It's not that I disagree with today's opinion from the California Supreme Court. I don't. Which is good, since it's unanimous, so if I disagreed, my presumption would typically be that I was the one in the wrong, not the Court.
I instead wonder why the Court granted review of the issue in the first place.
The trial court declared a juvenile offender a ward of the court and ordered that he live at home under certain probation conditions. The trial court told the probation office in advance that if there were any potential future probation violations (e.g., not showing up at school on occasion, etc.), there was an easy solution, stating: "“Probation is authorized to offer the minor 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 trial court thought that was fine. The Court of Appeal thought that was fine. The California Supreme Court thought that was fine; unanimously, no less. And as far as I can tell, there's no split in the Court of Appeal nor any judge or justice, anywhere, who thought that this type of deal isn't fine.
So why not just leave the Court of Appeal's decision standing? What's the downside? What's the need to take the case up and reaffirm that, yep, the Court of Appeal got this one right? Is this really one of the most important matters on the California Supreme Court's docket? (I'd have thought not, not only given the correct answer to the question, but also the fact that the issue is somewhat fact-specific, and not at all uniformly imposed in all -- or nearly all -- juvenile probation cases.)
Plus, I'm even more convinced of the Court's holding than perhaps even the Court itself. I totally agree that it's not an unconstitutional delegation of power because, as the Court explains, it's just an offer. If the juvenile doesn't want to accept the offer, they can refuse it, and go to court and fight the allegation (or request a different condition/penalty). It's just the trial court telling the probation office in advance that if it wants to make such an offer, that'd be totally fine with the trial court.
Makes total sense.
Indeed, to me, the whole thing's a nothingburger because the probation office already has that power even absent the trial court's express invitation. As the Court explains, it's just an offer; an offer that the probation office can make and that, if accepted, would result in the probation office not bringing up the probation violation in court; e.g., if you do 50 hours of community service, we'll ignore the fact that you skipped class for two weeks. But, in my view, the probation office totally has that ability already, as part and parcel of its executive discretion. It's the one who decides in the first place whether to bring alleged violations to the trial court anyway. If it doesn't feel like it, or doesn't feel they're significant, it can just ignore 'em. As I'm sure it does every single day; e.g., when a juvenile skips a particular class. And if the probation office can ignore it altogether, then it can do the lesser as well; agree to ignore the thing if the juvenile agrees to do something special. The greater includes the lesser.
I'm sure that, all the time, the probation office tells juveniles things like "Okay, I'll ignore you skipping class this one time if you agree not to do it again." And, if it felt like it, it could surely say things like "Look, I know you shoplifted a candy bar from that one store, and that's wrong, so go back and pay for it and apologize to the shopkeeper and we'll look the other way and not bring a probation violation." No different here, right? The probation office already could say "You know what, you've done something wrong, and I could violate you if I wanted to, but I'll make you a deal; volunteer in a soup kitchen for 50 hours and I'll decide not to bring the thing to court."
The fact that the trial court "authorized" the probation office to do that, in my view, essentially means nothing. It grants them zero powers over the powers the probation office already possesses. Which in turn means there's definitely no delegation.
Really, I think that all the trial court's doing here is giving its informal blessing to the type of deal that it thinks would be potentially equitable in the future. A deal that's already within the power of the two parties (the probation office and the juvenile) to informally make on their own, but this way, there's a tiny bit more "formality" to the deal. A legally meaningless formality, mind you, but one that might set the parties on a particular path.
That's perfectly fine. For a plethora of reasons, including but not limited to the ones articulated by the California Supreme Court.
