Justia Juvenile Law Opinion Summaries

Dequan Holmes appealed his convictions for felony murder, aggravated assault, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime for the shooting death of Javares Alston and the non-fatal shooting of Danielle Willingham. He argued on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to convict him and that the trial court committed plain error when it charged the jury to “consider with great care and caution” Holmes’s out-of-court statements. Holmes, a juvenile at the time the crime was committed, also challenged his sentence of life without parole, arguing that it violated the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. The Georgia Supreme Court held the evidence was sufficient to convict Holmes and that any error in the trial court’s instruction to the jury did not amount to plain error because the instruction did not affect the outcome of his trial. The Supreme Court also concluded Holmes’ sentence of life without parole was not prohibited by United States Supreme Court precedent, especially in the light of that Court’s recent decision in Jones v. Mississippi, ____ U.S. ___ (141 S.Ct 1307 (2021)). View "Holmes v. Georgia" on Justia Law

A minor convicted of driving under the influence (DUI) argued that the statute that excluded misdemeanor traffic violations from juvenile court jurisdiction violated her right to equal protection under the Alaska Constitution. She argued that the mandatory jail sentence for first DUI offenders was unfairly different than the dispositions for other misdemeanors in the juvenile code. And she argued that it was unfair for felony DUI offenses to be charged in juvenile court when misdemeanor offenses were not. The Alaska Supreme Court concluded that because driving was an adult activity, the legislature could reasonably decide to treat misdemeanor traffic violations consistently to promote public safety while also reasonably choosing to protect juvenile offenders from the harsh collateral consequences of a felony conviction. The Court, therefore, concluded the statute was constitutional and affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Watson v. Alaska" on Justia Law

K.V. appealed a juvenile court memorandum opinion, issued after remand, that denied his motion to suppress evidence. K.V. was charged and adjudicated a delinquent child for possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia in January 2019. K.V. moved to suppress the evidence gathered after the stop. Following a hearing on the motion to suppress, the juvenile court issued an order denying K.V.’s motion. K.V. appealed, arguing the warrantless search violated the Fourth Amendment. The North Dakota Supreme Court reversed and remanded for reconsideration because the juvenile court did not make specific findings on the reasonableness of the pat down and did not identify what exception to the warrant requirement justified the search. Following remand, the juvenile court issued the memorandum opinion at issue here. The court concluded the pat down was justified based on officer safety, but determined the further search was not supported by the record for officer safety, because the officer did not identify what he felt during the pat down. However, relying on precedent from another jurisdiction that did not require individualized suspicion to search a passenger when the odor of marijuana is emanating from a vehicle, the court found, that based on what he saw, heard and smelled, the officer believed he had probable cause to search K.V. for marijuana and related paraphernalia. The court concluded, “based on the totality of the circumstances that Officer Engen had probable cause to search the person of K.V. for illegal drugs and the search was legal.” The North Dakota Supreme Court concluded the juvenile court erred in concluding the officers had probable cause to conduct a warrantless search of K.V. under the totality of the circumstances, and reversed the juvenile court’s memorandum opinion denying K.V.’s motion to suppress and the order adjudicating K.V. a delinquent child. View "Interest of K.V." on Justia Law

Defendant Eduardo Lopez, Jr. committed murder at age 17. Following his conviction, defendant received a statutorily-mandated sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In 2012, the United States Supreme Court issued Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), ruling that “the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders.” Accordingly, in 2017, the trial court held a two-day resentencing hearing at which it heard testimony from the arresting police officer, several members of the murder victim’s family, an addiction psychiatrist, a forensic psychologist, several members of the defendant’s family, and the defendant. Following the hearing, taking into consideration the record before it, “the nature and circumstances of the underlying crime, the characteristics of the defendant, and the traditional sentencing factors,” the court imposed a sentence of 45 years to life. Defendant appealed that sentence, arguing 45-year-to-life constituted a de facto equivalent of of lifetime imprisonment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The New Hampshire Supreme Court held the trial court did not err in determining that the 45-year-to-life sentence it imposed, under which defendant had an opportunity to be considered for parole when he reached 62 years of age, was not a de facto life sentence under the Eighth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Accordingly, the sentence was affirmed. View "New Hampshire v. Lopez, Jr." on Justia Law

In November 2017, M.S. was charged with third degree assault of a King County Metro bus driver. M.S. approached the driver’s side window of a King County bus while it was parked. When the bus driver leaned out the driver’s side window to speak to M.S., M.S. squirted urine from a plastic bottle at the bus driver. M.S. pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of fourth degree assault and requested a deferred disposition of the criminal assault charge. The court also asked M.S. if he understood that the court could impose a manifest injustice sentence outside the standard range if it found aggravating factors. The court did not mention at the hearing or in the plea agreement any existing aggravating factors it could rely on if it did impose a manifest injustice sentence. The court granted M.S.’s request for a deferred disposition and in it required M.S. to comply with a number of conditions of community supervision. The trial court ultimately sentenced M.S. to a manifest injustice disposition based on facts and aggravating factors that M.S. had no notice of at the time of his plea. The Court of Appeals affirmed M.S.’s sentence and rejected M.S.’s argument that any right to notice of the factual basis of a manifest injustice disposition existed prior to pleading guilty. The issue this case presented for the Washington Supreme Court's review centered on whether a juvenile, before entering a guilty plea in a criminal proceeding, had a statutory or constitutional due process right to notice of the factual basis of and the intent to seek a manifest injustice disposition. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and held that a juvenile has a right to notice of the factual basis necessary to support a manifest injustice sentence before deciding to plead guilty. View "Washington v. M.S." on Justia Law

In 2017, D.L., a 14-year-old boy, was charged with three counts of first degree rape and one count of attempted first degree rape of his 5-year-old half brother. At the time, D.L. had no prior criminal history. D.L. successfully negotiated a plea deal with the prosecutor, reducing the charges to a single count of first degree attempted child molestation. D.L. stipulated in his plea agreement that the trial court could use the probable cause statement to determine the facts that supported his conviction. But when the court imposed the manifest injustice disposition, it relied on three facts that were not in the probable cause affidavit: (1) that D.L.’s victim had a cognitive disability; (2) that D.L. refused accountability; and (3) that D.L. would not cooperate with treatment. This case asked the Washington Supreme Court whether due process required that the State give a juvenile notice of these specific facts before pleading guilty if they will be used to justify a manifest injustice disposition. "Ultimately, due process requires that juveniles be treated in a manner that is fundamentally fair. ... Without adequate notice, juveniles and their attorneys cannot predict which facts might be unearthed and weaponized to extend the juvenile’s sentence after the plea. This lack of notice causes unfair surprise to young defendants and serves only to undermine juveniles’ and their families’ trust in our juvenile justice system. Our adult defendants in Washington are not treated so unfairly and neither should we so treat our juveniles." As a result, the manifest injustice disposition was improperly imposed. As D.L. already served his sentence and this case was technically moot; the Court resolved this legal issue without modifying D.L.’s sentence. View "Washington v. D.L." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the district court in this case and held that the aggravated indecent liberties statute, Kan. Stat. Ann. 21-5506(b)(1), is not vague or overbroad and does not violate equal protection as applied.The State charged A.B., who was then a fourteen-year-old girl, with aggravated indecent liberties with a child for having sex with a then fourteen-year-old boy. The State first charged A.B. with unlawful voluntary sexual relations under Kan. Stat. Ann. 21-5507, commonly known as the "Romeo and Juliet" statute, but the district court dismissed the charge because A.B. was a few months younger than the boy. In doing so, the court relied on In re E.R., 197 P.3d 870 (Kan. 2008), which held that the statute requires the offender to be older than the victim. The State then recharged A.B. with the more severe crime of aggravated indecent liberties with a child under section 21-5506(b)(1). The district court subsequently declared section 21-5506(b)(1) unconstitutional. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case, holding (1) section 21-5506(b)(1) is not vague or overbroad and does not violate equal protection; and (2) E.R. which held that section 21-5507 requires the offender to be older than the other participant in the sexual relations criminalized by the statute, is overruled. View "In re A.B." on Justia Law

Applicant Steven Thomas was 16 when he committed capital murder. When he was 19, the juvenile court waived its exclusive jurisdiction and transferred Applicant’s case to district court, where Applicant pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of murder. Decades passed. Applicant did not appeal his transfer or his case or file a writ of habeas corpus. Then, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided Moon v. Texas, 451 S.W.3d 28 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014), which held that if an order waiving juvenile jurisdiction did not contain factually-supported, case-specific findings, then the order is invalid, and the district court never acquires jurisdiction. Based upon Moon, Applicant argued that because the order waiving juvenile jurisdiction did not contain factually-supported, case-specific findings, it was invalid, and thus the district court never acquired jurisdiction. The Court of Criminal Appeals found that the type of findings Moon required were neither grounded in the text of the transfer statute, nor in Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966), the Supreme Court precedent that it purportedly relied upon in Moon. "Requiring them may be good policy, but the lack of case-specific findings has nothing to do with jurisdiction, fundamental constitutional rights, or even the transfer statute itself. The juvenile court’s transfer order in this case may have lacked factually-supported, case-specific findings, but that did not make that order invalid or deprive the district court of jurisdiction." Consequently, the Court determined Applicant was not entitled to habeas corpus relief. View "Ex parte Steven Thomas" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the dispositional order imposed after an adjudication that juvenile Timothy Silva committed manslaughter, holding that the court did not err in committing him to detention.Silva was sixteen years old when he lost control of a vehicle and caused the death of three passengers and serious injuries to a fourth. The juvenile court adjudicated Silva to have committed one count of manslaughter and committed him to Long Creek Youth Development Center for an undetermined period of up Silva's twenty-first birthday. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that the court's disposition was neither error nor an abuse of discretion. View "State v. Silva" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court convicting Defendant of attempted murder, holding that the trial court did not err in not allowing Defendant's mother as a witness to stay in the courtroom during Defendant's trial.Defendant was fifteen years old when he was waived into adult criminal court and convicted. Before trial, the State listed Defendant's mother as a potential witness, and at trial, the State requested a separation of witnesses order. The court ordered Defendant's mother to leave the courtroom, and the State never called her to testify. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) a child in adult criminal court may use Ind. R. Evid. 615(c) to establish that a parent is "essential" to the presentation of the defense and is thus excluded from a witness separation order; (2) Defendant did not make the requisite showing under the rule; (3) Defendant waived his argument that a juvenile defendant has a due process right to have a parent present for criminal proceedings; and (4) Defendant's challenges to his sentence were unavailing. View "Harris v. State" on Justia Law