Court Opinion

ID: 9749611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:53:42.864768+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:53.728870
License: Public Domain

OLSZEWSKI, Judge,
concurring:
I am in complete agreement with the majority’s treatment regarding the effect of the juveniles’ “discharge” on this appeal. I would address, however, the alternate basis offered by the trial court. This issue was briefed and argued by the parties before this court on appeal; therefore, the time has come to resolve this issue. Accordingly, I write separately to address the substantive issue as to whether the common law rule of a rebuttable presumption that children under the age of fourteen lack capacity to be criminally responsible has been superceded by the Juvenile Act.
Statutes are not presumed to change the common law unless expressly declared in their provisions, Commonwealth v. Miller, 469 Pa. 24, 364 A.2d 886 (1976); however, where the Legislature expressly provides a comprehensive definitional scheme, these provisions supercede the prior common law principles. Under the Juvenile Act of 1976 (as amended in 1977), the Legislature has expressly included specific ages and categories that replace the common law *126presumption concerning the capacity of a child to commit a criminal act. 42 Pa.C.S.A. §§ 6301-6302. The plain language of § 6302 provides that a “delinquent child” is “[a] child ten years of age or older whom the court has found to commit a delinquent act ...,” and a “dependent child” is “[a] child who ... is under the age of ten years and has committed a delinquent act.” 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6302.1
Moreover, the common law presumptions are inapplicable to juvenile proceedings which were created in order to protect children from the harsh punishments of the adult criminal system. See Commonwealth v. Durham, supra, (Price, J., dissenting). In my view, the Juvenile Act accomplishes the goal of removing the consequences of criminal behavior from those children who have committed delinquent acts and instead substitutes a program of supervision, care and rehabilitation. See 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6301(b)(2).

. The rule stated in Commonwealth v. Durham, 255 Pa.Super. 539, 389 A.2d 108 (1978), that “[t]he common law presumption of incapacity, in the case of a child between the ages of seven and fourteen, is still very much alive in this jurisdiction,” is not controlling here since it was based on the old Juvenile Court Law, 11 P.S. §§ 50-101 to 50-332 and has been statutorily preempted by 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6301.