Court Opinion

ID: 9585934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:05:20.086987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:17.318467
License: Public Domain

RUSSON, Justice,
concurring and dissenting:
While I fully agree with the majority’s analysis and result in part III, “Statutory Recall Provisions,” and part IV, “Juvenile Detention,” I strongly disagree with the majority’s analysis and result in part II, “Uniform Operation of Laws.” In part II, the majority addresses Utah Code Ann. § 78-3a-25, which grants prosecutors discretion in cases involving a juvenile offender to file either criminal charges in “adult” court1 or a civil action in juvenile court.2 The majority holds this section unconstitutional on the basis of an erroneous interpretation of the uniform operation of laws provision of article I, section 24 of the Utah Constitution. Because the majority’s interpretation oversteps any reasonable boundary of the rights which that provision is designed to protect, I dissent.
I. PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION GENERALLY
To place the prosecutorial discretion granted by Utah Code Ann. § 78-3a-25 in its proper perspective, it is important to first examine the breadth of discretion generally given to prosecutors. It is well established that a prosecutor’s decision to charge or not to charge an individual with a criminal violation is protected by traditional notions of prosecutorial discretion. See Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 364, 98 S.Ct. 663, 668-69, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978). As the Supreme Court stated therein:
In our system, so long as the prosecutor has probable cause to believe that the accused committed an offense defined by statute, the decision whether or not to prosecute, and what charge to file or bring before a grand jury, generally rests within his discretion. Within the limits set by the legislature’s constitutionally valid definition of chargeable offenses, “the conscious exercise of some selectivity in enforcement is not in itself a federal constitutional violation” so long as “the selection was [not] deliberately based upon an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification.”
*1008Id. (emphasis added) (footnote omitted) (quoting Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 456, 82 S.Ct. 501, 506, 7 L.Ed.2d 446 (1962)).
Similarly, in State v. Bell, 785 P.2d 390 (Utah 1989), the lead opinion of this court stated:
This jurisdiction has long recognized the vital role of the prosecution and the importance of affording that body the discretion, within permissible limits, to exercise its function. Certainly, we are compelled ... to recognize this discretion as it preserves the constitutional concept of separation of powers. Also, it must be recognized that the prosecutor has at his or her disposal in making such a decision the criteria provided for elsewhere in the statute, the purpose of the Juvenile Courts Act, and the standards governing the duties of his or her office.
Id. at 404 (footnotes omitted).
There are numerous instances in which prosecutors are granted the same or substantially similar discretion that is at issue in the case before us. For example, the prosecutor has the discretion in regard to an alleged criminal act to file felony charges, or misdemeanor charges, or no charges whatsoever. In fact, the prosecutor can even do so in relation to a single criminal act involving more than one person. For instance, assume that three men, A, B, and C, commit an armed robbery together. A has a long history of felony arrests and convictions and is the one who actually perpetrates the offense. B has a couple of misdemeanor convictions and stands watch while A carries out the crime. C has no criminal record, drives the getaway car, was reluctantly talked into being a part of this crime by the coercion of his comrades, and agrees to testify against them. I doubt that members of this court would proclaim “unconstitutional discretion” if the prosecutor charged A with a felony, B with a misdemeanor, and C with nothing at all. In fact, this court so held in State v. Garcia, 29 Utah 2d 52, 504 P.2d 1015 (1972), which stated:
It is not a function of the courts to review the exercise of executive discretion, and we cannot say that it was error for the prosecutor to treat the defendants in a different manner, and we cannot review the prosecutor’s decision to proceed against one defendant under an information charging him with a felony and reducing the charge against the codefendant to a misdemeanor.
Id. at 53, 504 P.2d at 1015-16 (footnote omitted).
In State v. Carter, 578 P.2d 1275 (Utah 1978), this court ruled that Utah Code Ann. § 76-8-1001, which grants a prosecutor discretion to charge or not to charge an offender as a habitual criminal, is constitutional. Id. at 1277. As the court stated therein, “[Discretion rests in the prosecutor in every case as to whether or not to charge a violation of a criminal statute. Some selectivity is always permitted, so long as the election is not discriminatorily based on classifications of race, national origin, sex, religion, etc.” Id.
In the present case, there are no allegations of discrimination arising from selective prosecution. Rather, defendants attack section 78-3a-25 merely because it gives prosecutors discretion to file either criminal charges in adult court or a civil action in juvenile court, arguing that such discretion constitutes a violation of the uniform application of the laws under article I, section 24 of the Utah Constitution. However, as this court has stated in a similar context, “[I]n the absence of some showing that the prosecutor is classifying persons improperly, the mere existence of the discretionary power to select which mechanism to use does not offend the uniform operation of the laws provision of article I, section 24.” In re Criminal Investigation, 7th Dist. Court No. CS-1, 754 P.2d 633, 658 (Utah 1988) (upholding constitutionality of statute which allowed alternative method of criminal investigation, as long as that alternative method satisfied due process). There are no allegations in the case before us that the discretion at issue was being practiced in a discriminatory manner. Accordingly, the prosecutor’s discretion to file a criminal charge in adult court or a civil petition in juvenile court is the sort of prose-cutorial discretion that has traditionally been permitted.3
*1009II. CONSTITUTIONALITY OF SECTION 78-3a-25
It is a basic principle that “legislative enactments are endowed with a strong presumption of validity and will not be declared unconstitutional unless there is no reasonable basis upon which they can be construed as conforming to constitutional requirements.” In re Criminal Investigation, 7th Dish Court No. CS-1, 754 P.2d 633, 640 (Utah 1988) (citing Greaves v. State, 528 P.2d 805, 806-07 (Utah 1974)). Thus, in evaluating a constitutional challenge to a statute, this court will construe the statute to avoid interpretations that conflict with relevant constitutional mandates, so long as the resulting construction does not conflict with the reasonable or actual legislative purposes of the statute. Id. (citing Malan v. Lewis, 693 P.2d 661, 671 n. 14 (Utah 1984); State v. Casarez, 656 P.2d 1005, 1008 (Utah 1982); Zamora v. Draper, 635 P.2d 78, 80 (Utah 1981)). As this court previously stated in Stone v. Department of Registration, 567 P.2d 1115 (Utah 1977):
[W]hatever may or may not be the conviction of mind, or the personal desires of this court, or the justices thereof, to determine such policy, our commitment is to the principle of judicial restraint, necessary and desirable under our system, which honors the doctrine of separation of powers of the three branches of our government. Therefore, it is not within the province of the courts to intrude upon the legislative prerogative and declare a statute unconstitutional unless it is determined to be so beyond a reasonable doubt.
Id. at 1117 (footnotes omitted); accord Greaves, 528 P.2d at 806-07.
The burden of successfully challenging the constitutionality of a statute is on the appellant, and this burden is a heavy one. Blue Cross & Blue Shield v. State, 779 P.2d 634, 637 (Utah 1989); City of West Jordan v. Utah State Retirement Bd., 767 P.2d 530, 537 (Utah 1988). Defendants’ burden is particularly heavy in the present case because the statute at issue here is a later version of the one addressed in State v. Bell, 785 P.2d 390 (Utah 1989), in which this court held that the substantially similar prior version of the statute was constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.4 Id. at 405. Although Bell was decided on federal, not state, constitutional grounds, inasmuch as the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 24 of the Utah Constitution embody the same general principles, Greenwood v. City of North Salt Lake, 817 P.2d 816, 820 (Utah 1991), and article I, section 24 “acts as Utah’s equal protection clause,” Amax Magnesium Corp. v. Utah State Tax Comm’n, 796 P.2d 1256, 1261 n. 23 (Utah 1990), it is incumbent upon defendants to demonstrate why the result should be different under state constitutional analysis.5
As an initial step in examining the constitutionality of Utah Code Ann. § 78-3a-25, it is necessary to determine the proper level of scrutiny to be applied in reviewing the statute. Defendants argue, and the majority agrees, that section 78-3a-25 should be reviewed under an intermediate “reasonableness” level of scrutiny, rather than under the minimal or “rational” level of scrutiny proposed by the State. Inasmuch as section 78-3a-25 withstands scrutiny using the higher *1010intermediate review preferred by the majority, that standard will be used to review the constitutionality of section 78-3a-25 under article I, section 24 of the Utah Constitution.6
Article I, section 24 states, “All laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation.” By so providing, it “protects against two types of discrimination. First, a law must apply equally to all persons within a class. Second, the statutory classifications and the different treatment given the classes must be based on differences that have a reasonable tendency to further the objectives of the statute.” Malan v. Lewis, 693 P.2d 661, 670 (Utah 1984) (citations omitted).
The first requirement of Malan mandates that the law be applied equally to all persons within a certain group or class. The classes created by section 78-3a-25 include not only a large group, all juvenile offenders who commit certain enumerated offenses, but also two subgroups, (1) those charged criminally by information in adult court and (2) those against whom civil petitions are filed in juvenile court. All members of the larger group are treated equally because all are subject to the same nondiscriminatory initial exercise of prosecutorial discretion. In addition, each member of each subgroup is treated equally to all other members of that subgroup. That is, each juvenile offender who is charged criminally and proceeds to adult court has the same rights and protections as all other juveniles in the adult court system; likewise, each juvenile who is petitioned against civilly and proceeds to juvenile court has the same rights and protections as others who are subject to juvenile court jurisdiction. Accordingly, section 78-3a-25 satisfies Malan ⅛ first requirement because its provisions apply equally to all persons within the classes created.
Footnote 7 of the majority opinion misrepresents the dissent’s position concerning the first requirement of Malan, thereby misehar-acterizing the dissent’s view as supporting “numerous ‘separate but equal’ systems that have long been rejected as impermissible.” This characterization is incorrect and misleading. Obviously, a scheme that prosecutes all Caucasians one way and all minorities another would be unconstitutional under the dissent’s view because the members of the larger group, all offenders, are not being treated equally. Under such a scheme, all minority offenders would be subject to discrimination in the initial exercise of prosecu-torial discretion. However, in the present case, none of the defendants raise allegations that prosecutorial discretion is being practiced in a discriminatory manner here.
The second requirement of Malan is that the statutory classification and the different treatment given the classes created therein are based on differences that have a reasonable tendency to further the objectives of the statute. Under the second requirement of Malan, two questions arise. The first concerns whether the classification created by the statute is legitimate. This is not at issue in the present case inasmuch as defendants concede that the legislature could simply mandate direct filing against all juveniles who commit the crimes enumerated therein. By conceding that such a statutory classification is constitutional, defendants have chosen not to challenge the legitimacy of that classification.
The second question concerns whether the different treatment given the classes created by the challenged statute reasonably tends to further the objectives of the statute. One stated purpose of the Juvenile Courts Act is the promotion of “public safety and individual accountability by the imposition of appropriate sanctions on persons who have committed acts in violation of law.” Utah Code Ann. § 78-3a-l(l). A statute that gives proseeu-*1011tors discretion to determine which juvenile offenders should be criminally charged in adult court and which should be petitioned against in juvenile court serves both the end of protecting society and the goal of imposing appropriate sanctions on juvenile offenders. Moreover, the determination of the appropriate charge with its applicable sanctions is the sort of matter that has traditionally been left to the prosecutor’s discretion. Insofar as this statute does just that, it is indistinguishable from any other type of prosecutorial discretion. Thus, the differences in treatment given to classes created by section 78-3a-25 reasonably tend to further the objectives of that section. Accordingly, I would hold that section 78-3a-25 meets Malan’s requirements for constitutionality.
Furthermore, the discretion involved in the matter before us does not raise the concerns of unequal application of the law within a statutory class or capricious or meaningless distinctions between classes that are raised in cases such as Malan. In Malan, this court invalidated an automobile guest statute which established differences in treatment that were unrelated to the purposes of the statute. This court determined that the resulting “crazy quilt” of recovery and barred recovery under that statute rendered the statute incapable of reasonably furthering its statutory objectives. Malan, 693 P.2d at 672.
We have no such “crazy quilt” here; rather, section 78-3a-25 is a well-reasoned effort to give prosecutors the discretion necessary to bring a charge carrying appropriate sanctions against juvenile offenders. This sort of discretion has never been considered vulnerable to facial equal protection challenges. Rather, it has been recognized as an integral component of our scheme of criminal justice. As the United States Supreme Court stated in Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 607, 105 S.Ct. 1524, 1530, 84 L.Ed.2d 547 (1985):
This broad discretion rests largely on the recognition that the decision to prosecute is particularly ill-suited to judicial review. Such factors as the strength of the case, the prosecution’s general deterrence value, the Government’s enforcement priorities, and the case’s relationship to the Government’s overall enforcement plan are not readily susceptible to the kind of analysis the courts are competent to undertake.
In summary, the majority’s argument erroneously assumes that similarly situated people are being treated differently. Under section 78-3a-25, all juvenile offenders who commit the offenses enumerated therein are subject to the same initial nondiscriminatory exercise of prosecutorial discretion as to whether to file criminal charges or a civil juvenile action against a certain offender. Accordingly, the prosecutorial discretion provided for in that statute is not different from all other kinds of prosecutorial discretion.
While the majority correctly concludes that “[o]nee an offender is charged with a particular crime, that offender must be subjected to the same or substantially similar procedures ... as all other offenders so charged,” that is not at issue in this ease. Because section 78-3a-25 specifically pertains to the prosecutor’s charging decision, the equal protection concerns raised by the majority are not violated by this statute.
III. OTHER STATES
Additionally, the majority has chosen, in accepting defendants’ argument and overturning Utah Code Ann. § 78-3a-25, to depart from the accepted wisdom of every other court which has ruled on the issue. In examining their own direct-filing statutes, courts in virtually every other jurisdiction have consistently held that the discretion vested in prosecutors to decide which juveniles to file criminal charges against comports with equal protection principles. See, e.g., United States v. Bland, 472 F.2d 1329 (D.C.Cir.1972); People v. Thorpe, 641 P.2d 935 (Colo.1982); In re Wood, 236 Mont. 118, 768 P.2d 1370 (1989); State ex rel. Coats v. Rakestraw, 610 P.2d 256 (Okla.Crim.App.1980). As this court acknowledged in the lead opinion in State v. Bell, 785 P.2d 390 (Utah 1989):
This jurisdiction has long recognized the vital role of the prosecution and the importance of affording that body the discretion, within permissible limits, to exercise its function. Certainly, we are compelled, as are our sister states, to recognize this discretion as it preserves the constitutional *1012concept of separation of powers. Also, it must be recognized that the prosecutor has at his or her disposal in making such a decision the criteria provided for elsewhere in the statute, the purpose of the Juvenile Courts Act, and the standards governing the duties of his or her office.
Id. at 404 (footnotes omitted). The fact that this discretion has been codified into the statute at issue simply underscores the legislature’s determination that to achieve the multiple and sometimes cross-cutting purposes of the juvenile court system, which concern both rehabilitation of the juvenile offender and the safety of the community, a prosecutor must be granted some degree of freedom to differentiate between juvenile offenders.
Nor is the majority persuasive in its attempt to distinguish Utah’s statutory scheme from that of those states which have upheld direct-filing statutes. The majority initially draws a distinction based on whether the statute in question is a “pure” direct-filing statute or an “impure” direct-filing statute and does not even address pure direct-filing systems in other states, simply stating that they are “noncomparable.” In pure direct-filing statutes, the prosecutorial discretion lies in deciding what charges to file: Certain charges must be tried in an adult criminal action, while other charges must be tried in a juvenile proceeding. See, e.g., OMa.Stat.Ann. tit. 10, §§ 1104.2,1112 (West Supp.1995). In essence, this system is no different from ours. As noted above, under section 78-3a-25, if the prosecutor elects to criminally charge a juvenile offender, that juvenile must be tried in adult court; conversely, if the prosecutor decides to file a civil petition against the juvenile, the matter proceeds to juvenile court.
Furthermore, other states with impure direct-fifing statutes have found such statutes to be constitutional. For example, in People v. Thorpe, 641 P.2d 935 (Colo.1982), the Colorado Supreme Court concluded in circumstances similar to those in the present case that although an “as-applied” challenge could be sustained if there was selective prosecution, a facial constitutional challenge to its direct-filing system fails. Id. at 940. We should conclude that the same is true in our case.
The majority’s attempt to distinguish other states’ similar approaches is also unconvincing. For instance, the majority tries to distinguish Florida’s system on the ground that the Florida statute provides guidelines to help the prosecutor determine whether to file in juvenile or adult court. However, this is not a persuasive distinction because the Florida statute actually only guides the case manager who initially reviews the juvenile’s case and specifically allows the prosecutor the discretion to ignore the case manager’s recommendation. See Fla.Stat. ch. 39.047 (1993). Although the majority correctly points out that under Fla.Stat. ch. 39.059, it is the court that determines whether a juvenile who has been found guilty of a criminal violation in adult court should be subject to “adult sanctions,” that is not at issue here. The present case concerns discretion given at the charging stage, not at the punishment stage. At issue in the case at bar is the discretion to decide whether to file criminal charges in adult court or a civil petition in juvenile court. And in such cases, Florida, like Utah, grants this discretion to its prosecutors without imposing mandatory guidelines for the exercise of that discretion.
The majority states that Utah’s scheme is “arbitrary and unbridled” and results in “un-circumscribed discretion” on the part of the prosecutor. However, among the states that allow direct fifing, the Utah statute is one of the strictest in limiting the number of offenses which qualify for direct filing. The prosecutor is not given unbridled discretion; only certain specifically enumerated types of violations are eligible for direct filing. Accordingly, it is comparable to other states’ systems and should likewise be held constitutional.
Lastly, the majority’s claim that a “parade of horribles” would ensue if prosecutors were allowed the discretion provided by this statute is groundless. There is no evidence supporting the majority’s assertion that section 78-3a-25 would lead to prosecutors’ singling out members of unpopular groups for harsher treatment in the adult system. In fact, the very same argument, that prosecutors could single out certain groups for harsher treatment, could be made in reference to every criminal statute in the state code. In any event, defendants have not challenged *1013the statute on the ground that it is being applied in a discriminatory manner; they only challenge the statute on its face. Since the majority’s concerns go to the application of the statute, not to its facial constitutionality, those concerns are irrelevant to the case at bar.
This is not to say, of course, that the legislature has unfettered power to enact laws relating to prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutorial discretion is always, at the very least, subject to review for abuse. The standards for determining that abuse should be filtered through the judiciary’s reluctance to interfere with prosecutorial decision making. Since no allegations of abuse of prosecutorial discretion have been raised in the present ease, I would hold section 78-3a-25 constitutional under article I, section 24 of the Utah Constitution. Accordingly, I dissent from the majority’s holding to the contrary.
IV. CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, I concur in sections III and IV of the majority opinion and dissent from section II.
HOWE, J., concurs in the concurring and dissenting opinion of RUSSON, J.

. For ease of reference, district and circuit courts will be referred to collectively as adult courts.

. All proceedings before the juvenile court are civil proceedings. See Utah Code Ann. § 78-3a-44(1) (stating that ”[p]roceedings in children’s cases shall be regarded as civil proceedings, with the court exercising equitable powers”).

. Footnote 18 of the majority opinion materially misrepresents the dissent's position on this issue *1009by suggesting that we view this type of prosecuto-rial discretion as a "choice of arena” question. A cursory reading of the dissent reveals that our view is simply that the discretion involved here is part of the general charging decision, not a separate “choice of arena” decision.

. While the majority correctly points out that the analysis in parts II, III, and IV of the lead opinion in Bell was not supported by a majority of the court, nonetheless, the result therein, that section 78-3a-25 passed federal constitutional muster, did carry a majority of the court.

. Although this court has previously stated that article I, section 24 may provide broader protection than the Fourteenth Amendment, this court has never held a statute constitutional under federal equal protection analysis yet unconstitutional under article I, section 24. Moreover, only in cases involving fundamental constitutional rights has the issue of a broader reading of article I, section 24 even arisen. See, e.g., Condemarin v. University Hosp., 775 P.2d 348 (Utah 1989). Neither defendants nor the majority has persuasively established that such fundamental rights are at issue here. Accordingly, it is improper in the case at bar for this court to apply a more stringent equal protection analysis under article I, section 24 than would be applied under the federal constitution.

. It is noted, however, that the right to be treated as a juvenile has never been considered the type of fundamental right which has traditionally triggered a heightened level of scrutiny. Bell, 785 P.2d at 399 (citing Woodard v. Wainwright, 556 F.2d 781, 785 (5th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1088, 98 S.Ct. 1285, 55 L.Ed.2d 794 (1978); State v. Anderson, 108 Idaho 454, 700 P.2d 76, 79 (App.1985)); People v. Mason, 99 Misc.2d 583, 586, 416 N.Y.S.2d 981, 984 (Sup.Ct.1979); People v. Williams, 100 Misc.2d 183, 186, 418 N.Y.S.2d 737, 740 (County Ct.1979); Jahnke v. State, 692 P.2d 911, 928-29 (Wyo.1984); see also State v. Cain, 381 So.2d 1361, 1363 (Fla.1980) (holding that a juvenile offender has no right “to be specially treated as a juvenile delinquent instead of a criminal offender”).