Court Opinion

ID: 9659888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:57:04.291755+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:03.658029
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree that SDCL 26-11-4 is not unconstitutionally vague; that jeopardy does not attach at a juvenile transfer hearing; that the court did not err in admitting the photograph of the scene; and that an appeal may not be taken from a transfer order as a matter of right. I do not agree, however, that the evidence is insufficient to justify transfer.
*873Granted that the state did not introduce a great quantity of evidence to establish probable cause linking appellant to the alleged violation, I believe that the evidence in the record does support a finding that the charge has prosecutive merit. One of the state’s witnesses testified that appellant and two others took two rifles and left between 1:00 and 1:30 a. m. on the date of the alleged offense. Prior to leaving, appellant had loaded one of the rifles and said that he and the others were going to shoot around town. At about 2:15 a. m. that day, two police officers responded to a report that shots were being fired at an apartment house. Upon arriving at the scene in their patrol car, the officers were fired upon by unknown assailants. Five or six bullets either passed through or hit the police car. One of the officers testified that he felt something pass his head two or three times and then felt something hit his head. The other officer was struck by flying lead. Spent cartridges were later found at a point some 25 to 45 feet from where the squad car was when it was fired upon. When appellant returned to the house from which he had left with the rifle, he was carrying a .22 rifle and “ * * * was breathing hard like he had been running.” Although the state’s witness was unable to pinpoint the time at which appellant returned with the rifle, the inference I draw is that it was somewhere during the early morning hours. Taken as a whole, this evidence is sufficient to establish the prosecutive merit of the charge against appellant.
After weighing the evidence against the factors which should be considered by the trial court in determining whether a juvenile is amenable to the rehabilitative treatment available within the juvenile system, I am satisfied that the trial court did not err in transferring appellant. Appellant was 17 years and 2 months of age on the date of the alleged offense; he had dropped out of school in December of 1975 to seek employment after he had gotten his girl friend pregnant. Appellant’s school record is bad. In August of 1974 he was charged with driving while intoxicated and with having no valid drivers permit; he admitted the truth of the allegations and was placed on probation. Granted that the court service worker’s investigation was not as comprehensive and thorough as it might have been, this should not be a reason for reversing the transfer order if we can conclude, as I think we can here, that the trial court had sufficient information from which it could determine that it would be contrary to the best interests of appellant or of the public to retain jurisdiction over appellant. If by substantial evidence we mean “ * * * such relevant and competent evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as being sufficiently adequate to support a conclusion * * SDCL 1-26-1(8), then I am satisfied that the transfer order was not erroneously entered.