant Chase C. (a minor) was charged with resisting, delaying, or obstructing a peace officer. An adjudication hearing was held, at which the juvenile court found the allegation against Chase to be true. The court adjudged Chase a ward of the court and placed him on formal probation for one year or until Chase's 18th birthday, whichever was longer. These proceedings were instituted over an incident in May 2014, when a San Diego Sheriff's Deputy was conducting a foot patrol through Turtle Park, in the Forest Ranch area of San Diego. The deputy was not in full uniform at the time, but was wearing either an external raid vest with "Sheriff" written on it, or a Sheriff shirt with patches. The deputy was approached by a group of middle school children, who told him that two high school aged children had tried to sell them drugs. The issue this case presented for the Court of Appeal's review centered on a novel issue regarding whether Chase (once the deputy caught up with a group of teens matching the middle schoolers' descriptions) who allegedly urged his cohorts not to cooperate with a police investigation, rose to the level of a violation of Penal Code1 section 148. This case called for the Court to determine when a refusal to cooperate with police becomes unlawful interference with police activity under section 148. The Court concluded that refusal to cooperate only becomes criminal when it obstructs lawful police activity. Here, substantial evidence did not support the trial court's finding with regard to section 148(a)(1), and reversed. View "In re Chase C." on Justia Law

Minor J.B. appealed a condition of probation that the trial court imposed after he was convicted of petty theft. On appeal to the Court of Appeal, J.B. argued the trial court unconstitutionally imposed a condition of probation that required him to permit searches of and disclose all passwords to his electronic devices and social media sites. Because there was no evidence connecting the juvenile’s electronic device or social media usage to his offense or to a risk of future criminal conduct, the Court of Appeal concluded the condition was unreasonable. Accordingly, the Court modified the judgment to strike this condition. View "In re J.B." on Justia Law