Court Opinion

ID: 9848056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:12:06.294533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:57.895250
License: Public Domain

Pope, Judge,
concurring specially.
I agree with the result reached by the majority finding exclusive jurisdiction to be in the juvenile court when a sixteen-year-old driver is charged with the traffic offense of speeding. It may seem paradoxical to license a sixteen-year-old child as an adult to drive an automo*402bile upon the state’s roads, then to try him as a child when he commits a traffic offense in the operation of the vehicle. However, the underlying rationale for juvenile court jurisdiction over the sixteen-year-old traffic offender, of course, is the wider latitude for rehabilitational dispositions provided within the juvenile justice system. Moreover, my analysis of the pertinent statutes supports our holding that the sixteen-year-old traffic offender is properly tried in the juvenile court. The juvenile court has exclusive original jurisdiction over a sixteen-year-old child (OCGA §§ 15-11-2 (2) (A) and 15-11-5 (a) (1) (A)) who is alleged to have committed the delinquent act (OCGA § 15-11-2 (6) (A)) of speeding, an act designated a crime in OCGA § 40-6-181 (b) (2). See 1985 Op. Att’y Gen. No. U85-18.
Decided September 23, 1986.
William Morgan Akin, Warren Akin, for appellant.
Daniel T. Stringer, Solicitor, for appellee.
I write separately only to make it clear that the juvenile court has exclusive jurisdiction over the sixteen-year-old driver for all violations of this state’s traffic laws, specifically those set forth by statute in OCGA § 40-6-1 et seq., the Uniform Rules of the Road. This includes those designated as “Serious Traffic Offenses” in Title 40, Chapter 6, Article 15, including but not limited to reckless driving, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and homicide by vehicle. See OCGA §§ 40-6-390 through 40-6-395. Further, not only infractions regarding the operation of automobiles and trucks are covered, but also those involving bicycles, motorcycles, motorized carts and mopeds. See §§ 40-6-290 through 40-6-354. In short, the juvenile court has jurisdiction over the sixteen-year-old driver who is charged with any traffic offense enumerated within the Uniform Rules of the Road, OCGA § 40-6-1 et seq.