Court Opinion

ID: 9549937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:26:42.44444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:04.432849
License: Public Domain

KLEINSCHMIDT, Judge,
dissenting.
I would grant relief. I agree that the word “contested” applies to both “matter” and “hearing” as those terms are used in the rule. I do not agree that the disposition hearing was contested.
A hearing is contested if there is a disputed issue between the parties which the judge must resolve. Lewis v. Kelliher, 171 Ariz. 228, 829 P.2d 1274 (App.1992) (quoting Sarchett v. Superior Court, 168 Ariz. 321, 323, 812 P.2d 1139, 1141 (App.1991)). By definition, no dispute exists between parties who have entered into stipulations on each issue to be decided. See Wolf Corp. v. Louis, 11 Ariz.App. 352, 355, 464 P.2d 672, 675 (1970) (“A stipulation is a judicial admission constituting an abandonment of any contention to the contrary.”).
The majority stresses the fact that a disposition hearing is never ministerial and concludes that the importance of the judge’s discretion converts a stipulated disposition hearing into a contested one. But a judge’s rulings, even upon stipulated matters, are rarely ministerial. To say that the existence of discretion makes a matter contested is to write Rule 20.1 out of existence.
The practical point of the waiver rule favors the Juvenile’s position. A juvenile may be perfectly willing to proceed before a particular judge when the juvenile has the state on his side. To be before that same judge when the juvenile wants the judge to consider matters that are in dispute is another matter altogether. Under these circumstances, the rule contemplates that juveniles have one chance to influence who will hear the dispute. Because no disputes were litigated in the hearings before Judge Chavez in 93-J-105,1 think those hearings were uncontested and that the Juvenile did not waive his right to a peremptory change of judge in J-96-560.