Opinion ID: 1111564
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: was it error to try harrison johnson without certification from the youth court?

Text: Miss. Code Ann. § 43-21-151 (Supp. 1986) gives the Youth Court jurisdiction in all proceedings concerning a delinquent child... . For purposes of the Act, § 43-21-105(i) defines delinquent child as a child who has reached his tenth birthday and who has committed a delinquent act. A delinquent act, pursuant to § 43-21-105(j), is an act designated as a crime other than offenses punishable by life imprisonment or death. [emphasis added] Thus, this Court has long recognized that juveniles who commit offenses that are punishable by either the death penalty or life imprisonment do not fall within the jurisdiction of the youth court. Winters v. State, 473 So.2d 452 (Miss. 1985); Carter v. State, 334 So.2d 376 (Miss. 1976); Bullock v. Harpole, 233 Miss. 486, 102 So.2d 687 (1958). A new wrinkle is added, however, where a juvenile is charged with an offense carrying a potential life sentence, but is convicted of something else. Such were the facts in Williams v. State, 459 So.2d 777 (Miss. 1984), where a sixteen-year-old girl was indicted for murder, but plead guilty to manslaughter. In determining whether the youth court had jurisdiction over the case, Justice Roy Noble Lee wrote for the Court: We think the sounder rule has been stated and followed in those states holding that once jurisdiction is acquired, it is not lost by accepting a plea to a lesser-included offense or conviction for a lesser-included offense, even though such offenses would not originally confer jurisdiction in the circuit court. It would be a mockery of the law and justice to hold that when a juvenile is indicted for murder that the circuit court must proceed with a trial on the murder charge, or lose jurisdiction, if a plea or conviction for a lesser-included offense occurs. Id. at 779. We believe that the Williams rationale should apply here. To hold otherwise would cause the defendant and the trial court to await the outcome of the trial before determining whether the circuit court's jurisdiction was proper. Thus, since the indictment for murder properly conferred jurisdiction upon the circuit court, we hold that there is no reversible error in that court's sentencing of Harrison Johnson for aggravated assault.