Court Opinion

ID: 9585753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:03:36.005605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:04.539120
License: Public Domain

LANKFORD, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the opinion that the juvenile court lacks the authority to require DNA testing as a condition of probation.
The majority’s reasoning is straightforward enough. Noting that the Arizona Legislature has required DNA testing of adults and HIV testing of juveniles, the majority argues that the legislature could not have intended to allow DNA testing of juveniles because the legislature did not expressly authorize it.
The principal difficulty with the majority’s argument is this: The fact that the legislature has not required testing does not mean that testing is prohibited. It is one thing to require a test; it is another to forbid the test. The legislature has not forbidden DNA testing of juveniles. On the contrary, the legislature has accorded the superior court broad powers regarding the disposition and treatment of juveniles.
Both of the testing statutes cited by the majority involve legislative mandates. A.R.S. Section 13-4438 states that the agency “shall secure a blood sample” for DNA testing. (Emphasis added). A.R.S. section 31-291 states that the convicted person “shall submit” to a DNA test. (Emphasis added).
We are not concerned here with whether the juvenile court must order a DNA test, but instead with whether it may do so. The answer to the latter question is not found in *179the statutes discussed by the majority. As the majority itself points out, AR.S. sections 13-4438 and 31-281 apply only to adults convicted of a crime, not to juveniles adjudicated to be delinquent.
The superior court’s authority to order testing of juveniles is instead found in the statute governing disposition of juveniles. In that statute, the legislature gave the court broad authority to impose conditions of juvenile probation. A.R.S. section 8-241(A)(2)(b) provides: “[T]he court may enter judgment as follows: ... 2. It may award a delinquent child: ... (b) to a probation department, subject to such conditions as the court may impose.”
The juvenile court thus “may” impose conditions of probation. Contrary to the majority’s assertion, the juvenile court need not “expand the criminal code” to do so. When acting in juvenile matters, the court’s authority comes not from the criminal code but from the statutes governing juvenile proceedings. The statute allowing the court to make dispositions (including probation with conditions) of juvenile matters is ample authority.
Indeed it is settled that the juvenile court has very broad discretion to impose conditions of probation. The court’s disposition of juveniles is reviewed only for abuse of discretion. In the Matter of Appeal in Maricopa County Juvenile Action No. JV-128676, 177 Ariz. 352, 353, 868 P.2d 365, 366 (App.1994). Specifically, “[a] condition of probation which does not violate basic fundamental rights and bears a relationship to the purpose of probation will not be disturbed on appeal.” In the Matter of Appeal in Pima County Juvenile Action No. J-20705-3, 133 Ariz. 296, 298, 650 P.2d 1278, 1280 (App.1982).
When ordered as a condition of probation, DNA testing is within the juvenile court’s broad authority to impose conditions of probation. Although the juveniles argue that their constitutional right to privacy is violated by these court orders, the majority does not rest its holding on a constitutional violation. I therefore do not address this issue.1 The testing also bears a reasonable relationship to the purpose of probation. It is settled that “[t]he court may ... order certain conditions of probation to control the behavior of the child.” Matter of Pima County, 133 Ariz. at 297, 650 P.2d at 1279. Each of these juveniles has been adjudged to have sexually molested a child. Obtaining the juvenile’s DNA “fingerprint” is an obvious attempt to deter future sex crimes. The DNA testing order thus bears a relationship to the purpose of probation, which is in part to prevent recurrences of these offenses.
Indeed, it would be incongruous for the court to lack this authority. The juvenile court’s jurisdiction over juveniles who commit crimes arises when the court exercises its “discretion [to] suspend criminal prosecution of children.” Ariz. Const, art. 6, § 15. “Thus, it is the suspension of ‘criminal prosecution,’ that is, prosecution of juveniles as if they were adults, which is left to the discretion of the superior court judge sitting as a juvenile judge.” In the Matter of Appeal in Maricopa County, Juvenile Action No. JV-122733, 172 Ariz. 542, 544, 838 P.2d 1303, 1305 (App.1992); accord, State v. Superior Court (J.C.S.), 180 Ariz. 384, 884 P.2d 270 (App.1994).
Thus, the superior court has the power to treat a juvenile as an adult and subject the juvenile to criminal penalties, including mandatory DNA testing. If the juvenile court has this greater, more drastic power to subject the juvenile to the full range of criminal penalties, then surely it has the lesser power to order DNA testing as part of its broad discretion to impose conditions of probation.
The majority states that the juvenile court ordered that “the juvenile provide a blood sample to the Arizona DNA Identification System.” (Slip Opinion at 2).2 It then ar*180gues that the court was powerless to do so because juveniles are not statutorily included in the Arizona DNA Identification System.
The first difficulty with this argument is that only one of the three orders in these appeals indicated that the sample would be sent to the Arizona DNA Identification System. That order also directed that the test report be kept “confidential” there. One of the other two orders merely directed that the sample be obtained, and the third directed that a sample be acquired “for the juvenile file only.”
An even greater problem with the majority’s argument is that it addresses the wrong issue. The issue here is the court’s power to order that the sample be taken, not where the sample should be kept once it is obtained. The Arizona DNA Identification System is merely the repository for the sample acquired pursuant to the DNA testing order. At most, the majority shows that the sample cannot be kept in this system, not that the court cannot order the sample taken. Under its analysis, the juvenile court could order that the sample be taken and keep the information in the court’s own files.
The final difficulty with the majority’s argument is that I find no lack of authority for the court to direct that the information be kept in a particular place. Having exercised its authority under the juvenile disposition statute to order the sample, the court must arrange for the information to be kept somewhere. Even if the court had ordered that the Arizona DNA Information System be the repository, it would have simply utilized an already available data bank to store the DNA information. I fail to see how placing the sample in a particularly well-suited repository somehow destroys the court’s authority to order the sample in the first place.
The court’s exercise of its power to order DNA testing also does not conflict with any legislative policy. The apparent purpose of DNA testing of adults is to prevent and solve future crime. Testing of juveniles furthers the same purpose, thereby supporting probation as an alternative to incarceration of the juvenile. By strengthening the viability of probation, DNA testing furthers the evident purpose of AR.S. section 8—241(A)(2): affording the juvenile court a wide range of disposition options.
The juvenile court has statutory authority under section 8-241(A)(2)(b) to impose conditions of probation. The court needs no other specific legislative authority to order DNA testing as a condition of probation. The legislature has not indicated in any way that the court cannot impose that condition. Accordingly, I must respectfully dissent from the majority opinion to the contrary.

. Nor does the majority decide another issue: Do the orders exceed the jurisdiction of the juvenile court by contemplating that the DNA test results will be maintained or used after the juveniles’ eighteenth birthdays? While I am concerned that the DNA information be appropriately safeguarded, these matters are not decisive to the majority because, in its view, the courts lack the power to obtain the information in the first instance.

. Actually, it appears that only information about the DNA sample, and not body tissue or fluids, *180would be retained. For the sake of simplicity. however, I refer to the DNA "sample.”