COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. JASIR HARRIS
No. 3080 EDA 2022
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
APRIL 23, 2024
2024 PA Super 82
STABILE, J.
J-A24009-23. Appeal from the Order
OPINION BY STABILE, J.:
FILED APRIL 23, 2024
The Commonwealth charged Appellee Jasir Harris with attempting to murder two police officers and related offenses on August 23, 2021, when Appellee was sixteen years and eight months old. On December 1, 2022, following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court granted Appellee‘s motion to decertify this case and transfer it to the Juvenile Division of the court (“Juvenile Court“) as a delinquency matter. The Commonwealth appeals from the decertification order. We hold that the decertification order is defective due to the trial court‘s failure to consider multiple criteria that it was required to take into account before granting decertification. Accordingly, we vacate the decertification order and remand for further review of the еvidence presented during the decertification hearing.
On August 25, 2021, Appellee was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted murder and related charges. On December 16, 2021, a preliminary hearing took place during which the Commonwealth presented the following evidence.
On August 23, 2021, at about 8:00 p.m., Philadelphia police officers Glenn and Allen, in uniform but in an unmarked patrol car, responded to a radio cаll reporting an armed carjacking of a white Chevrolet Malibu at a Philadelphia Wawa convenience store.
The owners of the carjacked vehicle helped other officers track the car‘s location using the car‘s “OnStar” service. Officers Glenn and Allen found the car parked in the 2200 block of North Reese Street, about two miles away. There they also saw a dark colored sedan parkеd directly in front of the Malibu and a black person wearing a white T-shirt—Appellee, the car‘s driver and only occupant—in the driver‘s seat. Officer Glenn, who had initially driven past the Malibu and the dark colored sedan, turned around to continue to investigate. At that moment, Appellee began firing a gun at them.
Officer Glenn sustained a gunshot wound to his head from a bullet fragment and injuries from glass shards, and Officer Allen received facial laсerations from flying glass when bullets pierced the vehicle‘s rear driver‘s side window. Appellee fired approximately 16 shots at the officers in their car and then fled, leaving the dark sedan‘s door open. Despite his injuries, Officer Glenn attempted to pursue Appellee on foot, while Officer Allen, who had jumped into the driver‘s seat, attempted to do so by car.
At approximately 8:09 p.m., two other officers, Officers Lally and Williams, were responding to the radio call of a carjacked vehicle being tracked to the 2200 block of North Reese Street. They received a report that shots had been fired at police and that a possible perpetrator was a black male wearing a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants. In the 2200 block of North Fairhill Street, one block west of Reese
Since Officers Glenn and Allen were in the hospital for their injuries and unavailable to attempt an identification, Appellee was transpоrted to the police department‘s Homicide Unit while detectives recovered and reviewed surveillance video from nearby businesses and residences. The surveillance video reflected, among other things, the carjacked white Malibu entering the 2200 block of North Reese Street, followed shortly afterward by a dark colored vehicle driven by a black male wearing a gray sweat jacket with a white shirt underneаth. Immediately after the unmarked patrol car driven by Officer Glenn entered and then exited the view of the camera, the video showed several individuals running north on Reese Street and then west on Dauphin Street in the aftermath of the shooting (which occurred just out of the camera‘s view). The last individual—a thin black male with dreadlocks wearing a gray sweat jacket and a white shirt underneath, gray sweatpants, and black sneakеrs—was carrying a gun.
Appellee‘s appearance and clothing (except for the sweat jacket) closely matched the person seen in the video carrying a gun. Accordingly, police secured Appellee‘s clothing as evidence. Near the scene of the shooting, homicide detectives found a discarded gray Nike sweat jacket identical to the one worn by the person carrying the gun on the surveillance video and matching the pants Appellee was wearing. One of the discarded sweat jacket‘s pockets contained keys to the dark colored sedan, a dark blue Nissan that had been stolen in Philadelphia the previous day.
At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, all charges against Appellee were held for court except for a theft charge.
At the time of the alleged offenses, Appellee was sixteen years old and eight months and had a lengthy record of delinquency.1
On January 26, 2022, Appellee filed a motion to decertify the case and transfer it to Juvenile Court. He argued that he could not be tried as an adult because, at the time of the alleged offenses, he was only sixteen years and eight months old.
On November 22, 2022, the court held an evidentiary hearing and took the case under advisement. On December 1, 2022,
On December 20, 2022, the Commonwealth filed a notice of appeal in which it certified, in accordance with
The Commonwealth raises the following grounds in this appeal:
Did the lower court err by granting the then nearly-18-year-old Appellee‘s motion for decertification and transferring to juvenile court a case including multiple counts of attempted murder and related offenses, all of which were committed while Appellee was subject to а bench warrant, when:
(a) contrary to statutory requirements, the decertification order failed to set forth specific findings of fact and conclusions of law;
(b) the decertification order did not even acknowledge or address any of the required public interest factors apart from Appellee‘s personal interest claim of amenability to treatment, supervision, and rehabilitation; and
(c) even in addressing Aрpellee‘s claimed amenability to treatment, supervision, and rehabilitation, the lower court‘s order did not acknowledge or analyze required factors including (i) the nature and extent of [his] prior delinquent history and the failure of previous attempts by the juvenile court to rehabilitate him and (ii) the likelihood that he would be successfully rehabilitated prior to the expiration of juvenile court jurisdiction?
Commonwealth‘s Brief at 4.
An order transferring a сase from the trial division of the Court of Common Pleas to that court‘s juvenile division is immediately appealable by the Commonwealth as of right. Commonwealth v. Johnson, 669 A.2d 315, 322-23 (Pa. 1995). Accordingly, we have jurisdiction over this interlocutory appeal. We review orders granting decertification and transferring a case from adult criminal court to Juvenile Court for gross abuse of discretion. Commonwealth v. L.P., 137 A.3d 629, 635 (Pa. Super. 2016).
Preliminarily, Appellee argues that the Commonwealth waived its argument on аppeal due to the vagueness of its
The Commonwealth contends in this appeal that the trial court failed to make specific findings of fact and conclusions of law at the time it granted Appellee‘s motion for decertification and address multiple critical criteria relating to the public interest in both its decertification order and its
The Juvenile Act,
(1) The term means an act designated a crime under the law of this Commonwealth . . .
(2) The term shall not include:
(i) The crime of murder.
(ii) Any of the following prohibited conduct where the child was 15 years of age or older at the time of the alleged conduct and a deadly weapon as defined in
18 Pa.C.S. § 2301 (relating to definitions) was used during the commission of the offense which, if committed by an adult, would be classified as:. . .
(I) An attempt, conspiracy or solicitation to commit murder or any of these crimes as provided in
18 Pa.C.S. §§ 901 (relating to criminal attempt),902 (relating to criminal solicitation) and903 (relating to criminal conspiracy).
When jurisdiction vests with the criminal division, however, the juvenile may seek a transfer to the juvenile system through the process of decertification. “In determining whether to transfer a case charging murder or any offense excluded from the definition of ‘delinquent act’ in section 6302, the child shall be required to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the transfer will serve the public interest.”
Section
(A) the impact of the offense on the victim or victims;
(B) the impact of the offense on the community;
(C) the threat to the safety of the public or any individual posed by the child;
(D) the nature and circumstances of the offense allegedly committed by the child;
(E) the degree of the child‘s culpability;
(F) the adequacy and duration of dispositional alternatives available under this chapter and in the adult criminal justice system; and
(G) whether the child is amenable to treatment, supervision or rehabilitation
as a juvenile by considering the following factors: (I) age;
(II) mental capacity;
(III) maturity;
(IV) the degree of criminal sophistication exhibited by the child;
(V) previous records, if any;
(VI) the nature and extent of any prior delinquent history, including the success or failure of any previous attempts by the juvenile court to rehabilitate the child;
(VII) whether the child can be rehabilitated prior to the expiration of the juvenile court jurisdiction;
(VIII) probation or institutional reports, if any;
(IX) any other relevant factors....
When the trial court finds that a juvenile has met his burden to show that the public interest will be served by transferring the case to the “division assigned to conduct juvenile hearings,” the court must “make findings of fact, including specific references to the evidence, and conclusions of law in support of the transfer order.”
“If the court does not make its finding within 20 days of the hearing . . . the defendant‘s petition to transfer the case shall be denied by operation of law.”
In this case, the court ran afoul of
The opinion included the following analysis:
Undoubtedly, the crimes with which Appellee is charged are extremely serious, and it was undisputed that the instant arrest was not Appellee‘s first contact with the criminal justice system; however, as set forth in the report prepared by the Mitigation Report Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project (YSRP) dated August 25, 2022, ... when provided with a supportive environment, Appellee flourished. As outlined in the YSRP report, [Appellee‘s] home life was turbulent. At no time did he receive therapy for the violence and drug use inside his home[,] nor was he ever counseled to help develop coping skills for the three times which he, an innocent bystander, was injured by gunfire. Additionally, he did not receive counseling for the trauma which resulted from his witnessing the shooting death of his сousin outside the front door of his home
where they both lived. His school record was noteworthy only in that he was frequently late or truant. The documents [appended to] the YSRP report established, beyond a doubt, the amenability of [Appellee] to treatment. The report card from the Pennypack School at the Juvenile Unit of the Riverside Prison (RCF) reflected all A‘s and B‘s. The copies of the Honor Roll and court cеrtificates he received, and the letters of interest he received from six colleges ... as well as a letter signed by several staff members from this same prison facility, highlighted the positive qualities which the juvenile possesses.
The mitigation listed above was buttressed by the witnesses who testified on [Appellee‘s] behalf at the decertification hearing. Specific testimony is drawn to the testimony of Dr. Damone Jones, who worked with the juvenile at RCF several times a month. He described the juvenile as a very good basketball player, team captain and a leader of the juveniles.
The testimony of Josh Graupera, the creative arts coordinator at the Youth Arts and Self-Empowerment Project at RCF, was in the same vein. He testified that he met with [Appellee] weekly beginning in February 2022. He described [Appellee] as a leader in the arts, writing and personal development program who sets a positive example for the other juveniles who are also in custody.
Appellee was described as one who has a plan and a vision for his future which included going into business management.
Also contained in the Mitigation Report is the forensic evaluation of Constance Mesiarik dated August 10, 2022. She reviewed a number of documents, conducted a mental status examinatiоn, and conducted a number of tests. Having done these tasks, she concluded that [Appellee] is amenable to rehabilitation. She identified five treatment areas, which include educational remediation, anger management, structured pro-social activities, substance abuse education and mental health counseling. Given the resources which are available to one who is in juvenile court placement, as this juvenile would be for the next three years, it is apparent that he is amenable to rehabilitation in that environment as he grows and matures.
1925(a) Opinion, 2/13/2023, at 2-4.
The opinion focused almost exclusively on one public interest criterion in Section
In prior cases, we have remanded for further proceedings when the court failed to provide sufficient analysis for its decision to certify juvenile defendants to adult criminal court. See Commonwealth v. Deppeller, 460 A.2d 1184, 1187-88 (Pa. Super. 1983) (where juvenile hearing judge did not provide any reasоns for transfer order certifying juvenile to adult court, Superior Court was unable to afford any meaningful review to juvenile court‘s
The Commonwealth presented evidence during Appellee‘s preliminary hearing that Appellee shot at and attempted to murder two police officers who were responding to a report of a carjacking. Appellee has a lengthy record of delinquency for serious offenses, including theft, simple assault and firearms violations, and for violating the terms of his probation. Under these circumstances, we see no valid basis for granting decertification without careful consideration of all critical factors, including, in pаrticular, the impact of his alleged offenses on the victims and the community, the threat to public safety, and the adequacy and duration of dispositional alternatives available in the adult criminal justice system.
For these reasons, we vacate the order granting decertification and remand the case to the trial court for further review of the evidence presented during the November 22, 2022, evidentiary hearing. We direct the court to consider all factors required under Section
Order vacated. Case remanded for further prоceedings in accordance with this opinion. Jurisdiction relinquished.
Judgment Entered.
Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 4/23/2024