Friday, August 01, 2008

In Re Matthew A. (Cal. Ct. App. - July 28, 2008)

"You're like a little kid. We tell you and tell you and tell you, but you never seem to listen. Time to ground you to your room, I guess."

Or, as Justice Flier -- the mother of three children and several grandchildren herself -- puts it here, "Courts utilizing this technique may have the best of reasons, such as 'sending a message' to the juvenile that the transgression was serious. But, if the Legislature thought that this should be done, it would have been easy to write the statute to permit this practice. We think it should cease. The criticism of this practice in prior opinions without actually ordering a correction of the disposition seems to have had little effect. Thus, our order is to strike the specification of a term of imprisonment."

So there.