Appeal Planned on Right to Try Juveniles as Adults

Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst said Thursday that he plans an appeal to preserve the right of prosecutors under a recent state ballot measure to unilaterally decide whether juveniles should be tried as adults in certain serious crimes.

Pfingst said he is confident that the California Supreme Court will overturn a decision by the 4th District Court of Appeal in a case in which Pfingst is attempting to try eight teenagers in Superior Court on charges of attacking five Mexican laborers.

The appellate court ruled last week that the decision on whether to try a juvenile as an adult should remain with judges and not be shifted to prosecutors.

The dispute would affect hundreds of cases in California in which prosecutors have used Proposition 21 to try juveniles in Superior Court instead of Juvenile Court, where penalties are less severe.

Prosecutors are scrambling to decide what to do with such cases while Proposition 21 is under court challenge.

Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Thursday that he will immediately begin offering juvenile defendants a hearing in Juvenile Court, where a judge will decide whether the defendant should be tried as an adult in Superior Court. That was the system used in California before Proposition 21 was passed overwhelmingly by voters in March.

Cooley said he was worried about a backlog of cases building up if all juvenile cases were deferred until the Supreme Court decides the issue raised in the San Diego case.

“We are taking the legal bull by the horns,” Cooley said.

In announcing his decision, Pfingst framed the legal issue as a question of whether voters have the right to change how the law treats juveniles or whether, as the appellate court found, that right rests solely with judges.

“The thoughtful administration of justice requires that this conflict between the Court of Appeal and the voters be resolved,” Pfingst said.

But Gerald F. Uelmen, a law professor at Santa Clara University and an expert on the state Supreme Court, predicted that Pfingst might have trouble convincing the Supreme Court to even hear the case.

He said the court has a two-decade history of striking down attempts to chip away at the power of judges, including its ruling in 1996, in a San Diego case, that returned to judges the power stripped from them by the three-strikes law.

“I think there is an excellent chance that they will not hear the case because they agree with the ruling,” Uelmen said. “The court is very reluctant to allow changes in the traditional area of judicial discretion.”

If the Supreme Court declines to hear the case, trial courts throughout the state--but not other appellate courts--would be bound by the disputed decision. If the court accepts the case, its ruling would be binding on both trial and appellate courts.

Pfingst said he was influenced by the fact that the victims, ranging in age from 52 to 70, told Deputy Dist. Atty. Hector Jimenez, head of the district attorney’s hate crime division, that they wanted the case appealed.

Defense attorneys immediately criticized Pfingst’s decision as a needless delay in a case that has provoked a strident debate on issues of race, ethnicity and class distinctions.

“The victims in this case have gone through a tragedy--so have the families of the boys accused in this case,” said attorney William LaFond, representing the 15-year-old son of a Navy commander. “Everybody is eager to face [the case], overcome it and put it behind us.”

Pfingst is an unusual standard-bearer for Proposition 21. He remained neutral on the measure, which was written by the state District Attorneys Assn. and heavily supported by most district attorneys.

*

Krikorian reported from Los Angeles and Perry from San Diego.