Court Opinion

ID: 9551289
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:50:49.287559+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:28.966609
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice
Moore dissenting:
Article VI, Section 9(1) of the Colorado constitution provides that, “The district courts * * * shall have original jurisdiction in all * * * criminal cases * * *.”
It is my view that the legislative act under consideration attempts to curtail the power conferred upon the district court by this constitutional provision. The act recognizes that a “child” (defined as a person under 18 years of age) can commit a felony. This appears in the following language:
“A child shall be charged with the commission of a felony only as provided in subsection 4(a) of this section, except for crimes of violence punishable by death or life imprisonment where the accused is 16 years of age or older.”
There is here a recognition that felonies may be committed by children both over and under 16 years of age.
In the statute above quoted there is a clear indication that “children” under 18 years of age are capable of committing felonies including aggravated crimes of violence. However, it is claimed that they should not be answerable, as provided by the constitution, for lesser felonies. I submit that if such “child” is answerable to the district court, under the terms of the constitution for the felony of murder, he is equally answerable to that court for the felony of robbery, or assault with intent to commit murder, or other crime requiring a lesser degree of culpability. It makes no sense to me to say that a person under 18 years of age may be tried for felonies in the district court (as required by the constitution) if it is a major “capital offense,” but can*447not be tried for lesser ones, some of which are frequently necessarily included in the “capital” crime.
The statute attempts to nullify the constitutional provision by asserting, in ultimate effect, that the “lesser” felony charge can only be filed in the juvenile court, where it will be called something else.
If it was the intention of the legislature to say that “children” under the age of 18 had no capacity to commit felonies, it should have said so in far more certain terms than those employed in the act in question. Provisions of the constitution should not be nullified by court action which reads into legislation words which do not appear therein.
Mr. Justice Hodges joins in this dissent.