In Re R.E.

387 P.3d 1288, 241 Ariz. 359
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedJanuary 6, 2017
Docket2 CA-JV 2016-0104
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 387 P.3d 1288 (In Re R.E.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re R.E., 387 P.3d 1288, 241 Ariz. 359 (Ark. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

OPINION

VÁSQUEZ, Presiding Judge:

¶ 1 R.E. appeals from juvenile court orders adjudicating him delinquent for criminal damage and placing him on juvenile intensive probation (JIPS). R.E. argues the evidence was insufficient to prove he acted with the mental state of recklessness required to find him culpable for criminal damage. For the following reasons, we affirm the court’s delinquency adjudication, but we vacate the disposition and remand the case for a new disposition hearing.

Factual and Procedural Background

¶ 2 In March 2015, the Maricopa County Attorney filed a delinquency petition alleging R.E., then eleven years old, had “recklessly defaced or damaged vehicles” belonging to others in September 2014, in violation of Arizona’s criminal-damage statute. The instant case was assigned Maricopa County Cause No. JV598741, and, after an adjudication hearing held in February 2016, the juvenile court found R.E. delinquent as charged. On April 7, 2016, the court transferred the matter to Pinal County for disposition.

¶ 3 While this case was pending in Marico-pa County, R.E. was the subject of additional delinquency petitions in Pinal County, assigned Pinal County Cause No. S1100JV201400051. In that case, on April 12, 2016, R.E. admitted allegations that he had committed burglary on November 12, 2015, and misdemeanor theft on June 28, 2015. At the admissions hearing, the Pinal County Juvenile Court advised R.E. that he had been classified as a first-time felony juvenile offender as a result of the instant ease and would be classified as a repeat felony juvenile offender as a result of his admissions in the Pinal County matter.

¶ 4 In considering the two matters consolidated for disposition, the juvenile court placed R.E. on JIPS, stating that standard probation was “not an option.” The court told R.E., who was thirteen at the time, that it had “no discretion in that regard,” because imposition of JIPS was “mandatory” when a juvenile had multiple felony adjudications.

The Delinquency Adjudication

¶ 5 We view the evidence at the adjudication hearing in the light most favorable to sustaining the juvenile court’s adjudication order. In re David H., 192 Ariz. 459, ¶ 3, 967 P.2d 134, 135 (App. 1998). So viewed, the record established that a group of children were walking to school through an alley when R.E. and two other boys began picking up “really big rocks” and throwing them over a wall into the parking lot of an apartment complex, A woman who lived nearby heard “crashing noises,” saw the rocks being thrown, and went outside, where she found *361 rocks next to her neighbors’ damaged vehicles.

¶ 6 When a Mesa police officer later asked R.E. what had happened, he said he and two other boys were throwing rocks and trying to hit two cars in the parking lot. R.E. told the officer that D., who was described as eight or nine years old at the time, was “actually aiming for the red car but missed the red ear and was hitting the white car.” R.E. did not think any of the rocks he had thrown had hit the vehicles, except for one rock that “might have hit the tire of the white vehicle.”

¶ 7 At the close of the evidence, R.E. argued that “[tjhree young boys throwing rocks” over a wall “does not amount to reckless behavior.” The juvenile court found R.E. delinquent “either directly or as an accomplice,” noting that, “by [his] own admission,” R.E. was not just throwing rocks over a wall; instead, he and D. were knowingly “throwing rocks at cars.”

¶8 In reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we consider whether it “sufficed to permit a rational trier of fact to find the essential elements of [each] offense beyond a reasonable doubt.” In re Dayvid S., 199 Ariz. 169, ¶ 4, 16 P.3d 771, 772 (App. 2000). “[W]e will not re-weigh the evidence, and we will only reverse on the grounds of insufficient evidence if there is a complete absence of probative facts to support the judgment or if the judgment is contrary to any substantial evidence.” In re John M., 201 Ariz. 424, ¶ 7, 36 P.3d 772, 774 (App. 2001).

¶ 9 To establish R.E. acted recklessly, the state was required to show (1) he was “aware of and consciously disregard[ed] a substantial and unjustifiable risk” that the vehicles in the parking lot would be damaged by his conduct and (2) that risk was “of such nature and degree” that his disregard of it “eonsti-tute[d] a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.” A.R.S § 13-105(10)(c). Relying on In re William G., R.E. maintains the juvenile court was required to consider whether his conduct was a gross deviation from the conduct of reasonable “juveniles of like age, intelligence and maturity.” 192 Ariz. 208, 214, 963 P.2d 287, 293 (App. 1997). He argues, “An eleven year old throwing a rock over a six foot fence on his way to school is not a gross deviation of a standard of conduct for an eleven year old.” And, to the extent R.E.’s delinquency adjudication was premised on accomplice liability for D.’s conduct, he argues the state failed to show D.’s conduct was a gross deviation from that expected of a reasonable eight- or nine-year old.

¶ 10 We find William G. inapposite. In that case, a fifteen-year old had been “riding” shopping carts in a parking lot and was “shocked” when he “accidentally]” collided with and damaged a parked car. Id. at 210-11, 963 P.2d at 289-90. The court distinguished between civil negligence and recklessness, stating the “deviation from acceptable behavior required for recklessness must be markedly greater than the mere inadvertence or heedlessness sufficient for civil negligence.” Id. at 216, 963 P.2d at 294. Moreover, “recklessness requires that the person actually be ‘aware’ of the risk being created by his conduct,” a risk that was “minimized” in that case by William’s “proficiency” in riding the carts. Id. at 213-14, 963 P.2d at 292-93.

¶ 11 In contrast, the evidence here supports the juvenile court’s determination that R.E. was well aware of the risk of hitting the cars in the parking lot with the rocks he threw over the wall; he admitted to the police officer that he and D. had been trying to hit them. This was not a matter of the “inadvertence or heedlessness” at issue in William G., 192 Ariz. at 216, 963 P.2d at 294, and the juvenile court reasonably could find throwing large rocks at specific, targeted vehicles was a gross deviation from the conduct of a reasonable child at age eleven, or at age eight or nine.

Imposition of JIPS

¶ 12 In the course of our appellate review, we determined the juvenile court’s imposition of JIPS could constitute fundamental error, and we asked the parties for supplemental briefing on that issue. See State v. Mann, 188 Ariz. 220, 232 n.1, 934 P.2d 784, 796 n.1 (1997) (Martone, J., concurring) (ap *362

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Bluebook (online)
387 P.3d 1288, 241 Ariz. 359, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-re-arizctapp-2017.