{
  "id": 1575470,
  "name": "STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John DOE, a child, and Anthony Gurule, Defendants-Appellees",
  "name_abbreviation": "State v. Doe",
  "decision_date": "1980-10-16",
  "docket_number": "Nos. 4564-4593",
  "first_page": "88",
  "last_page": "90",
  "citations": [
    {
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      "cite": "95 N.M. 88"
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      "cite": "619 P.2d 192"
    }
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  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "N.M. Ct. App.",
    "id": 9025,
    "name": "Court of Appeals of New Mexico"
  },
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    "id": 52,
    "name_long": "New Mexico",
    "name": "N.M."
  },
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    {
      "cite": "93 N.M. 51",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "N.M.",
      "case_ids": [
        1568810
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      "weight": 2,
      "year": 1979,
      "opinion_index": 0,
      "case_paths": [
        "/nm/93/0051-01"
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    {
      "cite": "90 N.M. 790",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "N.M.",
      "case_ids": [
        2868698
      ],
      "weight": 2,
      "year": 1977,
      "opinion_index": 0,
      "case_paths": [
        "/nm/90/0790-01"
      ]
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T19:05:15.389388+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "WOOD, C. J., and HERNANDEZ, J., concur."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John DOE, a child, and Anthony Gurule, Defendants-Appellees."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "OPINION\nWALTERS, Judge.\nIn these consolidated cases, the offenses allegedly committed by the defendants occurred while both were seventeen years old. After both children had reached age 18, charges were filed against one in children\u2019s court, the other in District Court. In each ease the action was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The dismissals are reversed.\nThe State and defendants both argue that jurisdiction logically should be in the children\u2019s court, but that the statutes create a gap in jurisdiction if charges are not filed against a child before he becomes an adult (18 years of age). They focus on \u00a7 32-1-12, N.M.S.A., entitled \u201cRetention of jurisdiction of child by court,\u201d which provides that jurisdiction of the children\u2019s court over the subject matter and the \u201cchild\u201d (defined as one \u201cwho is less than eighteen years old,\u201d \u00a7 32-l-3(A), N.M.S.A.1978) automatically terminates when:\nA. the child becomes an adult, except that jurisdiction is retained until disposition of a case involving a child who becomes an adult during the pendency of the proceedings in the [children\u2019s] court.\npointing to the emphasized phrase as indicating there is no jurisdiction to retain if proceedings are not pending.\nThe argument is creative, but it overlooks the legislatively enacted heading to \u00a7 32-1-12 which directs its application to retention of jurisdiction by the children\u2019s court until pending proceedings are completed rather than to divestiture of jurisdiction if the defendant becomes eighteen before proceedings are commenced. Defendants emphasize what is not in the statute, and purge from it the language which meets the purpose for which it was enacted, i. e., the avoidance of a gap in jurisdiction between offense and disposition when the offender \u201ccomes of age\u201d during the interim.\nWe accept the fact that proceedings in these cases were not instituted before the defendants became eighteen. However, the Children\u2019s Code must be read as an entirety and each section interpreted so as to correlate as faultlessly as possible with all other sections, in order that the ends sought to be accomplished by the legislature shall not be thwarted. State ex rel. Newsome v. Alarid, 90 N.M. 790, 568 P.2d 1236 (1977). With such rules of statutory construction uppermost, we note that the purpose of Code is set forth in these pertinent subsections of \u00a7 32-1-2, N.M.S.A.1978:\nThe Children\u2019s Code shall be interpreted and construed to effectuate the following expressed legislative purposes:\nB. Consistent with the protection of the public interest, to remove from children committing delinquent acts the consequences of criminal behavior and to substitute therefore a program of supervision, care and rehabilitation;\nD. to separate clearly in the judicial and other processes affecting children under the Children\u2019s Code the neglected child, the child in need of supervision and the delinquent child, and to provide appropriate and distinct dispositional options for treatment and rehabilitation of these children; and\nE. to provide judicial and other procedures through which the provisions of the Children\u2019s Code are executed and enforced and in which the parties are assured a fair hearing and their constitutional and other legal rights recognized and enforced.\nSection 32-l-9(A)(l) places exclusive original jurisdiction over \u201ca delinquent child\u201d in the children\u2019s court. A \u201cdelinquent child\u201d is one, under 18, \u201cwho has committed a delinquent act and is in need of care or rehabilitation.\u201d Section 32-1-3(0).\nWith these sections in mind, we consider the provisions of \u00a7 32-1-11 directing the district court to \u201cpromptly transfer jurisdiction of the matter and the defendant\u201d to children\u2019s court if it appears that a defendant charged in district court was under the age of eighteen at the time the offense alleged was committed, even though the defendant is not a child at the time of the transfer. It seems eminently plain that this section disposes of any contention that there is a \u201cgap\u201d in the assignment of original jurisdiction in cases like those now before us. This section requires the district court to send the matter to children\u2019s court if the defendant was not an adult when the offense charged allegedly was committed.\nIt would be ludicrous to suggest that the only way these defendants (or others similarly situated) could be proceeded against would be to bring charges in district court so that they could then be transferred back to children\u2019s court under \u00a7 32-1-11. The statutes will not be construed to require a useless act; neither will they be construed to subvert the express objectives of legislation. See State v. Garcia, 93 N.M. 51, 596 P.2d 264 (1979).\nReading all sections of the Code together and considering them in the light necessary to effect the Code\u2019s purposes, we hold that the filing of a petition under \u00a7 32-1-17 of the Children\u2019s Code, sufficiently vests jurisdiction in the children\u2019s court over persons alleged to have committed delinquent acts while under the age of 18, regardless of their ages at the time the charges are filed. The Supreme Court so held in Peyton v. Nord, 78 N.M. 717, 437 P.2d 716 (1968), and the present provisions of the Children\u2019s Code do not suggest a different result. See \u00a7\u00a7 32-1-2 D; 32-1-3 N; 32-1-11; 32-1-14 C; 32-1-19, N.M.S. A.1978. Nothing in this holding affects the power of the children\u2019s court to subsequently transfer to district court for prosecution of those offenders described in \u00a7\u00a7 32-1-29 and -30, N.M.S.A.1978 if such a transfer is warranted.\nWe further hold that the district court in Cause No. 4593 should have transferred the matter filed in its court to children\u2019s court, according to the terms of \u00a7 32-1-11; and that the children\u2019s court should have acknowledged jurisdiction in Cause No. 4564 when the \u00a7 32-1-17 petition was therein filed.\nThese cases are remanded for reinstatement of No. 4564 on the docket of the children\u2019s court, and for reinstatement of No. 4593 and transfer of that case to the children\u2019s court.\nWOOD, C. J., and HERNANDEZ, J., concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "WALTERS, Judge."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Jeff Bingaman, Atty. Gen., Lawrence A. Barela and Arthur Encinias, Asst. Atty. Gen., Santa Fe, for plaintiff-appellant.",
      "Mary Jo Snyder, Santa Fe, for defendants-appellees."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "619 P.2d 192\nSTATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John DOE, a child, and Anthony Gurule, Defendants-Appellees.\nNos. 4564-4593.\nCourt of Appeals of New Mexico.\nOct. 16, 1980.\nJeff Bingaman, Atty. Gen., Lawrence A. Barela and Arthur Encinias, Asst. Atty. Gen., Santa Fe, for plaintiff-appellant.\nMary Jo Snyder, Santa Fe, for defendants-appellees."
  },
  "file_name": "0088-01",
  "first_page_order": 120,
  "last_page_order": 122
}