In re the Appeal in Maricopa County Juvenile Action No. JV-512016

923 P.2d 880, 186 Ariz. 414, 225 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 52, 1996 Ariz. App. LEXIS 202
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedSeptember 17, 1996
DocketNo. 1 CA-JV 96-0036
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 923 P.2d 880 (In re the Appeal in Maricopa County Juvenile Action No. JV-512016) 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 the Appeal in Maricopa County Juvenile Action No. JV-512016, 923 P.2d 880, 186 Ariz. 414, 225 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 52, 1996 Ariz. App. LEXIS 202 (Ark. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinion

OPINION

FIDEL, Presiding Judge.

In this opinion, we hold that the juvenile court neither violated the ex post facto clauses of the federal or state constitutions nor abused its statutory discretion when it committed a juvenile to a locked facility of the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (“ADJC”) for a term that exceeded the term recommended in the ADJC Guidelines and Classification Matrix.

I. BACKGROUND

On August 9, 1995, the State filed a delinquency petition alleging that the juvenile committed child molestation. Pursuant to a plea agreement, the juvenile admitted that he had attempted to molest his younger sister. As a term of probation, the juvenile was required to reside at a residential treatment center. Shortly thereafter, the juvenile was charged with violating the terms of probation by running away from the treatment center (Count I) and failing to attend school (Count II). Pursuant to a second plea agreement, the juvenile admitted to Count II, and the State dismissed Count I.

If the juvenile court had disposed of the juvenile’s offense by application of the ADJC Guidelines and Classification Matrix, the court would have selected a term of nine to twelve months in secure care. The juvenile probation officer, however, recommended a term of eighteen to twenty-four months as more appropriate to the juvenile’s case; and the juvenile court ordered the juvenile, then sixteen years and one week old, to serve “24 months or until his 18th birthday, in a locked facility, secured by the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections.”

On appeal, the juvenile asserts three errors: (1) that by exercising prescriptive power over the juvenile’s minimum length of stay, the juvenile court unlawfully gave retroactive application to section 8-241(1) of the Arizona Revised Statutes Annotated (“A.R.S.”); (2) that the court abused its dis[416]*416cretion by committing the juvenile for a longer period of secure care than provided for by the ADJC Classification Matrix; and (3) that the court improperly based its disposition upon facts outside the factual basis for the plea agreement.

II. RETROACTIVE APPLICATION OF A.R.S. § 8-241(1)

We first consider whether, in exercising prescriptive power over the term of the juvenile’s commitment, the juvenile court gave unlawful retroactive application to A.R.S. § 8-241(1) (Supp.1995). The Arizona and United States Constitutions prohibit the enactment or application of ex post facto laws. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 9; Ariz. Const. art. II, § 25. Section 1-246 (1995) codifies this proscription in matters of criminal punishment:

[Wjhen the penalty for an offense is prescribed by one law and altered by a subsequent law, the penalty of such second law shall not be inflicted for a breach of the law committed before the second took effect, but the offender shall be punished under the law in force when the offense was committed.

The statute at issue in this case, A.R.S. § 8-241(1), provides:

From and after September 30, 1995, after considering the length of stay guidelines developed pursuant to § 41-2816, subsection C, the court may set forth in the order of commitment the minimum period during which the child shall remain in secure care while in the custody of the department of juvenile corrections____ From and after September 30, 1995[,] ... the department shall not release a child from secure care before the child completes the length of stay determined by the court in the commitment order unless the committing court orders otherwise.

This statute allows, but does not require, the juvenile court to impose a minimum period in a locked facility, and the final clause allows the juvenile court to review and amend the commitment order.

The juvenile committed his delinquent act in December 1994. Subsection 8-241(1) did not take effect until September 30, 1995. The juvenile court committed the juvenile to ADJC at a dispositional hearing on January 4,1996. The juvenile contends that the juvenile court was precluded under the statute and under the ex post facto clauses of the federal and state constitutions from imposing a minimum period of commitment for a delinquent act that preceded the statute’s effective date.

We first determine that, in exercising the dispositional powers of A.R.S. § 8-241, the juvenile court did not violate that statute’s effective date. We interpret the statute as extending the juvenile court’s prescriptive power over the term of confinement in dispositions after September 30, 1995. As this disposition took place in January 1996, the court was statutorily entitled to draw upon section 8-241. The question remains, however, whether the court unconstitutionally applied the statute by applying it to an offense that took place before its effective date.

The State argues that we should not focus our ex post facto analysis upon the date of the juvenile’s delinquent conduct, but rather upon the date of the conduct for which his probation was revoked. Although the juvenile’s delinquent conduct occurred before September 30, 1995, his probation was revoked in response to conduct between October 12 and 17 of 1995. Accordingly, the State contends, because the juvenile court was responding at the time of disposition to the juvenile’s probation-violative acts, the court did not engage in a retroactive application of A.R.S. § 8-241.

We disagree. ‘When a trial court revokes probation, it ‘must impose a sentence because of the original offense; the sentencing court is without authority to impose punishment for violation of probation alone.’” State v. Baum, 182 Ariz. 138, 140, 893 P.2d 1301, 1303 (App.1995) (quoting State v. Rowe, 116 Ariz. 283, 284, 569 P.2d 225, 226 (1977)). The juvenile court disposed of the juvenile’s probation violation by revoking his probation; it then disposed of his original delinquent conduct by committing him to ADJC. And because the juvenile was committed to ADJC for a breach of the law that occurred before [417]*417the enactment of A.R.S. § 8-241, that statute was retroactively applied.

It does not necessarily follow, however, that the statute was unconstitutionally retroactively applied. Not every retroactive application of a sentencing or dispositional statute is unlawful. Retroactive application of a sentencing or dispositional statute violates the ex post facto clauses of the state and federal constitutions only if it “inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime, when committed.” State v. Noble, 171 Ariz. 171, 174, 829 P.2d 1217, 1220 (1992) (quoting Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S.

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Bluebook (online)
923 P.2d 880, 186 Ariz. 414, 225 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 52, 1996 Ariz. App. LEXIS 202, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-the-appeal-in-maricopa-county-juvenile-action-no-jv-512016-arizctapp-1996.