Court Opinion

ID: 9711151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:25:18.893963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:02.542448
License: Public Domain

PRICE, Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent on two grounds. First, I do not believe that the common law presumptions affecting the capacity of children to commit crime apply to a juvenile proceeding to determine delinquency. Second, even assuming the common law rules apply, based on this record, there was sufficient evidence to rebut that presumption in the case of this nine year old appellant.
My first ground is, I believe, a matter of first impression in Pennsylvania. There is little doubt that the law is that a child under the age of seven is conclusively presumed to lack the capacity to commit a crime, that a child between ages seven and fourteen is entitled to a rebuttable presumption of incapacity and when the age of fourteen is reached any special immunity or presumption of incapacity ceases. But these presumptions, in the criminal law of Pennsylvania, have been applied where the child under discussion is being measured against adult standards. See Commonwealth v. Green, 396 Pa. 137, 151 A.2d 241 (1959); Commonwealth v. Zietz, 364 Pa. 294, 72 A.2d 282 (1950). That application I can accept. However, to make the application in juvenile proceedings is, to me, contrary to the whole concept of the creation of juvenile courts, which were created throughout the country in an attempt to depart from the traditional treatment of children as ordinary criminal defendants. Indeed, the use of presumptions concerning a child’s capacity to commit crime was earlier born of the same effort. The majority would give appellant the benefit of both these efforts. I would not. Our present treatment of juveniles was developed as a more viable means to afford children even broader protection from the criminal process than that afforded by the common law rules of evidence in a criminal proceeding. I read nothing in In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 87 *544S.Ct. 1428, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967), that compels a contrary conclusion.
As to my second ground for dissent, the record is short. It speaks for itself.
“MR. ROSEN: (appellant’s attorney) Your Honor, I will agree to stipulate to the complainant’s testimony as contained in the 49.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. COLIHAN: (Commonwealth’s attorney) If I may, your Honor, the complainant is 12-year-old Delores Davis, and she lives at 5030 Cedar Avenue in Philadelphia, and she was interviewed by an assigned Detective Upchurch on the 30th of April at 10:30 P.M. inside Misc.icordia Hospital.
She stated — and I’ll read this verbatim from the 49— that she had gone around to visit a friend who was visiting at Regina’s house, stated she was walking towards the house and Regina and a friend was Outside the house playing, stated when she and Gwen, . . . the visiting friend, . . . walked by Regina, . . . Regina, kicked dirt on her, stated she told Regina, ‘You could say excuse me,’ but Regina said nothing. Then Regina came over and hit her. She hit Regina back, and a fight started, stated Regina went into the house and came out with a bottle at first, and her cousin again, who was vis[i]ting at Regina’s house, took the bottle and put it aside on the ground, stated then Regina ran into the house, check that, back in the house, and said she was going to get her mother. Instead she came out with this knife. Regina came over to her and said — quoting ahead — and hit me now, ‘And I’m going to stab you with this knife,’ stated she started towards Regina to try to take the knife from her, but she kicked her and Regina fell down. ‘Regina got up, and we started fighting again. She still had the knife in her hand,’ stated Regina had stabbed her in the left arm but she didn’t feel that. ‘The fight continued until we got out in the middle of the street. Then Regina reached around me when I got bent *545over and stabbed me in the back. I tried to get up, but I got dizzy. So I just laid there until the police came. Some lady who had been watching the fight called the police,’ and that’s the end of the statement that appears in the 49.
We would rest on that statement.
MR. ROSEN: Your Honor, the defense rests and asks for a directed verdict of not guilty.”
To my view, even applying the majority’s standards, that brief, concise, agreed upon statement is clearly sufficient to rebut any presumption of incapacity.
I would affirm the adjudication of delinquency.
VAN der VOORT, J., joins in this opinion.