Court Opinion

ID: 9718241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:19:27.180517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:58.117225
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I vigorously and emphatically dissent. The trial judge herein was eminently correct in his interpretation and application of the Juvenile Act, 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 6301-6365, and made a courageous decision that, no doubt, flies in the face of the view taken of the issue by many citizens of this Commonwealth. Whether or not we personally find it “shocking” to try a nine year old child on a charge of murder in criminal court, this Court does not have the authority to rewrite a statute duly enacted by the Legislature.
Mr. Justice Flaherty, in his concurring opinion, states that it is not the public policy of this Commonwealth to criminally prosecute nine year old children for murder. This is simply not true. Murder is a heinous crime, and the Legislature is unquestionably cognizant of this fact. All crimes and all criminals were tried in “adult” criminal courts prior to the enactment of legislation early in this century requiring the special treatment of juveniles in our courts. There were no juvenile courts until the Legislature created juvenile courts. When the Legislature did so, it explicitly excluded murder from the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts but gave juveniles charged with murder the opportunity to transfer their cases from criminal court to juvenile court if certain prescribed conditions were met. Children were always subject to the jurisdiction of the criminal courts of this *318Commonwealth if they committed murder; in this respect, the law has not changed.
This nine year old defendant is not an innocent victim of the tragic instances of accidental shootings occurring in homes where firearms are handled carelessly. He had been repeatedly instructed in the safe handling of firearms, he had shot a rifle while at a gun club to which his parents belonged, and he had gone hunting with his father. The as yet uncontested evidence presented at the hearings on his petition for transfer show that the petitioner, Cameron R. Kocher, in an ill temper, took a key from where it was hidden in the base of a lamp, unlocked a gun cabinet, loaded the proper ammunition into a .35 caliber rifle equipped with a scope, unlocked a bedroom window, removed a screen from the window, and aimed the rifle at a seven year old girl, the daughter of two loving parents, as she played, blissfully unaware of the fate about to befall her, with other children in the snow. The rifle, which was in excellent working condition, had a heavy trigger pull and could not accidently discharge under normal circumstances.
The victim, whom the majority seems to forget ever existed, was killed by a bullet deliberately aimed and shot through her back, as she was riding as a passenger on a snowmobile. The bullet pierced her spine and right lung; she collapsed instantly, like a game animal shot by a skilled and experienced hunter, and died on the operating table a short time thereafter. The petitioner carefully returned the rifle to the gun cabinet and hid the empty shell casing. When he returned to his neighbor’s residence where the victim had been taken after the shooting, he exhibited no emotion on viewing her moribund body and proceeded to play Nintendo as if nothing were amiss. Further, the petitioner, who had received a gash in his forehead when the gun recoiled and the scope struck him, lied about the cause of the gash to his neighbors, his parents and the police. We are not dealing with a guileless boy here and a victimless crime. We do know for certain that an innocent *319life has been snuffed out with a bullet in the back, delivered by careful aim and followed by a well thought-out cover-up.
The trial court meticulously reviewed and discussed the evidence in light of every statutory factor and found that petitioner had proven few factors in favor of granting the transfer request. The petitioner’s lack of previous misconduct and his age at the time of the offense were the only factors viewed in petitioner’s favor. Significantly, age is only one statutory factor that the Legislature permits the courts to consider under section 6322(a) of the Juvenile Act.
Only after the trial court had considered all of the statutory factors, did the trial court consider petitioner’s argument that he was suffering from an anxiety disorder that was amenable to treatment as a juvenile. It was solely in response to this assertion that the trial court discussed the meaning and interpretation of the “amenable to treatment” language of section 6355(a)(4)(iii)(A), and concluded that the Legislature could not have intended for defects or disorders arising after the commission of the offense to justify a transfer request. The majority herein errs in reading the trial court’s opinion as setting forth an absolute criterion for transfer that overrides every other statutory factor, and, indeed, the majority is plain wrong when it implies that the trial court ignored the statutory factors.
Accordingly, I dissent and would affirm the decision of the Court of Common Pleas of Monroe County. Questions about the petitioner’s competency to stand trial, capacity to form criminal intent, and possible dispositions in the event of a guilty verdict are all properly matters within the jurisdiction of the criminal court where the Legislature has, in its wisdom, bestowed jurisdiction.