Title: R.R. v. State
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 18S-JV-230
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: September 13, 2018

I N  T H E
Indiana Supreme Court 
Supreme Court Case No. 18S-JV-230 
R.R., 
Appellant 
–v–
State of Indiana, 
Appellee 
Argued: May 31, 2018 | Decided: September 13, 2018 
Appeal from the Lawrence Circuit Court 
Nos. 47C01-1409-JD-294, 47C01-1609-JD-342 
The Honorable John M. Plummer, III, Judge Pro Tempore 
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals 
No. 47A04-1705-JV-944 
Opinion by Justice Slaughter 
Justice Goff concurs. 
Chief Justice Rush concurs in Parts I.B. and II. and dissents from Part I.A.,  
with separate opinion. 
Justice Massa concurs in Part I.A. and dissents from Parts I.B. and II., with 
separate opinion. 
Justice David dissents with separate opinion, which Chief Justice Rush joins 
in part and which Justice Massa joins in part. 
FILED
C L E R K
Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
and Tax Court
Sep 13 2018, 12:26 pm
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Slaughter, Justice. 
At a fact-finding hearing where R.R., a juvenile, was not present, the 
trial court found R.R. violated his probation and adjudicated him a 
delinquent for auto theft and false informing. R.R. argues that (1) juveniles 
have a due-process right to be present at such hearings, and (2) the trial 
court violated this right by holding the hearing in his absence. We assume 
without deciding that R.R. is correct on the first issue and agree with him 
on the second. We thus reverse the trial court’s delinquency determination 
and remand for further proceedings. 
Factual and Procedural History 
In September 2014, the State alleged R.R., then fourteen years old, 
committed criminal mischief, a Class B misdemeanor for an adult. R.R. 
admitted the allegations, and the court placed him on supervised 
probation for six months. Beginning in May 2015, the State filed multiple 
petitions to modify R.R.’s probation because he had violated the terms of 
his probation. These modifications included housing him in a residential 
treatment center for at-risk youth. The court ordered R.R. released from 
this facility in June 2016 and placed him back on probation for six months. 
Only six weeks later, the State again petitioned the court to modify R.R.’s 
probation, noting more violations. In September 2016, the State alleged 
R.R. committed auto theft, which would be a Level 6 felony had he been 
an adult, and false informing, which would be a Class B misdemeanor. In 
January 2017, the State filed a “Request for Taking Child Into Custody” 
based on that September 2016 petition. 
On February 7, 2017, the court held a fact-finding hearing concerning 
the September 2016 petition and the January 2017 request. R.R. was not 
present, but his mother and counsel did appear. When asked if she knew 
where her son was, R.R.’s mother answered, “No. He hasn’t even called 
me since he left.” The court responded, “Well, let the record reflect that 
this child’s whereabouts are unknown. The child’s mother is here. She 
doesn’t know where he is. Sounds like he’s been gone for seven (7) or 
eight (8) days.” 
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The State offered to proceed in R.R.’s absence, but R.R.’s counsel 
balked. When asked if she objected to proceeding, R.R.’s counsel said, 
“Yeah, I do object to that and I request a continuance so that [R.R.] can be 
present at his hearing.” The court denied the motion and proceeded with 
the fact-finding hearing despite R.R.’s absence. After the hearing, the court 
found R.R. had violated the terms of his probation and committed auto 
theft and false informing. 
Nearly two months later, on March 30, police detained R.R. under a 
pick-up order, and he appeared at a dispositional hearing the same day. 
At the hearing, the court ordered that R.R. be made a ward of the Indiana 
Department of Correction. R.R. appealed, arguing he had a constitutional 
right to appear at his fact-finding hearing, and the court violated that right 
by holding the hearing in his absence. 
A divided Court of Appeals affirmed in a published opinion, 
concluding R.R. had a right to be present at the hearing, but had waived 
this right because he “knowingly and intentionally refused to appear.” 
R.R. v. State, 93 N.E.3d 768, 770 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018). Adopting R.R.’s 
interpretation would, the court observed, allow juveniles to “hijack trial 
court dockets and avoid responsibility for their delinquent behavior by 
knowingly and voluntarily (and repeatedly) refusing to appear at 
factfinding hearings.” 93 N.E.3d at 774-75. The dissent believed R.R. had 
not waived his right to appear because his conduct did not conform to the 
waiver requirements outlined in our juvenile-waiver statute, Indiana 
Code chapter 31-32-5. Id. at 775-76 (Vaidik, C.J., dissenting). We granted 
transfer, thus vacating the Court of Appeals’ opinion, and now reverse. 
Standard of Review 
At issue here are two questions of first impression: first, whether 
juveniles have a due-process right to appear at a fact-finding hearing; and, 
second, if they have such a right, how they can waive it. Both the existence 
of constitutional rights and the requirements for waiving them are legal 
questions we review de novo. When determining whether a juvenile has a 
constitutional right that the Supreme Court of the United States has not 
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expressly recognized, we will decide the question based on “our own 
judicial examination of the various cases, statutes, and constitutional 
principles pertinent thereto.” Bible v. State, 253 Ind. 373, 378, 254 N.E.2d 
319, 320 (1970). Also relevant here are the meaning and scope of Indiana’s 
juvenile waiver-of-rights statute. “A statute’s meaning and scope are legal 
questions we review de novo.” Garner v. Kempf, 93 N.E.3d 1091, 1094 (Ind. 
2018). Our goal is to effectuate the statute’s reasonable, commonly 
understood meaning. Id. “If a statute is clear and unambiguous, we apply 
its words and phrases in their plain, ordinary, and usual sense.” Id. 
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 
Discussion and Decision 
I. The trial court violated R.R.’s presumed right to be 
present at a fact-finding hearing by failing to 
comply with the juvenile waiver-of-rights statute. 
A. We assume without deciding that juveniles are entitled 
to be present at fact-finding hearings on a delinquency 
charge. 
R.R. claims a constitutional right, under the Due Process Clause, to 
appear at a fact-finding hearing on his delinquency charge, and the State 
does not disagree. We decline to decide authoritatively this issue of first 
impression in Indiana because the State does not contest R.R.’s right to 
appear on this record, and we prefer to decide such questions after they 
have been vetted fully in the adversary process. We thus assume without 
deciding that juveniles are entitled to be present at such hearings. We turn 
next to whether and how they can waive that right. 
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B. A juvenile can waive his right to be present at a fact- 
finding hearing but must do so according to our 
juvenile waiver-of-rights statute. 
In 1972, we reversed a juvenile’s first-degree-murder conviction, 
finding the juvenile had not waived his Fifth Amendment privilege 
against self-incrimination and thus the confession undergirding his 
conviction had been obtained improperly. Lewis v. State, 259 Ind. 431, 439- 
40, 288 N.E.2d 138, 142-43 (1972), superseded by statute as stated in B.A. v. 
State, 100 N.E.3d 225, 234 (Ind. 2018). In that landmark decision, we held 
that “a juvenile’s statement or confession cannot be used against him at a 
subsequent trial or hearing unless both he and his parents or guardian 
were informed of his rights to an attorney, and to remain silent.” Lewis, 
259 Ind. at 439, 288 N.E.2d at 142. We also held that the child “must be 
given an opportunity to consult with his parents, guardian or an attorney 
representing the juvenile as to whether or not he wishes to waive those 
rights.” Id. Only after such a consultation may the child elect to “waive his 
rights if he so chooses provided of course that there are no elements of 
coercion, force or inducement present.” Id. 
The legislature later expanded these waiver protections to all 
constitutional and statutory rights when it enacted the juvenile waiver-of- 
rights statute in 1978. 1978 Ind. Acts 1232-33 (codified at Ind. Code § 31-6- 
7-3 (1978 Supp.)). Later recodified, the statute today provides “only” three 
ways to waive rights that state or federal law confers on children—waiver 
by counsel; waiver by a parent, guardian, custodian, or guardian ad litem; 
or waiver by the child himself: 
Any rights guaranteed to a child under the Constitution of 
the United States, the Constitution of the State of Indiana, 
or any other law may be waived only: 
(1) by counsel retained or appointed to represent the child 
if the child knowingly and voluntarily joins with the 
waiver; 
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(2) by the child’s custodial parent, guardian, custodian, or 
guardian ad litem if: 
(A) 
 that person knowingly and voluntarily waives 
the right; 
(B) that person has no interest adverse to the child; 
(C) 
 meaningful consultation has occurred between 
that person and the child; and 
(D) 
 the child knowingly and voluntarily joins with 
the waiver; or 
(3) by the child, without the presence of a custodial parent, 
guardian, or guardian ad litem, if: 
(A) 
 the child knowingly and voluntarily consents to 
the waiver; and 
(B) the child has been emancipated under I.C. 31-34-
20- 6 or I.C. 31-37-19-27, by virtue of having 
married, or in accordance with the laws of another 
state or jurisdiction. 
I.C. § 31-32-5-1 (emphasis added). 
Unlike adult criminal defendants, who can waive their right to be 
present by “fail[ing] to appear for trial and fail[ing] to notify the trial court 
or provide it with an explanation of [their] absence”, Jackson v. State, 868 
N.E.2d 494, 498 (Ind. 2007) (citations omitted), a juvenile’s waiver of rights 
requires a heightened showing. Our analysis begins and ends with the 
juvenile-waiver statute, which governs “any rights” guaranteed to a 
juvenile. Neither R.R.’s counsel nor his parent waived his right to be 
present, so subsections (1) and (2) of the statute do not apply. And R.R. 
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was not emancipated when the court held the February 2017 fact-finding 
hearing, so he could not have waived it himself under subsection (3). 
Thus, under the statute’s plain meaning, there was no waiver of R.R.’s 
right to be present. The trial court violated that right by holding a hearing 
in his absence. 
II. The absurdity doctrine does not apply here. 
In opposing transfer, the State argues that the statute, read literally, 
“leads to the absurd result that a juvenile could hijack the juvenile justice 
system and evade responsibility indefinitely by simply refusing to appear 
for the fact-finding hearing.” We recently called the absurdity doctrine 
“strong medicine” that “defeats even the plain meaning of statutes.” 
Calvin v. State, 87 N.E.3d 474, 477 (Ind. 2017) (citations omitted). 
For the absurdity doctrine to apply, we require a two-part showing. 
First, the text must impose an outcome no reasonable person could intend. 
Second, a court must be able to fix the resulting absurdity by “changing or 
supplying a word or phrase whose inclusion or omission was obviously a 
technical or ministerial error”. ANTONIN SCALIA & BRYAN A. GARNER, 
READING LAW: THE INTERPRETATION OF LEGAL TEXTS at 237-38 (2012). The 
first requirement assures that the result truly is absurd, and not merely 
unwise or unsound. The second limits courts to repairing obvious errors 
and not rewriting substantive provisions because the drafter failed to 
appreciate their unintended effect. Together, these requirements set a very 
high bar. 
When there is a clear drafter’s or scrivener’s error, we will apply the 
absurdity doctrine to give the law its obvious intended effect despite its 
plain text. For example, a statute requiring motorists to carry an “invalid” 
license or to ensure their vehicles have an “expired” plate would satisfy 
the doctrine. So, too, would a statute inadvertently omitting the word 
“not”, such as: “Convicted felons shall own or possess a handgun or other 
firearm.” These examples would qualify for the doctrine because the 
legislature obviously did not intend the enacted text to be interpreted as 
written. And the judicial fix would be easy: drop the unintended prefix so 
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that “invalid” becomes “valid”; add the omitted prefix so that “expired” 
becomes “unexpired”; insert the omitted word so that “shall own or 
possess” becomes “shall not own or possess”. 
Unlike these examples, the juvenile-waiver statute neither leads to an 
obviously unintended result nor lends itself to a clean and modest judicial 
fix. The statute was intended to protect children, and it is more than 
possible that the legislature intended the three listed ways for waiving 
children’s rights to be exclusive. But even were we to conclude that no 
reasonable legislator could have intended that a no-show teenager would 
avoid waiver by resorting to such litigation gamesmanship, the judicial fix 
would not be modest. It would require courts to rewrite the statute by 
adding a substantive “fourth” waiver option the legislature did not enact. 
The absurdity doctrine is a slippery slope. Finding absurdity on this 
record would risk substituting our view of the balance between protecting 
and waiving juvenile rights for that of the legislature. We decline to do 
that here. Thus, we read the juvenile-waiver statute to require that waiver 
occur in one of only three ways the statute lays out expressly. Because the 
failure to appear is not one of the statutory grounds for finding juvenile 
waiver, we hold that R.R. did not waive his right to be present at his fact-
finding hearing. 
Our dissenting colleagues urge the legislature to give trial judges 
discretion to find waiver where the juvenile does not appear at a 
scheduled hearing. We do not quarrel with the invitation but observe that 
the current juvenile-waiver statute ties judges’ hands by authorizing a 
finding of waiver in “only” three circumstances not present here. Even if 
holding a hearing in R.R.’s absence would make for a “just outcome” here, 
we “interpret statutes based on their enacted text and not the justness of 
the outcome” in a singular case. Garner v. Kempf, 93 N.E.3d 1091, 1098 (Ind. 
2018). For good or ill, the current statute does not permit waiver even 
when the Constitution would. In that respect, the statute affords juveniles 
with greater rights than the Constitution requires. Thus, the dissent’s 
conclusion that “holding the hearing in R.R.’s absence comported with 
due process” is both true and beside the point. We do not conclude that 
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finding a waiver here would violate due process, only that it would 
violate the current statute. The legislature can always rewrite the statute to 
loosen or further tighten the requirements for waiver. We hold only that 
the current statute does not permit a finding of waiver on this record. 
Conclusion 
For these reasons, we reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand for 
further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
Goff, J., concurs. 
Rush, C.J., concurs in Parts I.B. and II. and dissents from Part I.A., 
with separate opinion.  
Massa, J., concurs in Part I.A. and dissents from Parts I.B. and II., 
with separate opinion. 
David, J., dissents with separate opinion which Rush, C.J., joins in 
part, and which Massa, J., joins in part. 
A T T O R N E Y  F O R A P P E L L A N T 
Cara Schaefer Wieneke 
Wieneke Law Office, LLC 
Brooklyn, Indiana 
A TT O R N E YS F O R  AP P EL L E E 
Curtis T. Hill, Jr. 
Attorney General 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
Andrew Kobe 
Laura R. Anderson 
Deputy Attorneys General 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
Rush, C.J., concurring in part, dissenting in part. 
I agree with Justice David that the Court should decide—rather than 
assume without deciding—that R.R. has a constitutional right to be 
present at the fact-finding hearing. Otherwise, I concur with the majority. 
Massa, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part. 
I agree with Justice Slaughter that the Court may assume without 
deciding that R.R. has a constitutional right to be present at the fact-
finding hearing. Otherwise, I concur with the dissent. 
David, J., dissenting.  
While I appreciate Justice Slaughter’s thoughtful majority opinion, I 
must respectfully dissent. First, as a threshold matter, I would find that 
R.R. does have a constitutional right to be present at the fact-finding 
hearing.  Second, I believe that despite the juvenile waiver of rights 
statute, R.R. waived his right to be present at the fact-finding hearing 
under the facts and circumstances of this case.    
As the State observes, the plain language of the statute contemplates 
that the juvenile will be present to waive or not waive as the case may be, 
and does not address a situation where the juvenile has run away or 
disappeared.  As the U.S. Supreme court has held: “the applicable due 
process standard in juvenile proceedings. . .is fundamental fairness.” 
McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 543, 91 S. Ct. 1976, 1985, 29 L. Ed. 
2d 647 (1971).  Here, I believe the facts that R.R. had presumably run 
away, there is a pickup order for him, he is close to 18 and has great 
familiarity with the system make it a just outcome that hearing be held in 
his absence. 
Further, at least one other jurisdiction recognizes a juvenile's right 
(without an attorney or parent joining the waiver and without 
emancipation) to waive his or her presence at important proceedings. See 
Com. v. B.J., 241 S.W.3d 324, 328 (Ky. 2007) (Juvenile, who was brought to 
family court on allegations that he was a habitual truant, validly waived 
his right to appear at both his adjudication and disposition hearings; 
juvenile, at his arraignment, was informed of his future court dates, 
juvenile's mother made representations to counsel that juvenile was aware 
of hearing and chose not to attend, and no evidence was presented that 
juvenile's absence was involuntary).  
I urge our legislature to consider amending the statute to give trial 
court judges some discretion in situations where the juvenile is absent.  
That is, the statute should allow for knowing, intelligent and voluntary 
waiver by a juvenile who is aware of upcoming proceedings but chooses 
to be absent with no adequate explanation.  This is not to say that holding 
a hearing in the juvenile’s absence would be best practice or even not 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 18S-JV-230 | September 13, 2018 
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unusual.  The best practice would be to issue a pickup order and have the 
juvenile be present for the proceedings, but in some circumstances, it may 
be appropriate to hold a hearing in the juvenile’s absence in order to 
prevent juveniles who are aware of an upcoming hearing date to get a free 
pass by disappearing. Our trial judges should be able to advise a juvenile 
that if they fail to appear at a hearing, the matter may proceed without 
them. Then, depending on the age of the juvenile and the circumstances, 
the trial court should be able to exercise its discretion about whether or 
not to proceed.  In this case, I believe holding the hearing in R.R.’s absence 
comported with due process. Accordingly, I would affirm the trial court.  
Rush, C.J., joins in part and Massa, J., joins in part.