Jonaitis v. State

¶1dissenting.

¶2I dissent. The General Assembly has provided that a recidivist juvenile, whose repeated commission of delinquent acts demonstrate incorrigibility, forfeits the exemption which the juvenile system has afforded him from the criminal justice system. Ind. Code 31-6-2-^ provides that a juvenile court may waive its jurisdiction if the child is charged with an act that is part of a repetitive pattern of delinquent acts. Equally clear is that the General Assembly provided that no juvenile shall suffer the stigma attached to a judicial finding of delinquency without the State proving beyond a reasonable doubt the commission of a delinquent act. Ind.Code 31-6-7—13(a). Indeed, the General Assembly further has provided that a finding of delinquency can be made only after a hearing in which the child is entitled to certain due process rights. Ind.Code 31-6-3-1.

¶3The Majority holds that these wéll defined rights are for naught in Kathy Jo-naitis’s case. While Jonaitis has never been afforded these rights mandated by the General Assembly, she has been stigmatized by the mere allegation that she committed a pattern of delinquent acts justifying the juvenile court’s waiver of jurisdiction. The Majority condones the juvenile court’s failure to make the statutorily required findings of fact1 showing the delinquency relapse and supporting its waiver order through an abracadabra sophistry reminiscent of the days when wizardly alchemists reasoned that they could turn dirt into gold. The Majority confuses the two standards of proof defined in Ind.Code 31-6-7-13(a). That statute provides that the commission of a delinquent act can be found only after the State has made proof beyond a reasonable doubt; for all other findings, however, *145the State must meet only the preponderance of the evidence standard. The Majority, then, concludes that the standard of proof statute is an invitation to turn the waiver statute on its head by allowing the State to avoid not only the required beyond a reasonable doubt standard, but also the very clear purpose and terms of the waiver statute.

¶4By drawing an analogy to the habitual offender statute, the Majority’s deliberate obfuscation can be swept away and the real issue addressed. The juvenile waiver hearing is analogous to the habitual offender hearing. Both serve to determine whether the criteria exist to justify enhancing the sentencing and dispositional alternatives for incorrigible, recidivist offenders. Just as the habitual offender finding requires evidence of prior, unrelated felony convictions, so a waiver finding requires evidence of prior, unrelated delinquency judgments which collectively provide the criteria for the waiver. In both proceedings, the acts constituting the criteria for sentencing enhancement must be distinct, and procedurally unrelated to, the act which has brought the offender, once again, before the court. The act which has brought the offender again before the court also triggers the sentencing enhancement proceeding. The Majority deliberately confuses and combines the underlying criteria acts with the act triggering the pending action against the offender. In neither the juvenile waiver nor the habitual offender proceedings are double jeopardy or res judicata issues present. The Majority’s reference to Bey and Walker is nothing more than a decoy to mask the Majority’s Houdini-like manipulation of the unambiguous terms of the Juvenile Code.

¶5Again, I emphasize that the State cannot rely on mere allegations resting on acts which never have been judicially determined to be delinquent. This wisdom of allowing only evidence of judicially determined acts appears in Indiana’s evidentiary rules defining impeachment of witness credibility. Witnesses can be impeached by evidence only of bad acts reduced to a judicially determined conviction. Chambers v. State (1979), Ind., 892 N.E.2d 1156. I cannot believe, as the Majority does, that the General Assembly intended to depart from the wisdom of such a time honored reasoning protecting citizens from mere allegations of criminal or delinquent behavior without evidence of a judicial determination of criminality or delinquency proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

¶6While the Majority may believe that it has struck paydirt in our society’s fight against drug abuse, especially among young people, I think otherwise. We are not free to thwart and frustrate the purpose of the Juvenile Code by the artifice of statutory construction. Courts can inspire respect for the law only when they themselves demonstrate respect for the letter and spirit of the law. Certainly, this is so in the juvenile system where young citizens have their first—and hopefully their last—brush against the law. We should not rush to rescue the State when the State, in its own rush to jeopardize a juvenile with a criminal imprimatur, itself ignores the statutory and due process rights of an alleged juvenile offender.