Justia Juvenile Law Opinion Summaries

Three cases concerning juvenile sentencing were consolidated by the Supreme Court for the purpose of this opinion. In each, the Court examined the appropriate remedies for the defendants whose sentences would otherwise be unconstitutional under "Miller v. Alabama," (132 S. CT 2455 (2012)). Under the statutory schemen in place between 1990 and 2006, all three defendants in these cases were given mandatory life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for the crimes they committed as juveniles. Two of the cases, "Colorado v. Tate" and "Banks v. Colorado," came to the Supreme Court on direct review. "Miller" applied to these cases and rendered their sentences unconstitutional. "In order to preserve as much of the legislature’s work as possible, Tate and Banks should be given individualized resentencing hearings that take into account their 'youth and attendant characteristics.'" The third case, "Jensen," was a C.A.R. 50 petition that came on collateral review of a final judgment. Because this case was on collateral review, the issue was whether "Miller" applied retroactively. The Colorado Court found that because the rule announced in "Miller" was procedural rather than substantive, and was not a "watershed" rule of procedure, it did not apply retroactively to cases on collateral review of final judgment. Therefore, "Miller" did not apply to Jensen. View "Colorado v. Tate" on Justia Law

In 2014 California voters passed Proposition 47, which reclassified certain offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. Proposition 47 also enacted Penal Code section 1170.18, which created a procedure whereby a defendant who suffered a felony conviction of one of the reclassified crimes could petition to have his or her conviction redesignated a misdemeanor. After the passage of Proposition 47, Alejandro N. filed a section 1170.18 petition to change his juvenile felony adjudication to a misdemeanor. The superior court agreed that Alejandro's offense qualified as a misdemeanor for purposes of section 1170.18's sentence reduction provisions. Based on Welfare and Institutions Code section 726 (which provided that a juvenile offender could not be physically confined longer than an adult offender for the same offense) the court reduced Alejandro's maximum period of confinement to the misdemeanor level. However, the court declined to reclassify Alejandro's offense from a felony to a misdemeanor under section 1170.18's offense reclassification provisions, ruling that because section 1170.18 used the adult offender terminology of "conviction," the statute did not apply to juvenile offenders. Alejandro filed a petition for writ of mandate challenging the superior court's ruling. Upon review, the Court of Appeal held that the offense reclassification provisions set forth in section 1170.18 applied to juveniles. Based on the reclassification of his offense from a felony to a misdemeanor, Alejandro also requested that the superior court: (1) order his DNA sample and information removed from the state's data base; and (2) reduce his fine to a misdemeanor level. The Court of Appeal agreed that a reclassified misdemeanor offense under Proposition 47 could not alone support retention of DNA materials in the state's DNA data bank, and the Court directed the superior court to expunge Alejandro's DNA unless there was another basis to retain it apart from his mere commission of the reclassified misdemeanor offense. As to Alejandro's request for a fine reduction, he did not refute the trial court's finding that his $50 fine was already at the misdemeanor level. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal granted the petition in part and directed the superior court to (1) reclassify Alejandro's felony offense as a misdemeanor, and (2) reconsider his request for DNA expungement. The Court denied the petition as to his request for fine reduction. View "Alejandro N. v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law

G.F., a juvenile, was adjudicated to have committed an assault. The district court committed G.F., who was thirteen years old at the time, to the Department of Corrections Mountain View Youth Development Center for an indeterminate period up to age seventeen. The superior court affirmed the district court’s judgment. G.F. appealed, arguing that the disposition was disproportionate to the assault adjudication and not rationally related to the purposes of the Maine Juvenile Code. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the Court lacked jurisdiction over the appeal because the statutes do not authorize the Court to review a disposition. View "State v. G.F." on Justia Law

Christian, age 16, was arrested for selling cocaine base. A wardship petition was filed. Immigration officials were notified. An Immigration Detainer was faxed to the juvenile hall from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stating that Christian had a prior felony conviction or had been charged with a felony offense, that he had illegally re-entered after a previous removal, and there was an order of deportation. The detainer requested that juvenile hall maintain custody of the minor to allow DHS to take custody of him, with an attached “Warrant of Removal/Deportation.” Christian admitted that he had possessed a controlled substance as alleged. Christian’s counsel indicated that she was satisfied he understood the immigration consequences of his admission. Christian stated he had traveled from Honduras to the U.S. 10 months earlier without his mother’s permission. The dispositional order required him to reside with his mother in Honduras. The court of appeal reversed. The court may have proceeded under the erroneous premise that it was compelled to transfer custody to federal authorities. The court expressly determined that it was not in Christian’s best interests to return to Honduras because he had been abandoned by his biological father who has never provided assistance or support and that his mother is unable to provide support. The conflicting findings cannot be reconciled View "In re Christian H." on Justia Law

In 2006, when Lopes was 17 years old, she entered a plea of no contest to felony driving under the influence with injury under section 23153(a) and was detained as a ward of the court and committed to a DUI Youth Program with a maximum time of confinement of 38 months. In 2014, Lopes was charged with driving under the influence (section 23152(a)) and driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or more. Both charges were alleged as felonies pursuant to section 23550.5 due to the prior juvenile adjudication. The court ruled that her juvenile adjudication could not be used to elevate the DUI to a felony. Lopes then entered a plea of no contest to misdemeanor violation. The court of appeal affirmed, holding that a juvenile adjudication does not qualify as a “prior violation . . . that was punished as a felony” so as to elevate a misdemeanor driving under the influence offense to a felony under Vehicle Code section 23550.5. View "People v. Lopes" on Justia Law

After a police officer scanned Instagram and saw photos of appellant (then on probation) and others in possession of firearms, officers performed a probation search and found loaded firearms. The San Francisco County District Attorney filed a petition charging appellant, age 17, with two counts of possessing firearms. The juvenile court sustained the petition. The court of appeal remanded for the limited purpose of supplying the maximum term of confinement and custody credits, mandatory information in the dispositional order that was omitted, but otherwise affirmed. The court rejected arguments that the evidence did not support the juvenile court’s finding and that the court erred in admitting incriminating photographs over his objection on the ground they were not properly authenticated and erred in allowing a police officer to give expert testimony about the make and model of the recovered firearms without first qualifying him as an expert. View "In re K.B." on Justia Law

Z.V., then 15 years old and in foster care, was sexually assaulted by Riverside County social worker Birdsong in September 2009. Z.V. sought to hold Birdsong’s employer, Riverside County, responsible for the assault under the doctrine of respondeat superior. The trial court rejected the theory. The court of appeal affirmed, noting that Birdsong was not Z.V.’s assigned social worker, he merely volunteered to transport Z.V. to a new foster home at the end of the workday. The sexual assault took place after 8:30 at night, several hours after Birdsong’s shift would have normally finished, and after he had already completed the task of delivering Z.V. to the new home without incident. It was several hours after the delivery that Birdsong went back to pick up Z.V. under the pretext of building “rapport,” took him to a liquor store and then to Birdsong’s own apartment, where the attack took place. View "Z.V. v. County of Riverside" on Justia Law

In 2009, a jury found Thompson guilty of two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and two counts of first-degree murder while committing aggravated robbery. Thompson was 17 when he committed the crimes. Pursuant to Minnesota law, he received two consecutive mandatory sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of release. The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed Thompson’s convictions and sentences on direct appeal. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court (Miller decision) held that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders. Thompson sought relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court dismissed with prejudice, finding that Miller’s rule was not retroactively applicable. The Eighth Circuit affirmed. Miller did not announce a new substantive rule because it neither categorically barred a punishment nor placed a group of persons beyond the state’s power to punish. After Miller, as before, a court retains the power to impose a life sentence without the possibility of parole. That the sentence now must be discretionary does not alter its substance. View "Thompson v. Roy" on Justia Law

The Colorado Supreme Court granted review in two cases to determine what remedy is appropriate for juvenile defendants who were given sentences that would be unconstitutional under the federal Supreme Court's decision in "Miller v. Alabama," (132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012)). The issue in a third case centered on whether that remedy applies retroactively. Tenarro Banks and Michael Quinn Tate, were convicted in 2004 of class 1 felonies for acts committed when they were juveniles. Tate was convicted of felony murder for the stabbing death of a friend's father during a burglary when Tate was sixteen. Banks was convicted of first degree murder for shooting another teenager outside of a house party when he was fifteen. Under the sentencing scheme in place at the time, which governed offenses committed between 1990 and 2006, both Banks and Tate were given mandatory sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole ("LWOP"). While both cases were pending on appeal to the court of appeals, the Supreme Court released its opinion in "Miller." The Miller decision rendered the Colorado statutory scheme for mandatory LWOP in place between 1990 and 2006 unconstitutional as applied to juveniles, including Tate and Banks. The Colorado Court determined that the state legislature had not acted to adopt a new sentencing scheme in light of Miller. The Court therefore remanded these cases for such a determination: if the trial court should determine, after an individualized sentencing process, that LWOP was not warranted, the appropriate sentence (in the absence of legislative action) was life in prison with the possibility of parole after forty years ("LWPP"). This was the sentence that was in place both before and after the mandatory LWOP scheme at issue in this case—that is, before 1990 and after 2006. Eric Jensen was convicted in 1998 of first degree murder for helping a friend kill the friend's mother and dispose of the body. He committed this crime when he was seventeen. Under the sentencing scheme in place at the time, Jensen was given a mandatory sentence to LWOP. On direct appeal, the court of appeals affirmed the judgment. The Colorado Court denied Jensen's certiorari petition, and the judgment became final. Jensen later filed two Crim.P. 35(c) motions for post-conviction relief, the second of which was at issue here: the trial court denied the motion, and Jensen appealed to the court of appeals. While that appeal was pending, the Supreme Court released Miller. Jensen moved for post-conviction relief in light of Miller. The issue Jensen's case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review was whether Miller's holding was retroactive to Jensen's case. The Court concluded that the new rule announced in Miller was procedural, rather than substantive, in nature, and that therefore it did not apply retroactively. The Court therefore affirmed the trial court's order denying his motion for post-conviction relief. View "Colorado v. Tate" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of two counts of murder in the first degree. Defendant was sixteen years old at the time of the crimes. Defendant was sentenced in 1994 to two consecutive sentences of life without the possibility of parole. At the time of his sentencing, the distinction between consecutive and concurrent sentences had little practical impact, but the Supreme Judicial Court’s subsequent decisions in Diatchenko v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist. and Commonwealth v. Brown changed that. In the wake of the Court’s decisions in Diatchenko and Brown, Defendant moved for resentencing. The trial court judge concluded that Defendant was entitled to a resentencing proceeding on the issue of whether the sentences should be imposed consecutively or concurrently. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that a trial court judge, in resentencing a juvenile offender originally sentenced to multiple consecutive terms of life without the possibility of parole, may conduct a sentencing hearing to consider resentencing the juvenile offender to concurrent terms. Remanded. View "Commonwealth v. Costa" on Justia Law