Court Opinion

ID: 9750897
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:45:52.04975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:27.919169
License: Public Domain

FLANDERS, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the court and with the majority’s affirmance of the Superior Court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims for wrongful death, for unjust enrichment, and for alleged violations of the Slayer’s Act. However, I write separately because I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the Criminal Royalties Distribution Act (the criminal royalties act or the act), G.L.1956 chapter 25.1 of title 12, applies to juvenile defendants. Therefore, I do not believe that the court should declare the act to be unconstitutional be*679cause in my judgment such a declaration is not indispensably necessary to the determination of this appeal. See Town of Barrington v. Blake, 532 A.2d 955, 955 (R.I.1987) (‘“this court has consistently followed the accepted general rule that it will not pass upon the constitutionality of an act of the legislature unless its determination is indispensably necessary to the determination of the cause’”)- For this reason I would not reach the defendant’s challenge to the constitutionality of the act but simply affirm the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims under the act by holding that it is inapplicable to this defendant because of his status as a juvenile when he committed the acts for which he was adjudicated a delinquent.
The act attempts to regulate the commercial exploitation of crimes attributable to a “ ‘criminally responsible person,’ ” § 12-25.1-2(6). Such a person is defined as one “who has been convicted of a felony * * * which caused another person to suffer personal injury or loss of property, * * * or who has voluntarily admitted the commission of such an offense.” Id. However, “this court has consistently held that an adjudication of delinquency is not deemed a criminal conviction, except as it may be considered by a sentencing justice within the Family Court.” In re Bernard H., 557 A.2d 864, 867 (R.I.1989); see also In re John D., 479 A.2d 1173, 1176 (R.I.1984) (“[a] finding of delinquency or waywardness in a juvenile proceeding is not the equivalent of a finding that the juvenile has committed a crime[; rjather, a determination of delinquency is warranted when an act is committed that would amount to a felony if it had been committed by an adult”); In re Michael, 423 A.2d 1180, 1183 (R.I.1981) (“[a] juvenile is delinquent or wayward, not because the juvenile has committed a crime, but because the juvenile has committed an act that would be a crime if committed by a person not a juvenile and because the juvenile requires ‘such care, guidance and control * * * as will serve the child’s welfare and the best interests of the state’ ”). This principle is codified at G.L.1956 § 14-1-40(a):
“No adjudication upon the status of any child in the jurisdiction of the court shall operate to impose any of the civil disabilities ordinarily resulting from a conviction, nor shall any child be deemed a criminal by reason of that adjudication, nor shall that adjudication be deemed a conviction, nor shall any child be charged with or convicted of a crime in any court, except as provided in this chapter. The disposition of a child or any evidence given in the court shall not be admissible as evidence against the child in any case or proceeding in any other court, nor shall that disposition or evidence operate to disqualify a child in any future civil service application, examination, or appointment.”
Therefore, although defendant here “admitted sufficient facts to be adjudicated delinquent on four charges of murder,” State v. Price, 672 A.2d 893, 895 (R.I.1996), he did not — indeed, as a fifteen-year-old juvenile, he could not — admit to the commission of a felony.5 Rather he admitted to the commission of offenses “which, if committed by an adult, would constitute a felony.” Section 14r-l-3(5). Such admissions are not covered by the act, which for our purposes is limited to those persons who have “voluntarily admitted the commission of [a felony].” Section 12-25.1-2(6). Thus I disagree with the court’s conclusion that the act applies to juveniles who admit to acts that would amount to felonies if they had been committed by an adult.
I also do not agree that the Legislature intended and contemplated that an act for which a juvenile is adjudged delinquent should be considered a crime in the context of a civil action brought by a victim of the crime. It is true that § 14-1-66 of the Family Court Act allows victims to petition the court for information about a juvenile accused of committing a crime solely for the purpose of allowing the victim to commence a civil action against the juvenile and/or his parents to recover for damages sustained as a result of the crime. See In re Falstaff Brewing Corp. Re: Narragansett Brewery *680Fire, 687 A.2d 1047, 1060 (R.I.1994) (“[t]he clear legislative intent behind § 14-1-66 is to allow victims to recover, via a civil action, damages suffered at the hands of a juvenile offender”). However, this statute falls within the exception to the general rule set forth in § 14-l-40(a) that no child shall be “deemed a criminal by reason of that [delinquency] adjudication, nor shall that adjudication be deemed a conviction, nor shall any child be charged with or convicted of a crime in any court, except as provided in this chapter [chapter 1 of title 14].” (Emphasis added.)
Unlike this law, the criminal royalties act was not enacted as part of chapter 1 of title 14 but as chapter 25.1 of title 12 of the General Laws. Had the Legislature truly intended and contemplated that the act would apply to juveniles, it would have enacted it as part of chapter 1 of title 14 and thereby squarely placed it within the purview of the exception to the general rule set out in § 14-1-40(a). Thus when the Legislature wanted to enable the victims of juvenile offenses to obtain the information they needed to commence civil actions against the responsible juveniles, it passed such a law (§ 14-1-66) as part of chapter 1 of title 14, thereby fitting such a provision within the exception to the general rule of § 14-l-40(a) that children are not to be deemed criminals or to have been convicted of any crime “except as provided in this chapter.” However, it has not done so with respect to the criminal royalties act. Accordingly I do not agree that acts for which a juvenile has been adjudged delinquent retain their criminal character under the criminal royalties act, much less that they should be considered crimes in the context of the victims’ civil actions. Such an interpretation eviscerates § 14-l-40(a)’s “except as provided in this chapter” clause and opens a gaping “civil action” hole in the Legislature’s policy against treating children as criminals.
By drawing such careful and deliberate distinctions between juvenile adjudications for delinquency or waywardness and criminal felony convictions, the General Assembly has sounded a clear and certain trumpet. In these circumstances our duty is equally clear and certain:
“In the face of a statute so clear and unambiguous there is no room for the application of the usual canons of statutory construction. In such a case the statute declares itself. We may not where no ambiguity exists search beyond the statute for a different meaning. Even hardship does not justify a court in reading into a statute something contrary to its unequivocal language. Only when the legislature sounds an uncertain trumpet may the court move in to clarify the call. But when the call is clear and certain as it is here we may not consider whether the statute as written comports with our ideas of justice, expediency or sound public policy. In such circumstances that is not the court’s business.” Kastal v. Hickory House, Inc., 95 R.I. 366, 369, 187 A.2d 262, 264-65 (1963) (citations omitted); see also Parkway Towers Associates v. Godfrey, 688 A.2d 1289, 1294 (R.I.1997).
In sum, I believe that the act is inapplicable to juvenile defendants and that any constitutional analysis of the act is unnecessary to the result and, therefore, merely advisory. See Rhode Island Ophthalmological Society v. Cannon, 113 R.I. 16, 28, 317 A.2d 124, 130-31 (1974) (although “there is no express language in the Rhode Island [Constitution which confines the exercise of our judicial power to actual ‘cases and controversies[,]’ * * * we will not render advisory opinions or function in the abstract”). Because “‘[n]o question can be brought before a judicial tribunal of greater delicacy than those which involve the constitutionality of a legislative act,’ ” Blais v. Franklin, 30 R.I. 413, 421, 75 A. 399, 403 (1910), this court’s teaching in Newell v. Franklin, 30 R.I. 258, 265-66, 74 A. 1009, 1012 (1910) (quoting Thomas M. Cooley, LL.D., A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations Which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union 231 (7th ed. 1903)), bears repeating:
“Neither will a court, as a general - rule, pass upon a constitutional question, and decide a statute to be invalid, unless a decision upon that very point becomes necessary to the determination of the cause. “While courts cannot shun the discussion of constitutional questions when fairly pre*681sented, they will not go out of their way to find such topics. They will not seek to draw in such weighty matters collaterally, nor on trivial occasions. It is both more proper and more respectful to a coordinate department to discuss constitutional questions only when that is the very lis mota. Thus presented and determined, the decision carries a weight with it to which no extra-judicial disquisition is entitled.’ In any case[,] therefore, where a constitutional question is raised, though it may be legitimately presented by the record, yet if the record also presents some other and clear ground upon which the court may rest its judgment, and thereby render the constitutional question immaterial to the case, that course will be adopted, and the question of constitutional power will be left for consideration until a case arises which cannot be disposed of without considering it, and when consequently a decision upon such question will be unavoidable.”
For these reasons I concur in the result of the court’s decision to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims under the act, but I disagree with the conclusion that the act applies to this defendant. Thus I would resolve this aspect of the case as a matter of legislative interpretation rather than reach and decide the constitutionality of the act.

. When defendant was adjudicated a delinquent, the law did not allow a juvenile under the age of sixteen to be waived by the Family Court or to be certified. See P.L.1990, ch. 18, § 2 (adding new sections 14-1-7, 14-1-7.1, 14-1-7.2, and 14-1-7.3 to provide for such waiver or certification).