Court Opinion

ID: 9670981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:29:07.544951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:07.561199
License: Public Domain

David Newbern, Justice, dissenting. It may well be the enactment of the current Juvenile Code was a bad idea. That is not for us to say. If the notion of offering special protections to juveniles in the hope of putting them on a separate track ending somewhere other than the Department of Correction has been found unworkable, it should be up to the General Assembly to declare it. In the meantime we should try to follow the Code and not weaken it to the point where it becomes virtually meaningless. Perhaps the effect of Boyd v. State, 313 Ark. 171, 853 S.W.2d 263 (1993), on the purpose of the Juvenile Code is too insidious for recognition. Surely it can be seen, however, that the General Assembly did not intend by the enactment of Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-317(a)(3) to prevent disclosure of the truth. It must have been enacted to protect children who are at their most vulnerable, in the face of ordinary police tactics, to suggestion and ultimately to misunderstanding which could be avoided by the presence of a parent or counselor. Once a statement has been taken in violation of the statute, the incentive to proceed in a circuit court rather than a juvenile division of a chancery court becomes, I should think, compelling. Only by avoiding juvenile, proceedings can the State use such a statement. While it is not my usual practice to continue a skirmish once the battle has been lost, in this instance I must again respectfully dissent for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion in Boyd v. State, supra. Roaf, J., joins in this dissent.