Court Opinion

ID: 9696695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:55:33.290052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:25.631341
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
WILNER, J.
I concur in the Court’s Opinion and judgment but offer these additional thoughts. First, although both the Code and this Court have long spoken of the “jurisdiction” of the juvenile and criminal courts (see, for example, Md.Code, §§ 3-8A-03-3-8A-07 and §§ 3-803 and 3-804 of the Cts. & Jud. Proc. Article (CJP); In re Glenn S., 293 Md. 510, 445 A.2d 1029 (1982); In re Victor B„ 336 Md. 85, 646 A.2d 1012 (1994)), that may, in the present setting, be misleading.
As the Court notes, both the juvenile and criminal courts are now part of the Constitutionally-created Circuit Courts that exist in the State’s 23 counties and Baltimore City. Article IV, § 1 of the State Constitution lists the courts that are the repositories of the judicial power of the State, and it does not mention a Juvenile Court. It is the Circuit Courts that are authorized to “hear and decide all cases at law and in equity other than those which fall within the class of controversies reserved by a particular law for the exclusive jurisdiction of some other forum,” such as the District Court. First Federated Com. Tr. v. Comm’r, 272 Md. 329, 335, 322 A.2d 539, 543 (1974) (Emphasis added). Maryland Rule 16-204 expressly makes the juvenile court part of the family division of the Circuit Courts required to have family divisions. There is no separate Juvenile Court in Maryland.
*586At one time, the juvenile courts in some counties were not part of the Circuit Court, and that did have pure jurisdictional significance, but that is no longer the case. What the Legislature, through a collection of statutes, has effectively done is to designate a part of each Circuit Court as a juvenile court and, with some exceptions, to allocate to that designated part of the Circuit Court the exclusive authority to handle certain kinds of cases involving juveniles. See CJP §§ 3 — 801(i) and 3-8A-01 (i), defining the juvenile court as “the circuit court for a county sitting as the juvenile court.” In considering that allocation of authority, viv a vis the part or division of the Circuit Court that handles criminal matters, we might want to begin speaking of the role and authority of the criminal and juvenile courts in terms of the proper exercise of the jurisdiction committed to the Circuit Court.
That allocation is important and must be honored. It is not just an organizational matter but implements the different procedures and options available in the “juvenile court” — that, in delinquency cases, the proceedings are regarded as civil, rather than criminal, that there is no right of jury trial, that there is a much more therapeutic overlay requiring greater coordination with the departments of health, education, social services, and juvenile services, and that the disposition options are quite different from those available in criminal proceedings. Failure to honor this legislative allocation will ordinarily constitute reversible error, but the allocation is not truly a jurisdictional one, at least in the sense that this Court, in recent times, has come to view the concept of jurisdiction.
My second thought proceeds from the first. In allocating authority between the juvenile and criminal courts, the Legislature has committed to the criminal court the initial authority to deal with juveniles who commit certain more grievous offenses. See CJP § 3-8A-03(d). Unless such a case is transferred to the juvenile court pursuant to what is commonly called a “reverse waiver” (see Criminal Procedure Article (CP) § 4-202), the General Assembly has decided, as a general rule, that a juvenile who has allegedly committed one or more of those offenses should be treated as if he or she were an *587adult and not be afforded the more beneficent procedures and options available in the juvenile court.
The obvious premise of the 2002 law that enacted CP § 4-202.2 was that (1) where a juvenile has been charged with offenses described in CJP § 3-8A-0S(d)(l) or (4) that, subject to any reverse waiver, must be resolved in the criminal court,1 as well as lesser related offenses that, subject to waiver by the juvenile court, would ordinarily be resolvable only by the juvenile court, and (2) pursuant to the mandate of §§ 3-8A-03(d)(1) and (4), those lesser related charges are also submitted to the criminal court, and (3) the § 3-8A-03(d)(l) or (4) offenses have, in some way, been resolved in the juvenile’s favor and the only conviction(s) entered in the criminal court are for one or more of the lesser related offenses, the criminal court should be permitted, in its discretion, to transfer the case to the juvenile court for disposition. Although the lesser related charges have been adjudicated in the criminal court, the criminal court judge may believe that the dispositional options available only in the juvenile court would be more appropriate than those available in the criminal court.
In exercising that discretion to transfer the case for disposition, the criminal court judge must consider the five factors set forth in § 4-202.2(b). For the most part, they are the same factors that the criminal court must consider for an initial reverse waiver under CP § 4-202 and that a juvenile court must consider for waiver to a criminal court under CJP § 3-8A-06(e) and include the amenability of the child to treatment in programs available only through juvenile court disposition. It is implicit that the discretion exercised by the criminal court judge, applying those factors, should not then *588be second-guessed by a juvenile court judge, even if, as here, it is the same individual. If the respondent thereafter commits further delinquent acts, which cause a juvenile court judge to conclude that the respondent is no longer amendable to treatment in the juvenile system, the judge may waive jurisdiction with respect to those offenses and send that case to the criminal court. (In this case, those subsequent charges were filed directly in the criminal court because Smith had turned 18 when they were committed).
Following the approach taken in In re Glenn S., supra, 298 Md. 510, 445 A.2d 1029, the Court seems to put this prohibition against second-guessing the decision of the criminal court judge on jurisdictional grounds — that the juvenile court has no jurisdiction to send the matter back to the criminal court. I prefer to view it as a matter of fairness and proper court administration — that the juvenile not be bounced back and forth like a ping pong ball in the same case. What is at issue is not really fundamental jurisdiction, which is vested in the Circuit Court, but rather its appropriate exercise.
I would hold that, once a criminal court judge, after considering the required statutory factors set forth in CJP § 4— 202.2, rules that the juvenile should have the benefit of the dispositional options available in the juvenile court, that ruling must be respected and not countermanded by a judge exercising the authority of a juvenile court. The statutory authority of the criminal court judge to make that decision, after all, is based on the premise that, had the charges that kept the case out of juvenile court in the first place and that were resolved in the juvenile’s favor not been made, the juvenile court would have been required to deal with disposition in any event, so nothing inappropriate has actually been imposed on the juvenile court.
Finally, and more globally, I suggest that the time may have come for a serious reexamination of whether this dual structure within a single court, beset with exceptions and waivers, continues to serve any useful purpose. The “children in need of assistance” (CINA) cases handled in juvenile court *589can just as easily be dealt with in the family divisions of the Circuit Court without classifying them as “juvenile court” cases. The label, I suggest, adds little of practical value. The family divisions already deal with guardianships, adoptions, and child access cases, and the same health, education, and social services now available to the Circuit Court judges who sit as a juvenile court can be made available to the Circuit Court judges who are assigned to the family divisions, without the label of juvenile court.2
With respect to delinquency cases, some offenses are placed initially in the criminal court and some in the juvenile court, subject to waivers both ways. If the case is in juvenile court, the child is deprived of a right to a jury trial and, most often, the case is tried by a master rather than a judge, even though a finding of delinquency could result in a significant deprivation of liberty.3 The posited advantages of a supposedly separate juvenile court, with these deviations, are that (1) there is a relative, but by no means complete, anonymity associated with juvenile court proceedings, which protects the child from the glare of publicity, (2) the child does not receive a criminal record if found delinquent, and (3) dispositions more appropriate to juvenile offenders are available in juvenile court. I question whether those perceived advantages require *590a separate quasi-jurisdictional organizational structure, however.
Except for the fact that there is no jury in juvenile court and the adjudicator may be a master rather than a judge, the due process protections are essentially the same in both juvenile and criminal proceedings, notwithstanding that delinquency proceedings are regarded as civil rather than criminal. What is the trade-off for denying a child 17 years old the right of jury trial possessed by a child 18 years old? Certainly not anonymity. If the law permits juvenile court proceedings to be closed, or access to them limited, it can permit that degree of confidentiality as well if those cases proceeded in the criminal courts. The name “juvenile court” is not necessary to allow that kind of confidentiality.
The real, or at least perceived, value of juvenile court in delinquency cases that begin and remain, or are transferred, there are the more therapeutic dispositional options. But the law could just as easily provide those options in the criminal court, including the prospect of expungement or reclassification as a civil infraction if the juvenile successfully completes whatever program is ordered by the court. I see no reason why the criminal courts could not interface with the social service and juvenile service agencies as the juvenile courts do. We now offer special training to judges in the family divisions; similar training could be offered to judges in criminal court who would handle cases involving young offenders.
The concept of the juvenile court as a beneficent alternative to the traditional approach to the treatment of children who commit criminal offenses came about in the 1890s. It was a progressive idea then. But that was a different era. A huge part of our social structure has undergone significant change since then. The stability and even the nature and structure of families are different. The whole social dynamic facing children is different, beginning almost from birth and extending through adolescence.
We have, at least tacitly, acknowledged those facts by tinkering over the years with the role and the process of the *591juvenile court — by removing whole categories of offenses from its initial reach, subject to waivers back or forth, by imposing most of the due process available in criminal court into its proceedings and thus significantly circumscribing the broad discretion of what once was termed the benevolent Star Chamber, and, in Baltimore City and most of the metropolitan counties, by committing a large role to masters rather than judges. Yet we hold firm to the 19th Century structure, with its quasi-jurisdictional but amorphous circumference, which may well be outdated. It may be time to step back and take another look, to focus more substantively on the role that the courts, in collaboration with other agencies, should play (and have the resources to play) in these cases rather than on an antique legislatively-created label, or pigeonhole, that may serve to limit useful flexibility.

. CJP § 3-8A-03(d)(l) excludes from the juvenile court a child 14 years old or older who is alleged to have committed an act which, if committed by an adult, would be a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment and all other charges arising out of the same incident. Section 3-8A-03 (d)(4) excludes a child 16 years old or older who is alleged to have committed any of 17 offenses listed in that subsection, which are sex offenses or offenses involving other forms of violence or weapons, and all other charges arising out of the same incident.

. At one time, a significant part of the juvenile court caseload were "children in need of supervision” — children who may have committed some minor offenses but whose real problem was that they were out of effective control by their parents. They were disobedient, they were often truant from school, they stayed out late, they were beginning to get into trouble. See CJP § 3-8A-01(e). That category of child— somewhat midway between the CIÑA and the delinquent — is now a backwater of juvenile court cases. It may be time to look more closely at it and perhaps expand it somewhat, as it could provide a better focus for services and help. I expect that the family divisions of the Circuit Courts can deal with those children at least as well as the juvenile courts once did.

. It is true that, following a finding of delinquency by a master, the law permits a juvenile to have a de novo trial before a judge upon exceptions filed within a rather limited period of time. We do not permit that kind of procedure in criminal court, even in relatively minor misdemeanor cases.