Did the Supreme Court of Indiana Just Annihilate Indiana’s Juvenile Waiver System?

Today the Indiana Supreme Court handed down its decision in State v. Neukam. The Court’s opinion can be found here. In Neukam, the defendant allegedly molested his young cousin when she was 10 years old. At the time, Neukam was also a child. The State did not learn of the behavior until Neukam was 22 years of age, no longer within the jurisdictional reach of the juvenile justice system. So the State filed charges directly in adult criminal court.

The adult court prohibited the State from filing those charges due to Neukam’s young age at the time the acts were committed. The State appealed.

The Supreme Court began by explaining that jurisdictional questions are generally for the legislature. In other words, a court only has the jurisdiction that Indiana’s statutory law provides. In Indiana, criminal courts have jurisdiction over cases involving a “crime.” Juvenile courts have jurisdiction over cases involving a “delinquent act.” A “delinquent act” is essentially an exception to a “crime.” In other words, any behavior that is defined as a “crime” is considered a “crime” unless it falls under the definition of a “delinquent act.”

The Court stated, “The legislature has not said a delinquent act ripens into a crime when a juvenile offender ages out of the juvenile system.” Thus, where conduct is defined as a “delinquent act,” adult criminal courts have no jurisdiction because the legislature has not conferred jurisdiction over a “delinquent act” to adult criminal courts. (NOTE: “direct-file” offenses are excepted from the definition of “delinquent acts” by the legislature, so they remain a “crime.”).

What does this mean for Neukam and others like him? Adult criminal courts do not have jurisdiction over their acts because their acts were considered “delinquent acts” under statutory law, and no statute confers jurisdiction to criminal courts for “delinquent acts.” Thus, the only way to close the “jurisdictional gap” here is for the legislature to pass legislation to close the gap.

The Supreme Court essentially announced this two years ago in D.P. v. State. For numerous reasons, to date the Indiana General Assembly has chosen not to close the jurisdictional gap. One might assume this opinion was simply a reminder to the General Assembly that the gap remains.

But things take an interesting turn on page 8 of the majority opinion. In the last paragraph, the Court stated, “We also recognize our decision today raises questions about circuit-court jurisdiction vis-a-vis the juvenile court’s waiver statutes and the criminal court’s transfer statute.” Indiana’s juvenile waiver statute allows a juvenile court to waive its jurisdiction in certain cases. For decades, everyone has assumed this meant that when the juvenile court waived jurisdiction over a case, the adult criminal court (re)assumed jurisdiction. Except, as the Supreme Court pointed out today, Indiana’s criminal courts never had jurisdiction in the first place, and no statute confers jurisdiction to the criminal court in the event a juvenile court waives it.

This would seem to mean that if a juvenile court waives jurisdiction over a case, then no court has jurisdiction. In other words, the Court has located another jurisdictional gap under Indiana law. One could argue this is just dicta and not binding. True. One could also argue this is an overly broad reading of the Court’s holding. Maybe.

But this sentence on page 9 of the opinion certainly gives me pause: “Ultimately, like the dissents, we are not blind to the weighty and far-reaching policy concerns implicated by today’s decision. But separation of powers requires that we echo our words from D.P.: If this ‘result was not the intent of the legislature, then it — not we — must make the necessary statutory changes.’”

Considering the opinion as a whole, it certainly suggests an argument can be made that a child waived into adult court can challenge whether the adult criminal court has jurisdiction, given there is no statute expressly conferring it. And because jurisdiction can be raised at any time as a freestanding claim, this would mean such a challenge could be raised in a pending case, on direct appeal, or even in a petition for post-conviction relief. That would certainly be “weighty and far-reaching.”