Court Opinion

ID: 9580645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:07:08.78218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:25.270060
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(dissenting)—I adhere to my views expressed in In re Lewis, 88 Wn.2d 556, 561-62, 564 P.2d 328 (1977), in which a departmental opinion of this court indicated:
An order transferring a juvenile for criminal trial as an adult has been recognized by our court to be an action which is subject to direct appeal. ... As a final order extinguishing the "civil" aspects of a juvenile delinquency proceeding, it is subject to appeal as a matter of right under our present court rules. RAP 2.2(a)(3). Moreover, our decisions and commentators have recognized that failure to allow direct appeal of the transfer *117decision will often frustrate the purposes of the transfer proceedings. Delay in appealing the transfer decision until final disposition of criminal charges often leads to a situation in which, due to passage of time, there is no effective means of reconstructing the circumstances which existed at the time of the transfer decision or, if the defendant by that time has passed the age of majority and is thus no longer subject to juvenile court jurisdiction, no means by which he or she may obtain the benefits of juvenile court jurisdiction even if it is determined that the transfer was wrongful. See McRae v. State, 88 Wn.2d 307, 559 P.2d 563 (1977); State v. Williams, 75 Wn.2d 604, 453 P.2d 418 (1969); Note, Review of Improper Juvenile Transfer Hearings, 60 Va. L. Rev. 818 (1974).
Declination orders are within the purview of RAP 2.2(a)(3) and direct appeal as a matter of right should be available in these circumstances.
The fact that a juvenile court judge's determination to transfer jurisdiction often involves the exercise of discretion certainly does not compel the conclusion that review of such a decision should be discretionary. Many of the lower court rulings which this court reviews as a matter of right under RAP 2.2(a) involve matters of judicial discretion. Moreover, the eight criteria governing the exercise of discretion to decline juvenile jurisdiction, originally enumerated in Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 16 L. Ed. 2d 84, 86 S. Ct. 1045 (1966), have been held by this court to represent standards for the exercise of discretion sufficient to allow the declination statute to withstand a vagueness challenge. In re Harbert, 85 Wn.2d 719, 538 P.2d 1212 (1975). It is these standards which give life to the constitutional requirement of due process in this particular setting.
As was pointed out in the prior opinion in this case, the failure to protect these fundamental substantive and procedural rights through direct access to the appellate courts as a matter of right will often result in their loss through nothing more than the passage of time. The United States Supreme Court characterized the declination decision as one both "critically important" and having "tremendous *118consequences" for the juvenile affected by the proceedings. Kent v. United States, supra at 553, 554. There is nothing in the post-Kent decisions of this state which would suggest this court attaches a lesser importance to it. The fundamental change of status which results from a decision to transfer a juvenile is similar to an order of incompetency, a determination of dependency, or an order depriving all parental rights—each of which may be appealed as a matter of right under our court rules. See RAP 2.2(a).
Given the enormous potential impact of this determination and the existence of clear constitutional standards by which the appellate courts may review the determination of the juvenile court, I conclude that juveniles are entitled to the added protection afforded by the availability of appeal as a matter of right and therefore dissent.
Horowitz, J., concurs with Utter, J.