In In re D.N., the Supreme Court today approves a superior court order giving a probation department permission to “offer” to a juvenile offender “up to 50 hours of community service, or up to a cumulative total of 10 days on the community service work program as an option to work off alleged probation violations.” The minor challenged the order, according to the court, as “a constitutionally improper delegation of judicial authority to the probation department and as a deprivation of due process.”
The superior court’s order was probably not a one-off. The Supreme Court explains that the advance authorization of a potential probation department deal “appears to have been drawn from a standard order option on the juvenile court’s delinquency minute order form.”
The court’s unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye concludes the order is not objectionable because, if a violation were to be alleged, the minor would have the option of rejecting the probation department offer and of having a court determine the truth of the allegation and/or the propriety of the offered penalty. It might be another story, the court says, if the order “permitted the probation officer to find a violation of probation and impose a sanction without minor having notice, an opportunity to be heard, or any form of judicial process.”
The court says it’s not deciding “the validity of a probation order that would authorize a probation officer to offer more serious sanctions, such as time in custody.”
The court affirms the Fifth District Court of Appeal’s unpublished opinion.
