Title: Twyman v. State
Citation: 459 N.E.2d 705
Docket Number: 284S48
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: February 10, 1984

459 N.E.2d 705 (1984)
Nickie L. TWYMAN, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
No. 284S48 (2-183A3).

Supreme Court of Indiana.
February 10, 1984.
Rehearing Denied April 19, 1984.
*706 Susan K. Carpenter, Public Defender of Indiana, Paul Levy, Deputy Public Defender, Indianapolis, for appellant.
Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen. of Indiana, Theodore E. Hansen, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
GIVAN, Chief Justice.
In this case we undertake to explain the interrelationship between the "original exclusive jurisdiction" granted juvenile courts, and criminal court jurisdiction, over juveniles who have committed criminal acts. (For reference, see State ex rel. Hirt v. Marion Superior Court, (1983) Ind., 451 N.E.2d 308.) In doing so, we grant the "Petition for Criminal Transfer" and vacate the Court of Appeals decision reported at 452 N.E.2d 434.
We adopt the following portions of the Court of Appeals opinion:
The State contends the trial court did have subject matter jurisdiction to accept appellant's guilty plea, although the court lacked jurisdiction over his person.
Juvenile jurisdiction is admittedly a confused area of the law in which cases seemingly support both parties' positions. The vagaries of juvenile jurisdiction have been caused by the use of imprecise language and loose terminology in appellate opinions, and in the jurisdictional statutes as well.
The pertinent jurisdictional statutes in effect at the time appellant was charged in 1974 are:
The Marion Criminal Court jurisdiction was defined at the time:
Although the legislature vested both the juvenile court and the criminal court with "original exclusive jurisdiction," it is not difficult to imagine instances in which both would have subject matter jurisdiction over a given case. When a juvenile commits acts which would constitute a crime if he were an adult, he commits an act of delinquency, but he has also committed the elements of a crime. The age of the offender is determinative of subject matter jurisdiction in the juvenile court, however, it is merely a restriction on the personal jurisdiction possessed by a criminal court.
Thus, if a non-juvenile stands before the juvenile court misrepresenting his age, and is found to be a delinquent child, such determination could be set aside based upon a lack of subject matter jurisdiction. This result occurs because the age of the offender is an essential element of the subject matter jurisdiction conferred upon the juvenile court. Any decision of the court in a delinquency action wherein the offender was over eighteen years of age would be void for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
However, in a situation where an accused under the age of eighteen misrepresents his age to a criminal court, that court may accept a guilty plea assuming it has no knowledge of the misrepresentation. Such was the situation in the case at bar. Thus, the judgment of the trial court will not be reversed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. It may be voidable for lack of personal jurisdiction, if the appellant has made a timely challenge to the court's having personal jurisdiction over him. The statute establishing criminal court jurisdiction, IC § 33-9-1-4, does not include the age of the offender as being a factor in its exercise of subject matter jurisdiction, hence the result is different.
The only restriction concerning age applying to a criminal court's jurisdiction reads as follows:
In the case at bar, the criminal court judge interrogated appellant as to his age and, based on appellant's misrepresentations, determined IC § 31-6-2-2 was inapplicable.
This Court held in Cummings that a criminal court lacks jurisdiction to accept a guilty plea from a juvenile where the juvenile objects to the court's jurisdiction. We said if a juvenile challenges a court's jurisdiction, the trial court will then be required to hold a hearing to determine the defendant's age, and if the defendant is indeed a juvenile, it is incumbent upon the court to transfer the case to the juvenile court. The jurisdiction referred to in Cummings is personal jurisdiction. The situation in Cummings is paralleled in Caldwell v. State, (1983) Ind., 453 N.E.2d 278, 279:
In the case at bar, appellant failed to appeal raising the personal jurisdictional issue, and now eight years later is basing his post-conviction relief petition on the same issue which was available to him at the time of his trial. The defendant in Cummings challenged the personal jurisdiction of the criminal court within three days of her conviction, in a criminal proceeding (not a civil proceeding for post-conviction relief), and petitioned the court to transfer the case to the juvenile court within a time period in which the trial court could have taken action to return the case for disposition within the juvenile system. The remedy that Cummings received is unavailable *710 to appellant at this late date. We cannot send the case back to the juvenile court to have the case reheard and adjudicated in the same manner in which we were able to do in Cummings.
Having perpetrated a fraud upon the criminal court, and having received benefit from such subterfuge, appellant is estopped from raising the issue in the post-conviction proceeding.
Appellant also argues the trial court erred in determining appellant had been guilty of laches and thereby waived the issue of his juvenile status at the time he entered his plea of guilty. The post-conviction relief proceeding is in the nature of a civil action. The petitioner has the burden of proving entitlement to relief by a preponderance of the evidence. Ind.R.P.C.R. 1, §§ 5, 7. The Post-Conviction Remedies Rules provide:
The plain and unambiguous words of the rule allow a petitioner to bring his petition for post-conviction relief regardless of the length of time he has waited to assert the claim.
"All rules and statutes applicable in civil proceedings ... are available to the parties." Ind.R.P.C.R. 1, § 5. Thus, the State, as the respondent party to the proceedings, may raise the doctrine of laches as an affirmative defense to petitioner's claim pursuant to Ind.R.Tr.P. 8(C), which reads:
Thus, before the petitioner's claim for relief may be denied, based on the doctrine of laches, the State must affirmatively plead the defense in its responsive pleading. It is then required to prove the defense by a preponderance of the evidence. In the case at bar the State's answer, in part, reads: "The State answers that the issues raised in rhetorical paragraphs 8(a) have been waived as grounds for post-conviction relief since they have *712 been available to Petitioner since July 29, 1974." Assuming this to be an adequate pleading of the affirmative defense, the State's proving this delay at trial would not by itself support a finding that laches applied. Frazier v. State, (1975) 263 Ind. 614, 335 N.E.2d 623.
In the case at bar, the Court of Appeals said: "Although laches is an affirmative defense ..., our cases indicate that once the defense is raised by the state, the petitioner must explain his delay in filing," citing Stutzman v. State, (1981) Ind. App., 427 N.E.2d 724, and Baker v. State, (1980) Ind., 403 N.E.2d 1069. The portion of Stutzman evidently supporting this position is in error: "The burden to offer an adequate excuse or reasonable showing for the delay was on Stutzman," Stutzman, supra, at 727, citing Frazier, supra. In Baker we said the petitioner had the burden of proving relief was merited, but no reference whatever was made to which party carried the burden of proving the affirmative defense of laches. Laches was not an issue in Baker.
We hereby overrule Stutzman and all cases following it on this subject. The law in Indiana is still that once the State raises the affirmative defense of laches in a post-conviction relief proceeding the petitioner is entitled to an evidentiary hearing upon the issue, before the judge may find laches applies. The burden of proving the defense rests entirely upon the State. The petitioner may prove evidence to negate the State's evidence, but this in no way shifts the onus to the petitioner to disprove laches.
The post-conviction court erred in denying appellant relief under the doctrine of laches on the basis that eight years had passed since the claim for relief first became available to him. However, in light of our determination that appellant waived the issue of the criminal court's jurisdiction over his person, the denial of relief is affirmed.
The trial court is affirmed.
*713 HUNTER, PRENTICE and PIVARNIK, JJ., concur.
DeBRULER, J., dissents with separate opinion.
DeBRULER, Justice, dissenting.
This dissenting opinion is based upon the assumptions that at the 1974 plea proceeding in the criminal court, (1) appellant was a child not yet eighteen years old, (2) his conduct had not involved a violation of any criminal statute automatically excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction, and (3) there had been no waiver of juvenile jurisdiction by the juvenile court. Each of these assumptions satisfies an applicable statutory element of juvenile jurisdiction: age, type of offense, and waiver of jurisdiction by the juvenile court at the time of the plea. Each of these elements was initially erected by the juvenile statute for the purpose of creating and delineating juvenile jurisdiction and conferring it solely and exclusively upon juvenile courts in Marion County and Lake County, and conferring it in concurrent form upon the Circuit and Superior Courts in the remaining counties of the State. State ex rel. Gannon v. Lake Circuit Court et al., (1945) 223 Ind. 375, 61 N.E.2d 168. It is abundantly clear that the Marion Criminal Court at the 1974 plea proceeding had no jurisdiction at all to hear and determine appellant's guilt of assault and battery with intent to commit a felony.
This is the same situation which this Court faced in Cummings v. State, (1969) 252 Ind. 701, 251 N.E.2d 663. There, the defendant, a sixteen year old was convicted in the circuit court of inflicting an injury in the course of a robbery. It was not discovered until after the judgment was rendered that the criteria for juvenile court jurisdiction were present. We held that she had not been within the jurisdiction of the circuit court and that the judgment of the circuit court could not stand. In this case the apparent lack of jurisdiction has appeared further on down the road at a post-conviction proceeding. In State ex rel. Atkins v. Juvenile Court of Marion County, (1969) 252 Ind. 237, 247 N.E.2d 53, another case involving the relationship between criminal and juvenile jurisdiction, this Court would not even recognize jurisdiction in the criminal court to transfer an indictment to the juvenile court, where the indictment showed on its face that the defendants were juveniles and subject only to initiation of proceedings in the juvenile court. These cases highlight an important point. The Legislature in enacting the juvenile statute identified a social problem involving the delinquency of children, and the lack of parental effort and support, and created a new and special court to deal with it. The entire concept of crime received a narrowed redefinition. This Court should, where the Legislature requires it, keep the business of such specialized courts as the juvenile court and the criminal court separate, so that each may effectively enforce the laws assigned to it to the end that the social problems targeted be dealt with.
The Gannon case reveals the legal concepts of court jurisdiction which were at play at the time of the creation of the Marion Criminal Court and Marion Juvenile Court. Both followed the circuit court. There the Court said:
As a conceptual matter the use of the language in the statute first creating the Marion Criminal Court that "such criminal court shall have original exclusive jurisdiction ... of all crimes and misdemeanors" is considered to have removed that part of the total circuit court jurisdiction which was criminal jurisdiction, which was itself original and exclusive, and then conferred that part upon the newly created criminal court. In like fashion therefore it seems quite logical and proper to give commensurate force to the employment of the same language in the statute creating the Marion Juvenile Court. It states that:
The language must be considered to have removed that part of the total criminal court jurisdiction by which it determined the guilt of a certain class of crimes committed by infants and conferred the jurisdiction to deal with them upon the newly created juvenile court. And the divestiture of criminal jurisdiction from the criminal court is accomplished without a specific amendment of the statute granting the criminal court the "original exclusive jurisdiction ... of all crimes and misdemeanors." I see no way to seriously consider that this case is one but involving a question of mere "over the person" jurisdiction.
The criminal court and the juvenile court were at the time of this plea, two separate courts, each conducting its own business within confines set by statute. The one exercising criminal jurisdiction and the other juvenile jurisdiction. When the criminal court convicted and sentenced appellant the criminal court was addressing a matter which should have been before the juvenile court, but which was not, and as a legal consequence its judgment was void. The reason that the law will not permit fraud or consent of a party to lift such a judgment at any time to legitimacy and enforceability is the great importance of the public policies which move the Legislature to create specialized courts and relegate "original and exclusive" jurisdiction to them.
The findings and conclusions of law rendered below are not clear to me. I would therefore reverse and remand for a new hearing to determine whether the three criteria for juvenile court jurisdiction were satisfied at the time of the plea, and if they were, to grant post-conviction relief.