Court Opinion

ID: 9846093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:34:32.362648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:33.256470
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
dissenting. The juvenile court is one established by the State as parens patriae of all children for their protection, not to punish adults. The juvenile court was completely without jurisdiction of this "adult” at the time charges were instigated against him and at his trial. Being without jurisdiction its action *188was a complete nullity and should be dismissed as such. The Juvenile Court Law (Ga. L. 1951, p. 291; 1957, p. 617; 1968, p. 1013) being in derogation of the common law must be strictly construed. On September 17, 1969, five days before this minor reached his 17th birthday on September 22, 1969 (born September 22, 1952), he allegedly committed a criminal offense. The police turned him over to juvenile authorities who released him to the custody of his parents. No formal charges were instigated against him and the juvenile court lost its original jurisdiction over him under Section 9 of the law, supra, when he reached 17 years of age. Thereafter formal charges were instigated against him in the juvenile court on January 22, 1970, some four months after his 17th birthday, upon which this trial is based. The proper procedure under the law should have been for the complainant to have filed criminal charges against him in the proper court where he could have been turned over to the juvenile court (the offense occurring five days before his 17th birthday — see Georgia Laws 1968, pp. 1013, 1021, Section 10) or the "adult”, age 17 years, could have elected to be tried as an adult. In such a case he would have been entitled to a jury trial. The above law, in Section 10, unequivocally grants him this right which was denied to him. The mere fact that a child, under 17 years, is said to have committed a criminal offense, does not give the juvenile court jurisdiction over him under Section 9 of Georgia Laws 1968, supra, from the date of the offense until his 21st birthday, to later try him thereon any time during that four-year period, but charges must be instigated against him before he reaches his 17th birthday. No charges were instigated against the appellant until he became an "adult” under this law, and these charges were filed in the wrong court.
I would reverse the judgment and direct that the juvenile charges against him be dismissed as a nullity.