Granted. The decision of the court of appeal in State in the Interest of B.J., 04-1712 (La.App. 1st Cir.12/30/04),
The state charged relator in a delinquency petition with various misdemeanor-grade acts apparently stemming from a single incident in Baton Rouge at the end of 2003. Following relator’s admission to the acts of possession of a firearm in violation of La.R.S. 14:95.8, and possession of marijuana, La.R.S. 40:966(C), the Juvenile Court for East Baton Rouge Parish entered a disposition order committing him to the custody of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections for consecutive terms of six months. Relator appealed to the First Circuit on grounds that if he had been tried and punished as an adult, La. C.Cr.P. art. 493.1 would have capped his total punishment at six months in prison because the state had charged the misdemeanor-grade acts in a single written accusation. In rejecting relator’s argument, the court of appeal reasoned that “[because] a | ¡.juvenile has no right to a jury trial .... there was no reason to incorporate a provision similar to the misdemean- or joinder rule of La.C.Cr.P. art. 493.1 into the Louisiana Children’s Code, and the restriction authorized by La.C.Cr.P. art. 493.1 simply has no application in a juvenile proceeding.” State in the Interest of B.J., 04-1712 at 4 (citing State in the Interest of D.J., 01-2149 (La.5/14/02),
The court of appeal erred. Louisiana’s Children Code specifically provides for the joinder of two or more delinquent acts in the same delinquency proceedings whether based upon felony or misdemeanor offenses if the acts are of the same or similar character or constitute parts of the same transaction. La.Ch.C. art. 845(C). However, the Children’s Code, while authorizing the confinement of a juvenile in the custody of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections following a misdemean- or-grade delinquency adjudication, La. Ch.C. art. 899(C), does not provide for any specific terms of custody. Instead, the Code states generally for misdemean- or-grade adjudications that “[n]o judgement of disposition shall remain in force for a period exceeding the maximum term of imprisonment for the offense which forms the basis for the adjudication.... ”
The Code thus expressly addresses the custodial disposition only of a single misdemeanor-grade delinquent act and does not provide a rule for delinquency adjudications based on several misdemeanor-grade acts charged in different counts in the same petition under the authority of La. Ch.C. art. 845(C). Under these circumstances, La.Ch.C. art. 803 directs that
However, we think it clear that the two sentencing provisions of La.C.Cr.P. art. 493.1 and La.C.Cr.P. art. 883 do not conflict and that, in any event, the former, as the later expression of legislative intent, see 1983 La. Acts 149, and not the latter, enacted by 1977 La. Acts 397, provides the more specific sentencing, rule applicable to relator’s case. State ex rel. Bickman v. Dees,
Our decision in State in the Interest of D.J. buttresses a determination here that courts should accord identical treatment to juvenile as well as adult offenders under the circumstances of the present case. In holding that juveniles charged with serious delinquent acts still have no right to a jury trial despite the increasingly punitive focus of the Children’s Code, we observed that “there remains a great disparity in the severity of penalties faced by a juvenile charged with delinquency and an adult defendant charged with the same crime.” Id., 01-2149 at 10,
Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeal is vacated and the disposition order of the juvenile court, as herein amended to provide for concurrent and not consecutive terms of custody, is hereby affirmed.