In People v. Arroyo, the Supreme Court today holds that a statute expanding prosecutors’ discretion to criminally charge certain minors in adult court does not give those minors a right to a preliminary hearing; a grand jury indictment is enough. The law was adopted in a 2000 initiative — Proposition 21 — by voters who were warned by initiative supporters about “predictions of a juvenile crime wave.” The nationwide “superpredator” scare at the time is now considered by many to have been exaggerated.
The court’s opinion by Justice Kathryn Werdegar notes that “[t]he purpose of Proposition 21 . . . was to expand the authority of courts of criminal jurisdiction over juveniles who commit criminal offenses” and finds nothing in the statute, or the constitution’s equal protection clause, precluding a prosecutor from proceeding against a minor by grand jury indictment.
A brief concurring opinion by Justice Goodwin Liu, signed by Justice Leondra Kruger, questions a statement in the court’s opinion that a mandatory grand jury finding — that reasonable cause exists to believe the minor comes within the provisions of the statute allowing the minor to be charged in adult court — “may, but need not, be express. A grand jury properly instructed to make the finding will be deemed to have done so by returning an indictment if the record contains sufficient supporting evidence.”
The court affirms the Fourth District, Division Three, Court of Appeal. It disapproves a 2001 opinion by the Second District, Division One, Court of Appeal.
