Opinion ID: 1842904
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Delinquency Adjudications in Juvenile Court

Text: Citing Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 108 S.Ct. 2687, 101 L.Ed.2d 702 (1988), and In the Interest of Dino, 359 So.2d 586 (La.1978), the defense argues that delinquency adjudications while the defendant was a juvenile should be excluded from a capital sentencing hearing on a policy basis, since the law does not hold a minor fully responsible for the consequences of his immaturity. [10] However, criminal conduct by the defendant while he was a juvenile may be relevant to the character and moral quality issues in a capital sentencing hearing if the time of the conduct is not too remote from the first degree murder and if the nature of the conduct bears significantly on the accused's propensity to commit serious crimes. Since In Re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967) and In Re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970), the fundamental due process rights of a criminal defendant, such as the right to counsel and the right to proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, have been required in juvenile delinquency proceedings. [11] The integrity of the finding of guilt in a juvenile delinquency proceeding is therefore no longer subject to serious attack. Nevertheless, there are still policy reasons for not equating an adjudication of delinquency in juvenile court to a conviction of crime in district court. However, just as a defendant's juvenile record may be considered in non-capital sentencing hearings, a capital defendant's juvenile record of recent or repeated serious crimes may be probative in the jury's evaluation of the defendant's true character and propensities. We conclude that the limitation on the nature of the offense that has been imposed by this opinion on the use of district court convictions in capital sentencing hearings is adequate to safeguard against the injection of an arbitrary factor into the jury's sentencing deliberations by the use of delinquency adjudications. We therefore hold that delinquency adjudications in juvenile court are not per se inadmissible, but that the admissibility of such adjudications is limited to adjudications based on an offense that would be a felony if committed by an adult.