Court Opinion

ID: 9684295
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:52:45.587969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:54.425352
License: Public Domain

FINCH, Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the principal opinion.
The cases relied on by the State, of which Penn v. Peyton, 270 F.Supp. 981 (W.D.Va.1967), is typical, involved instances in which a juvenile willfully misrepresented his age from the time of arrest through his trial and conviction as an adult after which he sought relief on the basis that he was a juvenile and subject to the juvenile code. I have no trouble with those cases. Any different treatment of willful misrepresentation of his age until after trial and conviction would permit an unacceptable abuse of process.
The foregoing cases are not applicable to the situation with which we deal. Not only did the officers learn the correct age of the appellant that very afternoon but, in addition, there is nothing to show that appellant willfully misrepresented his age to the officers. Many of us have observed instances of people who have no purpose to mislead being temporarily confused as to the year of their birth and their exact age. This appellant could have made an honest mistake in stating the date of his birth to the officers. Under such circumstances, I am unable and unwilling to conclude that appellant did something which would result in the admission of his oral statement to the officers in contravention of the rule previously announced by this court in State v. Arbeiter, 408 S.W.2d 26 (Mo.1966).
Furthermore, what occurred during that short period on the afternoon appellant was arrested need not have hampered or seriously delayed investigation of the offense by the officers. As soon as the officers learned appellant’s correct age, they promptly and properly had him conveyed to the juvenile center, presumably because they knew that the juvenile code as interpreted in Arbeiter so required. Presumably, the officers also knew or at least they should have known that under Arbeiter they were not permitted to interrogate a juvenile before delivering him to the juvenile authorities. Accordingly, they should have known or had reason to suspect that the oral statement they had just taken from the juvenile was not likely to be admissible in evidence. With that knowledge they could have sought leave from the juvenile authorities to interrogate appellant under proper circumstances as was done in State v. Wright, 515 S.W.2d 421 (Mo. banc 1974). Such procedure would have avoided any serious delay or handicap as a result of the mixup in age and would have permitted the officers to pursue and complete their investigation promptly.
I agree with Judge Henley that the courts are confronted with a difficult problem caused by insufficient facilities and personnel to provide the special treatment and rehabilitation contemplated by the juvenile code. An additional factor increasing the problem of the courts arises from the necessity of trying to handle juveniles on the basis of a parens patriae relationship while at the same time granting to the juveniles the adversary rights to which they have been held to be entitled. Obviously, it is difficult to be an adversary (such as exists in a criminal proceeding) and at the same time maintain the relationship of a parent. However, such changes as are to *731be made, whether in the relationship or in personnel and facilities for handling juveniles, must come by legislative action, not by a change in judicial interpretation of the existing statute. Accordingly, I concur.