Summary
The Connecticut Supreme Court held that, after a defendant challenges prosecution as an adult based on age at the time of the alleged conduct, the state bears the burden of proving that the defendant met the statutory age requirement for automatic transfer from the juvenile docket. The court concluded that the state failed under any burden of proof to establish that Samuel M. was at least fourteen when the offenses underlying his convictions occurred. It affirmed the Appellate Court’s judgment vacating the convictions and remanded for dismissal and transfer to the juvenile docket for a new trial.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether, after a juvenile case is automatically transferred to the regular criminal docket, the state bears the burden of proving that the defendant was at least fourteen years old when the charged conduct occurred.
- What burden of proof applies to the state's proof of the defendant's age at the time of the conduct.
- What standard of review applies to the trial court's factual determination regarding the defendant's age.
- Whether the evidence established that the conduct underlying the convictions occurred on or after the defendant's fourteenth birthday.
- Whether transfer to the juvenile docket for a new trial, rather than judgment of acquittal, was the appropriate remedy.
Holdings
- When a defendant challenges prosecution on the regular criminal docket based on age at the time of the underlying conduct, the state bears the burden of proving that the defendant was at least fourteen years old when the conduct occurred.
- The state failed to prove by any burden of proof that the conduct underlying the convictions occurred on or after the defendant's fourteenth birthday.
- The determination of whether the defendant was fourteen years old at the time of the criminal conduct is a factual determination reviewed for clear error.
- The appropriate remedy was dismissal of the adult-court information and transfer to the juvenile docket for a new trial, not a judgment of acquittal.
Key quotations
“Once the defendant challenges the ability of the court to convict and sentence him as an adult based upon his age at the time of the underlying criminal conduct for which the jury returned a guilty verdict, we hold that the state bears the burden to prove the defendant’s age.” (323 Conn. 785)
“In sum, once the defendant challenged the transfer of his case to the regular criminal docket on the basis of his age, the state did not establish, by any burden of proof, that the defendant was at least fourteen years of age at the time of the criminal conduct underlying the jury’s verdict of guilt.” (323 Conn. 785)
Factual background
Samuel M. was born on September 17, 1994, and was charged with sexual assault and risk of injury arising from alleged incidents involving his younger cousin. The state alleged that the conduct occurred in June 2009, but the victim testified that the incidents occurred when he was nine or ten years old and were separated by approximately one month. The evidence did not establish the timing of the individual incidents in relation to Samuel's fourteenth birthday on September 17, 2008.
Procedural history
The defendant's case was automatically transferred from the juvenile docket to the regular criminal docket because the state alleged that class A and class B felonies occurred in June 2009, when he was fourteen. Following a jury trial, he was convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual assault and one count of risk of injury to a child, but the trial court denied his motion to dismiss based on failure to prove that the offenses occurred after his fourteenth birthday. The Appellate Court vacated the convictions and ordered transfer to the juvenile docket. The Connecticut Supreme Court granted the state's petition for certification and affirmed the Appellate Court, remanding for dismissal and a new trial on the specified counts in the juvenile docket.
Remand instructions
Affirm the Appellate Court's judgment vacating the convictions; remand to the trial court with direction to grant the defendant's motion to dismiss the adult-court information, transfer the case to the juvenile docket, and conduct a new trial on counts six, ten, and fifteen.