Opinion ID: 1794181
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statutory Criteria for Placement.

Text: The disposition of a child found to have committed a delinquent act is governed by Iowa Code section 232.52. The juvenile court may place a child in the state training school provided that the child is at least twelve years of age and the court finds the placement to be in the best interests of the child or necessary for the protection of the public, and that the child has been found to have committed an act which is a forcible felony, as defined in section 702.11, or a felony violation of section 124.401 or chapter 707, or the court finds any three of the following conditions exist: (1) The child is at least fifteen years of age and the court finds the placement to be in the best interests of the child or necessary to the protection of the public. (2) The child has committed an act which is a crime against a person and which would be an aggravated misdemeanor or a felony if the act were committed by an adult. (3) The child has previously been found to have committed a delinquent act. (4) The child has previously been placed in a treatment facility outside the child's home. Iowa Code § 232.52(2)(e). G.J.A. does not meet the criteria for placement under the first test because he had not committed a forcible felony, homicide, or drug offense. Therefore, the court relied on the second test requiring three of the four conditions listed. The court found that G.J.A. met the conditions under subsections (1), (3), and (4). It is undisputed that G.J.A. did not meet criterion (2). The Department concedes that G.J.A. met criteria (1) and (4), but contends he failed to meet criterion (3) that the child has previously been found to have committed a delinquent act. A delinquent act is defined as follows: a. The violation of any state law or local ordinance which would constitute a public offense if committed by an adult except any offense which by law is exempted from the jurisdiction of this chapter. b. The violation of a federal law or a law of another state which violation constitutes a criminal offense if the case involving that act has been referred to the juvenile court. Id. § 232.2(12). The dispute in this case arises from the term previously and the construction of criterion (3) as a whole within the context of our statutory scheme for juvenile dispositions. The court found criterion (3) was met because G.J.A. was previously found to have committed a delinquent act when he was adjudicated as having committed the offense of theft in the third degree in 1992. The Department, however, argues that criterion (3) requires a finding that the child committed a delinquent act in addition to the delinquency finding of the initial adjudication. The court has only made one finding that G.J.A. committed a delinquent act. The Department contends that the court's statutory construction nullifies the word previously because under Iowa's statutory scheme the court must find the child committed a delinquent act before a dispositional hearing can be held. See id. §§ 232.47(10), 232.50(1), 232.54. We only resort to rules of statutory construction when the statute is ambiguous. State v. Gilmour, 522 N.W.2d 595, 597 (Iowa 1994). An ambiguity exists if reasonable minds may differ or be uncertain as to the meaning of the statute. Id. We conclude that the meaning of section 232.52(2)(e)(3) is ambiguous and requires court construction.