Juvenile Adjudications . . . Aggravating

An article in last Saturday’s paper talked about Governor Perdue’s proposed changes to the probation system. Part of her plan would give probation officers access to probationers’ juvenile records, which reminded me of a related issue I have been meaning to write about: using juvenile adjudications as an aggravating factor at sentencing. Under G.S. 15A-1340.16(d)(18a), it is a statutory aggravating factor if the defendant has previously been adjudicated delinquent for an offense that would be a Class A – E felony if committed by an adult. The Juvenile Code allows prosecutors to access juvenile records without a court order, though they may only be used to prove an aggravating factor by order of the court after an in camera hearing to determine admissibility. G.S. 7B-3000(f). Under G.S. 15A-1340.16(b), the aggravating factor for juvenile adjudications is carefully exempted from the normal, post–Blakely v. Washington rule that aggravating factors must be admitted to or proved beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury; that factor, the statute says, may be found by the court. The legislative assumption is that prior juvenile adjudications are like prior convictions, and thus fall within the prior-conviction exception to Blakely. The Court of Appeals has considered the juvenile adjudication aggravating factor in two cases and reached different results. In State v. Yarrell, 172 N.C. App. 135 (2005), the court looked to G.S. 7B-2412 (“An adjudication that a juvenile is delinquent . . . shall [not] be considered conviction of any criminal offense . . . .”) to conclude that [...]