Delinquency Case Law

Mandauley v. Superior Court of San Diego County (February 28, 2002) 27 Cal.4th 537 [117 Cal.Rptr.2d 168]. Supreme Court of California.

Proposition 21, titled the "Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act of 1998" and approved by the voters in the March 7, 2000, primary election, changed several aspects of the law that are applicable to minors who commit criminal offenses. The youths in this case challenged one section of that law-Welfare and Institutions Code section 707(d)-that grants the prosecutor discretion to charge a youth as either an adult or a juvenile without a prior adjudication in juvenile court that the minor is unfit for a disposition under the juvenile court law. Once a youth is convicted of a section 707(d) crime in adult court, the judge must sentence the youth under the adult sentencing scheme.

The San Diego District Attorney's Office filed accusatory pleadings against the youths in adult court under section 707(d). The youths challenged the constitutionality of section 707(d) by demurring to the accusatory pleadings. They contended that section 707(d) is unconstitutional on five grounds: (1) it violates the separation of powers doctrine, (2) it deprives them of due process, (3) it deprives them of equal protection, (4) it deprives them of the uniform operation of the law, and (5) Proposition 21 violates the single subject rule. The trial court overruled the demurrers, arguing that section 707(d) does not violate the separation of powers doctrine because the decision whether to charge with crimes lies within the traditional power and discretion of the prosecutor. The trial court rejected the youths' four other claims as well. The youths filed a writ of mandate in the Court of Appeal. All petitions were consolidated for oral argument and decision. The Court of Appeal addressed only the first claim.

The Court of Appeal concluded that section 707(d) is unconstitutional under the separation of powers doctrine because it allows the prosecutor to interfere with the court's authority to choose a juvenile court disposition for minors who have committed crimes. The issue presented in this case-whether this provision of Proposition 21 violates the separation of powers doctrine-turned on whether the discretionary direct filing provisions in section 707(d) are considered "a charging decision that is properly allocated to the executive branch or a sentencing decision that is properly allocated to the judicial branch and may not be delegated to the executive branch in derogation of the judicial power over sentencing." The appellate court recognized that in this case the discretionary filing decision granted the prosecutor could not easily be described as either a traditional charging decision or a traditional sentencing decision. The appellate court held that, when one considers the substance of the power and the effect of its exercise, rather than the timing of the decision, section 707(d) violates the separation of powers doctrine by giving the prosecutor the "unchecked authority to prescribe which legislatively authorized dispositional scheme will be available to the court if the charges are found to be true." The Court of Appeal did not address the youth's five other claims. San Diego County appealed.

The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal decision on the separation of powers claim, and addressed and rejected the youths' four other claims. On the first claim, the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal had adopted too narrow a view of the prosecutor's discretionary power. Prosecutors may select the forum, within statutory constraints, in which charges may be filed, and if such a decision affects the sentencing alternatives available to the court, the court's powers have not been improperly usurped. The Supreme Court rejected the appellate court's focus on the substance of the power and the effect of its exercise, arguing instead that the timing of the prosecutor's discretionary exercise is dispositive. The Supreme Court examined a line of cases exploring the separation of powers doctrine as it related to dispositions for certain minors convicted of crimes. These cases held that the "separation of powers doctrine prohibits the legislative branch from granting prosecutors the authority, after charges have been filed, to control the legislatively specified sentencing choices available to the court." This case, however, deals with discretionary power exercised before the filing of charges, and that power is not invalid "simply because the prosecutor's exercise of such charging discretion necessarily affects the dispositional options available to the court."

The Supreme Court rejected the appellate court's alternative argument that, because before adoption of section 707(d) the court made thefitness determination for a minor accused of a crime after a judicial hearing, the decision on which dispositional scheme applies is "adjudicatory in nature," and thus the discretionary power granted to prosecutors in section 707(d) violates the separation of powers doctrine. The Supreme Court held that the mere fact that the court made a fitness determination historically does not alone invalidate the statute. In the cases where section 707(d) applies, the statute dispenses with the requirement of a hearing, and thus equating the juvenile court's fitness determination to the prosecutor's decision pursuant to section 707(d) was erroneous. A district attorney can take into account some of the factors the court ordinarily considers in a fitness hearing but is not required to do so.

The Supreme Court rejected the youths' due process claim. The youths argued that because a minor accused of a crime has a statutory right to be subject to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, before a minor can be deprived of that right, he or she is entitled to a hearing to determine whether he or she is amenable to juvenile court disposition. Because section 707(d) does not allow for a hearing or set forth criteria guiding the prosecutor's decision, the youths argued, the statute violates their constitutional due process rights. The Supreme Court denied this claim, arguing that juveniles who "commit crimes under the circumstances set forth in section 707(d) do not possess any statutory right to be subject to the jurisdiction of juvenile court." The legislative branch can give the prosecutor discretion whether to file charges against a minor in criminal court, and can eliminate a juvenile's statutory right to a fitness hearing. Section 707(d) "does not implicate any protected interest of petitioners that gives rise to the requirements of procedural due process."

The Supreme Court rejected the youths' equal protection claim and their claim that section 707(d) violates the uniform operation of the laws. The youths argued that section 707(d) violates a juvenile's right to equal protection of the law because the statute allows prosecutors to treat minors of the same age who are charged with the same offense differently solely on the basis of their discretion, without any statutory guidelines, leading to arbitrary and possibly discriminatory results. The Supreme Court held that this claim had no merit, arguing that traditional prosecutorial charging discretion encompasses decisions on how to apply the same law to different offenders, often without any express statutory criteria guiding such decisions. Absent actual proof of discrimination, none of these prosecutorial decisions have been found to be unconstitutionally arbitrary, and therefore "section 707(d) does not deprive petitioners of the equal protection (or the uniform operation) of the laws."

Finally, the Supreme Court rejected the youths' argument that Proposition 21 is invalid in its entirety because it violates the single-subject rule for ballot initiatives in California. The single-subject rule holds that "an initiative embracing more than one subject may not be submitted to the electors or have any effect." The youths claimed that Proposition 21 addresses three distinct subjects that do not relate to a sufficiently defined common theme or purpose: (1) gang-related crime, (2) the sentencing of repeat offenders, and (3) the juvenile justice system. The Supreme Court held that an initiative "does not violate the single-subject requirement if, despite its varied collateral effects, all of its parts are 'reasonably germane' to each other." Each of the provisions in an initiative does not have to "interlock in a functional relationship." The purpose of Proposition 21, as expressed by its title, is to address the problem of violent crime committed by juveniles and gangs-not to reduce crime more generally, as the youths claimed. Despite some collateral effects of the provisions that reach beyond the stated purpose, each of the provisions bears enough of a "reasonable and commonsense relationship" to that purpose to meet the standard of the single-subject rule. Justices Kathryn Mickle Werdegar and Carlos R. Moreno wrote separate concurrences on the single-subject rule analysis.

Justice Joyce L. Kennard dissented. The dissent disagreed with the majority's analysis of the separation of powers doctrine, agreeing with the Court of Appeal that the validity of section 707(d) turns on "the substance of the power and the effect of its exercise," not the timing of the prosecutor's decision. Justice Kennard argued that section 707(d) "unconstitutionally invaded a judicial function" for several reasons: the decision whether a minor is unfit for juvenile disposition has historically been a judicial function; "the decision whether to prosecute a juvenile in adult court is a critical one, and thus deserving of the due process protections of a judicial proceeding"; and under section 707(d) a prosecutor makes this critical decision whether to charge a juvenile in juvenile or adult court with limited information about the minor. The dissent states that the doctrine of separation of powers would be satisfied if the prosecutor's initial decision were subject to judicial review.