Opinion ID: 809440
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: [1] In United States v. Gerald N., 900 F.2d 189 (9th Cir. 1990) (per curiam), we held that we had jurisdiction to entertain an interlocutory appeal from an order transferring a juvenile for prosecution as an adult “in the interest of justice.” Id. at 191. This was so because it came within the collateral order exception of Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949). Gerald N., 900 F.2d at 190-91. “To fall within the limited class of final collateral orders, an order must (1) conclusively determine the disputed question, (2) resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and (3) be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.” Id. at 190 (internal quotation marks omitted). With respect to the first and second factors, an order transferring a juvenile for adult prosecution conclusively resolves the issue of whether he would be treated as an adult, and that issue is completely separate from the merits of the proceeding. As for the third factor, we held in Gerald N. that juvenile status conferred “important rights [that] must be vindicated before trial or are otherwise lost forever.” Id. at 191. These included the benefit of sealed proceedings and avoidance of incarceration in an adult penal institution. Id. at UNITED STATES v. HOS 11935 190-91. The same considerations are applicable to an appeal from an order of the kind at issue here. [2] Nevertheless, the government relies on United States v. Gomez-Gomez, 643 F.3d 463 (6th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 466 (2011), to argue that we lack jurisdiction. This argument is based on a distinction between a transfer order “in the interest of justice,” which the Sixth Circuit characterized as involving a “legal question,” and an order finding that the defendant is subject to prosecution as an adult because he was over the age of eighteen when the offense was committed, which the court characterized as “a factual question.” Id. at 470. Such factual determinations, the Sixth Circuit reasoned, are the kinds of issues “that trial judges, not appellate judges, confront almost daily.” Id. (quoting Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 316 (1995)). Thus, “interlocutory appeals are less likely to bring important error-correcting benefits here than where purely legal matters are at issue.” Id. (quoting Johnson, 515 U.S. at 316). Moreover, “[r]esolving such a factual controversy may require reviewing an extensive pretrial record and lead to greater delay than resolving a purely legal issue.” Id. [3] We are not persuaded by the government’s argument. While it is true that the issue of the defendant’s age is a factual one, that very issue may also arise in the context of determining the so-called legal question of whether the case should be transferred “in the interest of justice.” Indeed, that factor and almost all of the other factors that must be taken into consideration in an “interest of justice” determination involve factual issues and potential factual disputes. See 18 U.S.C. § 5032 (listing the juvenile’s age and social background as the first of six relevant factors). Thus, in Gerald N., which involved an “interest of justice” determination, the district court made a specific finding that the juvenile “was seventeen years and ten months of age at the time the offense was alleged to have been committed,” and we reviewed the record and determined that this finding, and each of the district 11936 UNITED STATES v. HOS judge’s other findings, were “fully supported either by the witness’s testimony or by exhibits properly admitted into evidence.” 900 F.2d at 191. We, therefore, decline to draw the distinction on which the holding in Gomez-Gomez turned.