Commonwealth, Aplt. v. Taylor, N.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Chief Justice Debra Todd
Commonwealth, Aplt. v. Taylor, N.
Opinion
[J-83-2022]
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
MIDDLE DISTRICT
TODD, C.J., DONOHUE, DOUGHERTY, WECHT, MUNDY, BROBSON, JJ.
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, : No. 40 MAP 2022
:
Appellant : Appeal from the Order of the
: Superior Court at No. 856 EDA 2017
: dated July 29, 2021, reconsideration
v. : denied October 13, 2021, reversing
: the Judgment of Sentence of the
: Montgomery County Court of
NAZEER TAYLOR, : Common Pleas, Criminal Division, at
: No. CP-46-CR-0003166-2014 dated
Appellee : January 31, 2017 and remanding.
:
: ARGUED: November 30, 2022
:
OPINION
CHIEF JUSTICE TODD DECIDED: January 29, 2024
In a previous appeal in this matter, we held that the juvenile court violated Appellee
Nazeer Taylor’s Fifth Amendment 1 right to be free from compulsory self-incrimination by
considering his refusal to admit guilt for the criminal offenses which he was alleged to
have committed as a juvenile in granting the Commonwealth’s petition to transfer Taylor’s
case to adult criminal court. See Commonwealth v. Taylor, 230 A.3d 1050 (Pa. 2020)
(“Taylor II”). We are now asked to decide whether this violation of Taylor’s constitutional
1 This amendment to the United States Constitution provides, in relevant part, that “[n]o
person shall be . . . compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” U.S.
Const. amend. V.
right is subject to appellate review for harmless error. For the reasons that follow, we
conclude that it is not – that, rather, it constitutes structural error.
Were Taylor still a juvenile, he would be entitled to a new certification hearing
because of this violation of his Fifth Amendment right. However, as we further explain
herein, because Taylor is now 27 years of age, and therefore no longer subject to the
jurisdiction of the Juvenile Division of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas,
neither that court nor, alternatively, the Criminal Division of the Court of Common Pleas
of Montgomery County has the statutory authority to conduct such a hearing. We are
therefore obliged to follow the law as presently written and, accordingly, affirm the order
of the Superior Court which reversed Taylor’s conviction and discharge him.
I. Factual and Procedural History
From July 2012 through August 2013, Taylor, who was born on September 12,
1996, lived in a foster home in Montgomery County. 2 In March 2014, the Commonwealth
filed a petition in the Juvenile Division of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas,
alleging that Taylor, then 17 years old, was delinquent of the felony offenses of rape of a
child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, and sexual assault.3
Subsequently, the Commonwealth filed a petition with the juvenile court to have Taylor’s
case transferred to adult criminal court.
The Honorable Joseph A. Smyth of the Juvenile Division of the Montgomery
County Court of Common Pleas conducted a certification hearing on the petition which
took place over the course of two separate days — April 2 and April 25, 2014. At this
hearing, Judge Smyth heard testimony from the victim that Taylor had orally and anally
sodomized him on several occasions, causing physical injury which affected his ability to
2 These facts surrounding Taylor’s criminal charges and the procedural history of this
matter have been previously recounted in our opinion in Taylor II.
3 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 3121(a)(2) & (c), 3123(a)(1) & (b), and 3124.1, respectively.
[J-83-2022] - 2
control his bowels. N.T., 4/2/14, at 9, 11-30, 33. Taylor’s foster mother also offered
testimony as to her observations of certain incidents which caused her to become
suspicious that Taylor and the victim had engaged in sexual activity. Id. at 79-80, 84-85.
Because of this testimony, the juvenile court found that the Commonwealth had
established a prima facie case that Taylor committed the offenses alleged in the
delinquency petition. Id. at 114-15.
Due to the fact that Taylor was 15 years old at the time he allegedly committed the
offenses, and had been previously adjudicated delinquent of burglary — an offense
graded as a felony for purposes of adult criminal prosecutions — the burden of proof
shifted to Taylor under the Juvenile Act 4 to prove by a preponderance of evidence that
retention of the case by the juvenile court “serve[d] the public interest and that [he was]
amenable to treatment, supervision or rehabilitation as a juvenile.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 6355(g).
On these points, the Commonwealth presented testimony from a supervisor with
the Montgomery County Juvenile Probation Department regarding Taylor’s amenability
to treatment and available treatment options in the juvenile and adult systems. The
probation supervisor expressed his belief that Taylor was not amenable to treatment in
the juvenile system, noting that Taylor committed the assaults after receiving therapy as
the result of the burglary conviction, as well as the fact that sex offender therapy usually
took a minimum of two years, and the juvenile system would have jurisdiction over Taylor
for only one year after he completed such a treatment program. N.T., 4/25/14, at 89-91.
Taylor presented the testimony of Dr. Nicole Machinski, a licensed clinical
psychologist who specializes in the forensic assessment and treatment of juvenile sex
offenders. Id. at 4, 9. Dr. Machinski had conducted her own in-person interview of Taylor,
and she reviewed his extensive history of trauma and attendant psychological problems
4 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 6301-6375.
[J-83-2022] - 3
stemming from neglect and his own physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his uncle.
Id. at 14-15. She observed, however, that as the result of receiving mental health
treatment, he had made progress in dealing with these problems, and his behavior had
improved. Id. at 16-20. Dr. Machinski opined that Taylor “could certainly be treated”
within the juvenile justice system, either on an inpatient or outpatient basis, given that
such treatment programs “are usually, on average, about 12 months,” and that Taylor
would be under the supervision of the juvenile system for the next 3 years. Id. at 22.
As our Court observed in Taylor II, the Commonwealth attempted to rebut Dr.
Machinski’s conclusion that Taylor was amenable to treatment by relying on the fact that
he did not admit to having committed the alleged assaults, nor did he otherwise take
responsibility for his alleged actions. As we noted:
Specifically, the Commonwealth suggested that Taylor was
“in denial” of his need for treatment, prompting a defense
objection, which the court sustained. Id. at 44. The
Commonwealth subsequently posited that “the first step in sex
offender treatment [is] admitting guilt,” id. at 58, and, after the
close of evidence, reiterated its view that Taylor was “in
denial” and that an “admission” would be necessary for
treatment to work in this case. Id. at 109.
Taylor II, 230 A.3d at 1054.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Smyth orally granted the transfer petition
and certified the case to the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, Criminal
Division, for trial. At that time, Judge Smyth explained why he did not consider Taylor to
be amenable to treatment in the juvenile system. One of the principal reasons he cited
was the fact that Taylor refused to admit to committing the sex offenses at issue:
And they won’t admit that he’s committed the sex
offense, and that’s sort of their conundrum, because time is of
the essence. He’s approaching 18 years old. The act -- you
can argue degree of sophistication all you want, but it was a
[J-83-2022] - 4
predatory damaging act that occurred repeatedly over a 1-
year period of time.
If you’re going to go on the sex offenders’ treatment,
it’s important that you admit, No. 1; examine your triggers, No.
2; talk about how you can avoid your triggers; and identify up-
front the depth of the problem. And here, we can’t identify the
depth of the problem largely because we’re not admitting yet
that there is a problem.
What if he were to sit there for a year and a half before
he finally admitted that he did something? I mean, I assume
he’s still denying. Counsel’s arguments have been phrased “if
this is true, it’s a horrendous act.”
They made a distinction when he denied, when he said
to Dr. Buxbaum -- I believe he was a psychiatrist -- “I didn’t do
anything wrong.” Counsel said now he wants to say he
participates in treatment and defense counsel argued, well,
maybe the treatment’s not talking about sex offenders’
treatment. And that’s the very issue, though, is he amenable
to sex offenders’ treatment? And, in the juvenile system, time
is running out. As I said, there is only a few years left, and the
depth -- and if he doesn’t make sufficient progress, he’s 21,
he’s back on the streets, and he’s released from the
jurisdiction of the Court with no supervision at all. That’s the
dilemma.
And when Dr. Machinski in her report indicates the
issues that he needs treatment in and the Commonwealth
argues, well, none of this has to do with amenability within the
statute, well, it might, when you have four other categories. It
would certainly refer to amenability for a crime that’s much
less serious than this. But I don’t know that it means anything
with regard to somebody who’s committed the type of act that
he’s alleged to have committed.
So for all the reasons in the statute as enumerated by
[the Commonwealth] and because it’s the defense burden of
proof, I’m going to grant the Commonwealth’s motion to certify
him to adult court.
N.T., 4/25/14, at 113-15.
The case was transferred, and in June 2016, after a jury trial before the Honorable
William Carpenter, Taylor was convicted of the aforementioned charges. On January 31,
[J-83-2022] - 5
2017, he was sentenced to 10 to 25 years imprisonment, plus 10 years of probation.
Taylor filed a post-sentence motion arguing, inter alia, that the juvenile court erred by
certifying his case based on his refusal to admit to committing the sexual acts which were
the subject of the delinquency petition, and which he contended violated his right under
the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to be free from compulsory self-
incrimination. Judge Carpenter denied the motion.
Taylor appealed to the Superior Court raising, inter alia, his Fifth Amendment
claim. A three-judge panel of the Superior Court rejected the claim in an unpublished
memorandum decision. Commonwealth v. Taylor, No. 856 EDA 2017 (Pa. Super. filed
Sept. 10, 2018) (unpublished memorandum) (“Taylor I”). 5
Relying on its decision in Commonwealth v. Brown, 26 A.3d 485 (Pa. Super. 2011)
(holding that it is a violation of a juvenile’s Fifth Amendment right to be free of compulsory
self-incrimination to require that the juvenile admit guilt for criminal offenses alleged in a
delinquency petition in order to prove his or her amenability to treatment in the juvenile
system), the court acknowledged that the juvenile court erred in relying on Taylor’s failure
to admit guilt, and in finding that such an admission was a necessary step for him to obtain
sex offender treatment in the juvenile system. Nevertheless, the court concluded that,
based on the totality of the evidence presented at the certification hearing, the juvenile
court did not abuse its discretion in transferring Taylor’s case to criminal court.
Taylor sought allowance of appeal from our Court, which we granted to consider
the issue of whether the transfer of a juvenile matter to criminal court based, in part, on
the juvenile’s refusal to admit guilt constituted a violation of the juvenile’s Fifth
Amendment right to be free from compulsory self-incrimination. Ultimately, we reversed
5 The panel decision was authored by Judge Maria McLaughlin and joined by Judge John
Musmanno, with Judge Mary Jane Bowes concurring in the result. Therein, the court also
rejected two other claims Taylor raised, but which are not at issue herein.
[J-83-2022] - 6
the decision of the Superior Court and remanded this case to that tribunal for further
proceedings. In our decision – Taylor II – our Court unanimously adopted the Superior
Court’s conclusion in Brown that the protections of the Fifth Amendment are applicable
to juvenile transfer proceedings. We held:
[T]he Juvenile Act does not countenance the drawing
of an adverse inference from a juvenile’s refusal to admit to
the offenses with which the juvenile is charged. When faced
with a critical decision such as whether to certify a juvenile for
transfer to an adult court for prosecution, a court may not
condition its ruling upon the minor’s assertions of innocence
or invocation of the Fifth Amendment. To do so would place
too high a cost on the juvenile’s constitutional privilege against
compulsory self-incrimination, guaranteed by the Fifth
Amendment.
***
Simply put, a minor’s refusal to confess to an act for
which he or she might be criminally prosecuted as an adult
may not be considered when deciding whether to certify a
case for transfer between juvenile and adult court. This
remains true irrespective of the necessary considerations of
amenability to treatment contemplated by the Juvenile Act or
of the possibility of immunity contained therein. As there is no
way to guarantee that certification would be denied, or
decertification granted, upon an admission of guilt, a minor
cannot be expected to take so broad a leap of faith.
Taylor II, 230 A.3d at 1071-72.
However, our Court was divided on the question of the appropriate remedy.
Justice Wecht, writing for the majority, opined that the United States Supreme Court had
never fashioned a remedy for this type of constitutional violation “in this rare context.” Id.
at 1073. 6 Moreover, he noted that we lacked advocacy on the question of whether this
6 This portion of Justice Wecht’s opinion was joined by this author, as well as then-Chief
Justice Saylor and Justice Mundy.
[J-83-2022] - 7
violation was of the type the high Court considers to be a “structural error,” or one which
is subject to a harmless error review by an appellate court. 7 Id.
The majority concluded that remand of this matter to the Superior Court was
appropriate so it could determine, in the first instance, whether the juvenile court’s
violation of Taylor’s Fifth Amendment right constituted a structural error, or was amenable
to a harmless error analysis. Our Court further directed that, if the Superior Court
determined the harmless error doctrine was not applicable, or if the harmless error
doctrine did apply but the error could not be deemed harmless, the court was to consider
what relief was available. Id. at 1073.
Then-Justice Baer authored a dissent as to this portion of the opinion, which was
joined by Justices Donohue and Dougherty. Justice Baer espoused the view that the
juvenile court’s reliance on a constitutionally impermissible factor in making its decision
to transfer Taylor’s case to adult criminal court was prejudicial, and, as a consequence,
the judgment of the Superior Court affirming that disposition was erroneous and should
simply be reversed.
7 As discussed more fully herein, the United States Supreme Court has broadly described
structural errors as “structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism.” Arizona
v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 309(1991). Hence, “[s]tructural errors are errors that affect the ‘entire conduct of the [proceeding] from beginning to end.’” Greer v. United States,141 S.Ct. 2090, 2100
(2021) (quoting Fulminante,499 U.S. at 309
). A constitutional
violation which is a structural error necessitates the automatic reversal of a defendant’s
criminal conviction on appeal and the grant of a new trial. Id. at 2099.
By contrast, the high Court categorizes harmless errors as “errors or defects that
have little, if any, likelihood of having changed the result of the trial.” Chapman v.
California, 386 U.S. 18, 22(1967). In Chapman, the Court recognized that even a federal constitutional violation may fall within this category of “unimportant and insignificant” errors, such that it does not require automatic reversal of a criminal conviction.Id.
However, in order for a federal constitutional violation to be classified as harmless, the government must “show ‘beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained.’” Weaver v. Massachusetts,137 S.Ct. 1899, 1907
(2017) (quoting Chapman,386 U.S. at 24
).
[J-83-2022] - 8
Further, with respect to the proper remedy for the juvenile court’s violation of
Taylor’s Fifth Amendment right, Justice Baer noted that Taylor had, by the time of our
decision, reached the age of 21. He opined that Taylor could not be tried in adult criminal
court because his crimes occurred while he was a juvenile, nor could his case be
transferred back to the juvenile court for new certification proceedings due to the fact that
that court lost jurisdiction over Taylor when he reached the age of 21. Hence, Justice
Baer would have directed that Taylor be discharged, provided no other criminal charges
were pending against him that would be required to be tried in the adult criminal court
system.
On remand, this matter was assigned to the same Superior Court panel which
heard Taylor’s original appeal from his judgment of sentence, and it received additional
briefing from Taylor and the Commonwealth. In its decision, Commonwealth v. Taylor,
No. 856 EDA 2017 (Pa. Super. filed July 29, 2021) (unpublished memorandum) (“Taylor
III”), 8 the court first considered the question of whether the juvenile court’s denial of
Taylor’s Fifth Amendment right to be free from compulsory self-incrimination constituted
a structural error, or was susceptible to a harmless error analysis.
The court reviewed relevant cases from the United States Supreme Court
establishing when an error committed during a criminal proceeding is of such gravity that
it should be considered structural in nature, such as McCoy v. Louisiana, 138 S.Ct. 1500
(2018) (holding that defense counsel’s admission at trial that his client was guilty, over
the client’s objection, which violated the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel,
was a structural error because it affected the framework within which the trial proceeded
and was not an error in the trial process itself).
8 Just as in its prior decision in Taylor I, this decision was authored by Judge Maria
McLaughlin and again joined by Judge John Musmanno. Once more, Judge Mary Jane
Bowes concurred in the result.
[J-83-2022] - 9
The court also examined cases from our Court holding that violations of certain
constitutional rights, or Pennsylvania statutes, are so prejudicial that they are not subject
to a harmless error analysis, and are “per se” reversible error. See Taylor III, slip op. at
13-16 (discussing Commonwealth v. Lewis, 598 A.2d 975(Pa. 1991) (failure of trial court to give a no adverse inference instruction to the jury regarding a defendant’s failure to testify, even though the instruction was requested); Commonwealth v. Edwards,637 A.2d 259, 260-61
(Pa. 1993) (giving of a “no-adverse-inference” jury instruction regarding the defendant’s failure to testify at trial over defendant’s objection); Commonwealth v. Kelly,724 A.2d 909, 913
(Pa. 1999) (trial court’s use of a mandatory presumption which permitted the jury to conclude a material element of a criminal offense had been met without requiring the Commonwealth to have proven that element beyond a reasonable doubt); Commonwealth v. Bethea,379 A.2d 102
(Pa. 1977) (sentencing judge’s improper reliance on defendant’s exercise of his constitutional right to a jury trial as a reason for choosing the sentence which it imposed); and In the Interest of J.M.G.,229 A.3d 571
,
583 (Pa. 2020) (violation of the psychotherapist-patient privilege by admission of report
made by juvenile’s treating psychiatrist in evidentiary record relied on by the trial court to
order the juvenile’s involuntary civil commitment for mental health treatment as a sexually
violent delinquent child under “Act 21”9)). Applying the principles derived from these
cases, the court concluded that the juvenile court’s denial of Taylor’s Fifth Amendment
right was a structural error.
The court highlighted that the Fifth Amendment right to be free from compulsory
self-incrimination does not just protect against the prospect of an erroneous conviction,
but serves another interest — namely, the foundational precept that a person should not
be compelled to offer testimony by the threat that his refusal to do so will be held against
9 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 6401-6409.
[J-83-2022] - 10
him. Here, the court reasoned that the juvenile court presented Taylor with what
amounted to the quintessential “Hobson’s choice,” either admit his guilt at the certification
hearing and risk having the admission used against him if the case is transferred to
criminal court, or remain silent and have his silence held against him by the juvenile court
in deciding whether to certify his case for trial in criminal court. The court considered this
untenable choice to be functionally equivalent to the constitutional violation occasioned
by a court’s failure to inform a jury that it may not draw an adverse inference from a
defendant’s silence, and it reasoned that when a juvenile court erroneously relies on this
impermissible consideration, it becomes “intertwined with the decision to certify the case,
[and] can never be harmless.” Taylor III, slip op. at 18-19.
The Superior Court next considered the appropriate remedy. The Commonwealth,
in its supplemental briefing, argued that the court should remand the case to the court of
common pleas for a new certification hearing. The Commonwealth contended that this
would be akin to what the United States Supreme Court did to cure an improper waiver
of a juvenile’s case to adult criminal court in the case of Kent v. United States, 383 U.S.
541 (1966), 10 discussed at greater length herein, and that such a course of action was
appropriate because “the structure of District of Columbia and Pennsylvania laws in this
regard are similar, and . . . should be interpreted similarly.” Taylor III, slip op. at 21.
10 Briefly, in Kent, a juvenile who was arrested in the District of Columbia (D.C.) and
charged with multiple crimes had his case “waived” to adult criminal court by a juvenile
court judge who did not hold a hearing or appoint counsel for the juvenile. After the
juvenile was tried and convicted, the high Court reversed his conviction because of the
judge’s violation of the juvenile’s right to counsel and due process; however, because the
juvenile was over 21, a remand to juvenile court was not possible. Nevertheless, due to
the fact that, under the unique structure of the D.C. court system, the D.C. district court
which heard adult criminal matters was statutorily empowered to also act as a juvenile
court, the high Court remanded the case to the district court to conduct a new hearing to
determine if waiver was appropriate.
[J-83-2022] - 11
In the instant matter, the Commonwealth argued to the Superior Court that this
matter could similarly be remanded to the criminal division of the court of common pleas
to conduct a new certification hearing. The Commonwealth posited that, because Article
V, Section 5 of the Pennsylvania Constitution 11 confers unlimited jurisdiction on the court
of common pleas (except as otherwise provided by law), and because 42 Pa.C.S. § 952 12
vests each division of the court of common pleas “with the full jurisdiction of the whole
court,” Taylor III, slip op. at 22, in situations where a particular division of the court of
common pleas which has been assigned jurisdiction over a particular kind of case is
unavailable, then another division may assume jurisdiction, unless the law provides
otherwise. The Commonwealth asserted that, because the juvenile division of the court
of common pleas was not available to conduct Taylor’s certification hearing, the criminal
division could therefore conduct the hearing.
The Superior Court, however, declined to follow this course of action based on our
Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Johnson, 669 A.2d 315 (Pa. 1995) (holding that a
transfer of a case by the criminal division of the court of common pleas to the juvenile
11 This amendment states:
There shall be one court of common pleas for each judicial
district (a) having such divisions and consisting of such
number of judges as shall be provided by law, one of whom
shall be the president judge; and (b) having unlimited original
jurisdiction in all cases except as may otherwise be provided
by law.
Pa. Const. art. V, § 5.
12 This section provides:
The divisions of a court of common pleas are administrative
units composed of those judges of the court responsible for
the transaction of specified classes of the business of the
court. In a court of common pleas having two or more divisions
each division of the court is vested with the full jurisdiction of
the whole court, but the business of the court may be allocated
among the divisions of the court by or pursuant to general
rules.
42 Pa.C.S. § 952.
[J-83-2022] - 12
division of that court was proper under 42 Pa.C.S. § 6322 13 because the criminal court
had jurisdiction to consider the petition, 14 and the evidence of record supported its transfer
decision). The court interpreted this decision as establishing that the criminal division of
the court of common pleas has no jurisdiction to conduct juvenile certification hearings,
citing our conclusion in that case that, through the Juvenile Act, the legislature had
conferred “limited and exclusive jurisdiction in [the Juvenile Division] of the Court of
Common Pleas, in order to meet the special needs of our youth.” Taylor III, slip op. at 28
13 This statute provides:
(a) General rule.--Except as provided in 75 Pa.C.S. § 6303
(relating to rights and liabilities of minors) or in the event the
child is charged with murder or any of the offenses excluded
by paragraph (2)(ii) or (iii) of the definition of “delinquent act”
in section 6302 (relating to definitions) or has been found
guilty in a criminal proceeding, if it appears to the court in a
criminal proceeding that the defendant is a child, this chapter
shall immediately become applicable, and the court shall
forthwith halt further criminal proceedings, and, where
appropriate, transfer the case to the division or a judge of the
court assigned to conduct juvenile hearings, together with a
copy of the accusatory pleading and other papers,
documents, and transcripts of testimony relating to the case.
If it appears to the court in a criminal proceeding charging
murder or any of the offenses excluded by paragraph (2)(ii) or
(iii) of the definition of “delinquent act” in section 6302, that the
defendant is a child, the case may similarly be transferred and
the provisions of this chapter applied. In determining whether
to transfer a case charging murder or any of the offenses
excluded from the definition of “delinquent act” in section
6302, the child shall be required to establish by a
preponderance of the evidence that the transfer will serve the
public interest. In determining whether the child has so
established that the transfer will serve the public interest, the
court shall consider the factors contained in section
6355(a)(4)(iii) (relating to transfer to criminal proceedings).
42 Pa.C.S. § 6322.
14 Such petitions are known as “decertification” petitions. Commonwealth v. Green, 291
A.3d 317, 318 n.1 (Pa. 2023).
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(quoting Johnson, 669 A.2d at 320) (emphasis deleted). (We discuss Johnson further
below.)
The Superior Court opined that, under Section 6303(a)(1)-(2) of the Juvenile Act, 15
the juvenile division of the court of common pleas has exclusive jurisdiction to decide
whether to transfer a matter to the criminal division of that court. However, it concluded
that, because Taylor was over 21, the juvenile court no longer had jurisdiction over him
under 42 Pa.C.S. § 6302, 16 and it could not conduct another certification hearing. The
Superior Court further found that, because the initial certification was improper, the court
of common pleas did not have jurisdiction to try Taylor, given our Court’s holding in
Johnson that transfer orders between the juvenile and criminal divisions are jurisdictional
in nature, and if an order transferring a case is improper, jurisdiction never vests in the
receiving court. Taylor III, slip op. at 30 (citing Johnson, 669 A.2d at 321). The court
reasoned that, because the General Assembly did not create any type of statutory
framework to provide a court with jurisdiction to conduct a certification hearing for an
individual in Taylor’s situation — where a certification order is reversed on appeal but the
juvenile turns 21 before the appellate process is completed — and because the court
deemed it lacked authority to create such jurisdiction of its own volition, it ultimately
15 This section provides:
(a) General rule.--This chapter shall apply exclusively to the
following:
(1) Proceedings in which a child is alleged to be delinquent or
dependent.
(2) Transfers under section 6322 (relating to transfer from
criminal proceedings).
42 Pa.C.S. § 6303.
16 This provision defines a “child” who is subject to the Act, in relevant part, as:
An individual who:
(1) is under the age of 18 years; [or]
(2) is under the age of 21 years who committed an act of
delinquency before reaching the age of 18 years[.]
42 Pa.C.S. § 6302.
[J-83-2022] - 14
concluded that dismissal was the only appropriate remedy; accordingly, it reversed
Taylor’s judgment of sentence and discharged him. Id.
The Commonwealth subsequently petitioned our Court for allowance of appeal,
which we granted, 17 in order to consider two questions: Whether the juvenile court’s
erroneous reliance on Taylor’s refusal to waive his Fifth Amendment right to be free from
compulsory self-incrimination in its certification decision constituted structural error, or
was subject to review under a harmless error standard; and, if the juvenile court
committed reversible error, what was the appropriate remedy?
II. Nature of the error committed by the juvenile court
We first address the question regarding the nature of the juvenile court’s error in
impermissibly considering Taylor’s refusal to admit guilt as a basis for its decision to
transfer his case to the criminal court.
A. Arguments
The Commonwealth contends that the juvenile court’s violation of Taylor’s Fifth
Amendment right does not fit into the limited category of deprivations of constitutional
rights which the United States Supreme Court has regarded as structural error and,
hence, incapable of remedy through a harmless error analysis. In this regard, the
Commonwealth highlights that, in Fulminante, supra,the high Court grouped constitutional errors into two classes: (1) those which occur during the presentation of evidence in a criminal trial to the jury, and, thus, are capable of being “quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented in order to determine whether its admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt;” and (2) those which are “structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism . . . affecting the framework within which 17 Commonwealth v. Taylor,275 A.3d 484
, 485 (Pa. 2022) (order).
[J-83-2022] - 15
the trial proceeds, rather than simply an error in the trial process itself.” Commonwealth
Brief at 43-44 (quoting Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 308, 309-10).
The Commonwealth develops that, subsequent to Fulminante, in McCoy, supra,the United States Supreme Court further described three subcategories of errors that might be considered structural in accord with Fulminante because, according to the Commonwealth’s interpretation, they potentially impact the whole process of a trial, not just a portion of it: (1) errors affecting a right that is not just intended to protect a defendant from erroneous conviction, but a right which “protects some other interest, such as the fundamental legal principle that a defendant must be allowed to make his own choices about the proper way to protect his own liberty;” (2) errors whose “effects are too hard to measure, as is true of the right to counsel of choice;” and (3) “where the error will inevitably signal fundamental unfairness, as . . . a judge’s failure to tell the jury that it may not convict unless it finds the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”Id.
at 44-45 (quoting McCoy,138 S.Ct. at 1511
) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Commonwealth posits that, under these criteria, the juvenile court’s
constitutional violation in this matter was subject to a harmless error analysis because it
was, in the Commonwealth’s view, “simply an error in the . . . process itself, capable of
quantitative assessment, and not a structural defect affecting the framework in which the
proceeding took place.” Id. at 47 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Specifically, the Commonwealth argues that, of the seven factors enumerated by
Section 6355(a)(4)(iii) the Juvenile Act 18 which a juvenile court must weigh in determining
18 This portion of the Juvenile Act provides:
(a) General rule.--After a petition has been filed alleging
delinquency based on conduct which is designated a crime or
public offense under the laws, including local ordinances, of
this Commonwealth, the court before hearing the petition on
its merits may rule that this chapter is not applicable and that
(continued…)
[J-83-2022] - 16
the offense should be prosecuted, and transfer the offense,
where appropriate, to the division or a judge of the court
assigned to conduct criminal proceedings, for prosecution of
the offense if all of the following exist:
* * *
(4) The court finds:
* * *
(iii) that there are reasonable grounds to believe
that the public interest is served by the transfer
of the case for criminal prosecution. In
determining whether the public interest can be
served, the court shall consider the following
factors:
(A) the impact of the offense on the victim
or victims;
(B) the impact of the offense on the
community;
(C) the threat to the safety of the public
or any individual posed by the child;
(D) the nature and circumstances of the
offense allegedly committed by the child;
(E) the degree of the child’s culpability;
(F) the adequacy and duration of
dispositional alternatives available under
this chapter and in the adult criminal
justice system; and
(G) whether the child is amenable to
treatment, supervision or rehabilitation
as a juvenile by considering the following
factors:
(I) age;
(II) mental capacity;
(III) maturity;
(IV) the degree of criminal
sophistication exhibited by the
child;
(V) previous records, if any;
(VI) the nature and extent of any
prior delinquent history, including
the success or failure of any
previous attempts by the juvenile
court to rehabilitate the child;
(continued…)
[J-83-2022] - 17
whether a juvenile has met the burden of showing that his or her case should remain in
the juvenile system, the trial court’s erroneous consideration of Taylor’s refusal to waive
his Fifth Amendment right affected only two of them: the degree of his culpability, and his
amenability to treatment, supervision, and rehabilitation. However, the Commonwealth
asserts that this error did not impact the juvenile court’s consideration of the remaining
five factors, which the Commonwealth maintains did not depend on whether he actually
committed the crime and were, in and of themselves, sufficient to justify the transfer of
his case to adult criminal court. Hence, the Commonwealth reasons that the requirement
that Taylor admit his guilt is the type of error which the high Court would view as harmless,
given that it was merely an error in process, and did not affect the framework of the overall
certification analysis.
The Commonwealth distinguishes this matter from the types of errors the high
Court deemed structural in prior cases, such as the use of a coerced confession at trial,
Payne v. Arkansas, 356 U.S. 560(1958), the denial of the right to counsel, Gideon v. Wainwright,372 U.S. 335
(1963), and a judge presiding over a trial who was not impartial, Tumey v. Ohio,273 U.S. 510
(1927), as well as the errors which our Court deemed
structural or per se in Lewis, Kelly, and the Interest of J.M.B., supra, on the basis that in
those cases the defendant’s liberty was directly at stake in the proceedings. The
Commonwealth asserts that, to the contrary, Taylor’s liberty was not directly at stake in
the certification hearing since, at most, the result of the error was what actually transpired
(VII) whether the child can be
rehabilitated prior to the expiration
of the juvenile court jurisdiction;
(VIII) probation or institutional
reports, if any;
(IX) any other relevant factors;
* * *
42 Pa.C.S. § 6355 (a).
[J-83-2022] - 18
here — a trial by a jury of his peers at which he had full due process protections. Rather,
the Commonwealth characterizes what was ultimately at stake for Taylor as merely “his
conditional statutory right to remain in the juvenile system,” Commonwealth Brief at 56,
and, for this reason also, it argues that our Court should exempt this error from the
category of recognized structural errors. 19
Taylor responds by emphasizing that the type of error the juvenile court committed
was, as our Court recognized in our prior opinion, “fundamental.” Taylor Brief at 19
(quoting Taylor II, 230 A.3d at 1072). Likewise, Taylor highlights that the Superior Court
agreed that the violation of his Fifth Amendment right was of the utmost gravity, given
that this right is “essential to the criminal justice system,” and that it serves not just to
19 The Pennsylvania Attorney General has submitted a thoughtful amicus brief tracing
the evolution of the harmless error doctrine, which emphasizes that, at one time, all
federal constitutional errors were automatically grounds for reversal, but that the modern
trend is for reviewing courts to distinguish between structural and trial process errors, in
accord with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Chapman, and its subsequent decisions
in Fulminante and McCoy. The Attorney General suggests that the modern state of the
high Court’s jurisprudence is to treat most constitutional errors as being subject to a
harmless error analysis, with only a few narrow exceptions set out in cases such as
Payne, Gideon, and Tumey, supra, in which it categorically treated those particular
constitutional violations as reversible error.
The Attorney General thus suggests that the error in this case should be treated in
a manner that comports with this trend by regarding it as subject to a harmless error
analysis, particularly where the high Court has not definitively established that,
categorically, a denial of one’s Fifth Amendment right is a structural error, and, indeed, in
Fulminante, deemed other Fifth Amendment violations such as the improper admission
into evidence of “involuntary statements or confessions” as subject to a harmless error
analysis. See Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 310. The Attorney General also maintains that
our cases, such as, Interest of J.M.B. and Lewis are inapposite, as they concern a right
protected by a Pennsylvania statute and the right to be protected from compulsory self-
incrimination by the Pennsylvania Constitution, respectively, not the United States
Constitution.
The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association also submitted an amicus brief
supporting the Commonwealth’s view that the error in this matter was not structural
because, unlike in the other cases relied on by the Superior Court in its decision in Taylor
III discussed above, Taylor’s liberty was not directly affected by the error.
[J-83-2022] - 19
protect against an unfair conviction but to protect “the foundational principle that a person
should not face the cruel trilemma of self-accusation, perjury or contempt.” Id. at 20
(quoting Taylor III, slip op. at 17).
Taylor avers that for this reason the error cannot be considered a de minimis one,
which he contends our Court has specified is the only type of error of this class which
may be considered harmless. Taylor likens the error by the juvenile court in his case to
the error committed by the trial court in Lewis in denying the defendant his requested “no
adverse inference” jury instruction. Id.Taylor notes we specifically rejected an argument made by the Commonwealth in that case, similar to the argument it makes herein, that, merely because there existed other allegedly overwhelming evidence to justify the ultimate outcome, the gravity of the error could be weighed against that evidence. To the contrary, our Court underscored that, because the constitutional right which was violated in that case – to decline to testify – was “fundamental,” Lewis,598 A.2d at 982
, the error
could never be categorized as harmless, as it was of far greater magnitude than the type
of de minimis errors which our Court regards as harmless. Taylor contends the error in
his case is of the same degree as the error in Lewis because it too involved the Fifth
Amendment right to not be compelled to incriminate himself. Indeed, in Taylor’s view,
this error was of even greater impact than the one in Lewis, since in that case it was
unclear whether the defendant was actually penalized by the finder of fact due to the
constitutional violation, whereas, by contrast, in the case at bar “the juvenile court
expressly and explicitly held Taylor’s failure to incriminate himself against him.” Taylor
Brief at 22 (emphasis original).
Taylor develops that, after Lewis, our Court’s jurisprudence has been consistent in
concluding that, whenever a court erroneously deprives an individual of rights that are “so
fundamental to our justice system and a fair trial that their violation can never be treated
[J-83-2022] - 20
as harmless error,” such an error will be considered structural in nature. Id. at 23-24
(discussing Kelly and In the Interest of J.M.G.). Taylor asserts that, whenever a certifying
court violates a juvenile’s Fifth Amendment right, this results in the same level of harm as
that inflicted by the particular structural errors the high Court identified in Chapman, supra:
the use of a coerced confession at trial, the deprivation of an accused’s right to counsel,
and the deprivation of an accused’s right to an impartial decision-maker.
Taylor argues that, whenever a juvenile court conducting certification proceedings
violates a juvenile’s Fifth Amendment right in this fashion, it is analogous to coercing an
individual into confessing to a crime and then using that confession at trial, given that a
juvenile in his position is forced to “admit to the underlying conduct to satisfy the
certification court for the opportunity at staying within the juvenile system, knowing that
admission would be used at trial by the Commonwealth, or remain silent and have that
[exercise of his constitutional right] used against them as a reason for the certification.”
Id. at 24. He reiterates that this type of violation cannot be treated as harmless error, since, as the Superior Court recognized, the reliance by the juvenile court on this fact was “intertwined with the decision to certify the case, and[] similar to a court’s failure to inform a jury that it may not draw an adverse inference from a defendant’s silence,” which is always a structural error.Id.
at 24-25 (quoting Taylor III, slip op. at 19).
Taylor emphasizes that our Court has recognized that, whenever a trial court
makes a structural error of this kind, its additional reliance on other valid reasons for
rendering a particular decision does not cure that violation. Taylor notes that we
underscored this principle in Commonwealth v. Bethea, 379 A.2d 102 (Pa. 1977), a case
in which a trial court based the defendant’s enhanced sentence, in part, on his insistence
in proceeding to a jury trial, as was his fundamental right under the United States and
[J-83-2022] - 21
Pennsylvania Constitutions, 20 rather than pleading guilty. Taylor highlights that our Court
reversed the defendant’s judgment of sentence, based on our conclusion that the trial
court’s mere consideration of other proper factors in fashioning its sentence did not cure
the trial court’s erroneous penalizing of the defendant for the exercise of his constitutional
rights.
Taylor further notes that, significantly, the high Court itself in Kent, supra,categorically rejected the notion that an invalid certification decision by a juvenile court ever can be regarded as harmless. Taylor Brief at 26 (quoting Kent,383 U.S. at 563-64
(“[T]he [transfer] question was primarily and initially one for the Juvenile Court to decide
and its failure to do so in a valid manner cannot be said to be harmless error.”)) (emphasis
omitted).
Taylor disputes the Commonwealth’s assertion that either Fulminante or McCoy
compel a different result. Taylor points out that Fulminante’s keystone principle is that an
error will be deemed structural whenever it affects the framework in which the trial itself
proceeds, and this is precisely what the juvenile court error did in this case. In this regard,
he offers that the framework of the juvenile court system and the adult criminal court
system are fundamentally different: in the juvenile court system, the juvenile receives a
hearing before a juvenile court judge, who renders an adjudication of delinquency,
whereas, in the adult system, the juvenile is subjected to a full criminal trial, the result of
which may be, as here, a criminal conviction. Taylor notes also that, under the juvenile
system, court supervision ends upon the juvenile attaining the age of 21, whereas in the
adult system there is no upper limit to the length of court supervision. Importantly, Taylor
20 See U.S. Const. amend. VI (“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the
crime shall have been committed . . . .”); Pa. Const. art. I, § 6 (“Trial by jury shall be as
heretofore, and the right thereof remain inviolate.”); § 9 (“In all criminal prosecutions the
accused hath a right to . . . a speedy public trial by an impartial jury of the vicinage . . . .”).
[J-83-2022] - 22
stresses that the objectives of the two court systems are fundamentally different, with the
juvenile system focused on the supervision, care, and rehabilitation of the juvenile through
the employment of a variety of resources. By contrast, rehabilitation is not the primary
objective of the adult criminal justice system, which has as its central goal the affixing of
criminal responsibility and imposing punishment once a conviction has been rendered
after a trial.
With respect to McCoy, Taylor argues that his case falls into each of the three
classes of errors the high Court suggested therein might constitute structural error. In
regards to the first category, he reasons that the error committed by the juvenile court in
his case involves a fundamentally important interest separate from merely the prevention
of a wrongful conviction, given that it coerced him into waiving his fundamental right
against self-incrimination which, as the Superior Court recognized, is a right that also
protects an individual from the indignity of being compelled to take the witness stand and
provide information which is against his own interest.
Concerning the second class of potential structural errors, in Taylor’s view, the
effects of the juvenile court’s error are simply too difficult to measure for a harmless error
analysis to be utilized. He points out that, as a result of the juvenile court’s error, he was
deprived of three years of rehabilitation and therapy from which he could have benefitted,
as well as denied more specialized and focused treatment and supervision programs
geared towards his successful re-entry into the community. By contrast, in the adult
system, he has been imprisoned with adult offenders and has not received the same
rehabilitative treatment, and he now faces 35 years of supervision which is, as he notes,
twice as long as he had been alive at the time the delinquency petition was filed.
Moreover, Taylor underscores that, absent this error, it is uncertain what the juvenile
[J-83-2022] - 23
court’s certification decision would have been, or what the ultimate outcome of a
delinquency hearing would have been if one had been held.
Lastly, Taylor asserts that this error “signals a fundamental unfairness that cannot
be minimized as an error in process.” Taylor Brief at 29. In his view, if the error of the
juvenile court is treated as de minimis, as the Commonwealth advocates, juveniles
seeking to avail themselves of the protections of the juvenile system could be denied
those protections by coercion into giving up their fundamental constitutional rights. 21
21 The Juvenile Law Center, Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project, and Youth
Sentencing and Re-Entry Project have jointly filed an amicus brief in support of Taylor’s
claim that the trial court’s constitutionally deficient certification decision was not subject
to a harmless error analysis. These amici stress that a wrongful certification of a juvenile
case to adult criminal court cannot be considered harmless to the juvenile by any
measure, due to the fact that such a wrongful transfer irrevocably changes the juvenile’s
entire experience of the criminal justice process.
Specifically, they note that, when juveniles are detained in adult facilities they
experience substantial and unique harms, due to the harsh and brutal conditions existing
therein, and they are significantly more likely to suffer sexual and other forms of assault
at the hands of inmates. Brief of Juvenile Law Center, et al., at 5 (citing Richard E.
Redding, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, Juvenile Transfer Laws: An Effective Deterrent to Delinquency? 7 (June
2010)). Amici underscore that even protective measures for juveniles in those facilities
can, in and of themselves, be irrevocably damaging to juveniles’ mental health, as such
measures usually involve long periods of solitary confinement. Amici highlight the fact
that the overall experience of being incarcerated in an adult facility generally results in an
increased risk of suicide for juveniles.
Moreover, amici assert that, because adult prisons lack the educational, vocational
and social skills training offered by juvenile facilities, the developmental process of
juveniles incarcerated in adult prisons is significantly impaired because of their
confinement, and the collateral consequences to a juvenile of a conviction and sentence
that results from the wrongful certification will greatly harm their future educational and
employment prospects.
Additionally, amici point out that improper certification strikes at the core
constitutional interest of protecting against deprivation of liberty without legal justification,
given that juveniles who are tried and convicted for criminal offenses in the adult criminal
system are far more likely to be confined, and also to remain confined for longer periods
of time, than had they been adjudicated delinquent in the juvenile system for the same
offenses.
Further, amici highlight substantial social science research which shows that one
of the supposed rationales for subjecting juveniles to the adult criminal justice system —
(continued…)
[J-83-2022] - 24
B. Discussion
With these arguments in mind, we turn now to the question of whether the juvenile
court’s erroneous reliance on Taylor’s refusal to waive his Fifth Amendment right to be
free from compulsory self-incrimination in its certification decision constitutes structural
error, or is subject to review under a harmless error standard. 22
Historically, the concept of categorizing errors which occurred in criminal
proceedings as harmless for purposes of appellate review grew out of a general
prudential recognition that, in order for courts to be able to fulfill their societal duty to
administer justice in an orderly and timely fashion, not every error which occurred in the
process of a criminal trial necessitated the reversal of the ultimate judgment and remand
for an entirely new trial. At one time, in the mid-1800s, appellate review under the English
and American common law was equally rigid. Courts in both countries followed what was
that they will somehow be deterred by the experience from committing future crimes,
thereby making society safer — has not been borne out by actual facts. They note
psychological studies show that most juvenile offenders had no knowledge they could be
certified to adult court as a consequence of their actions. See generally Karen Miner-
Romanoff, J.D., Ph.D., Juvenile Offenders Tried As Adults: What They Know and
Implications for Practitioners, 41 N. Ky. L. Rev. 205, 221 (2014) (summarizing research). Thus, given that it is well-recognized that juveniles’ decision-making skills, particularly their capability to weigh the potential benefits against potential risks attendant to particular types of conduct, are not well-developed, as recognized by the high Court, see, e.g. Miller v. Alabama,567 U.S. 460, 477
(describing the “hallmark features” attendant to a juvenile’s
age as “immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences”), amici
assert that the prospect of facing adult trial and attendant penalties has minimal effect in
deterring juveniles from committing offenses. Indeed, amici aver that empirical evidence
demonstrates the net result of incarcerating juveniles in adult prisons undermines the goal
of enhancing public safety, given that those individuals are more likely to commit other
criminal offenses after release than individuals facing the same criminal charges whose
cases were adjudicated in the juvenile system. Brief of Juvenile Law Center at 12 (citing
Redding, supra, at 6.).
22 Since assessing whether an error is structural or subject to the harmless error doctrine
presents a pure question of law, our standard of review is de novo, and our scope of
review is plenary. In the Interest of J.M.G., 229 A.3d at 577.
[J-83-2022] - 25
known as “the Exchequer Rule” 23 which required a new trial be granted automatically
whenever a judge erred in admitting or rejecting the admission of a particular item of
evidence in a criminal trial, irrespective of what other properly admitted evidence existed
to support the verdict. LaFave, 7 Criminal Procedure § 27.6(a) (4th ed. 2022) (hereinafter
“LaFave”). The rationale for this rule was a presumption that every such evidentiary error
was prejudicial and, thus, required a new trial, as well as the belief that appellate courts
should not invade the jury’s fact-finding function by discounting the improperly admitted
evidence and evaluating whether the remaining evidence was sufficient to establish guilt.
Id.
English courts subsequently expanded the application of this rule of automatic
retrial to cases in which a judge erred in instructing the jury. Id. However, the utilization
of this rule led to an ever-burgeoning multiplicity of retrials that overwhelmed the English
court system, such that it was said that “English litigation ‘seemed to survive until the
parties expired.’” Id. (quoting Goldberg, Harmless Error: Constitutional Sneak Thief, 71
Journal Criminal Law and Criminology 421, 422 (1980)). In response to this situation, an
Act of Parliament, the Judicature Act of 1873, repudiated the Exchequer Rule and
decreed that courts of appeal could not order a new trial based on improper admission of
evidence or erroneous jury instructions unless the Court was of the opinion “some
substantial wrong or miscarriage has thereby been occasioned.” Id. Thus, the concept
of requiring some showing of prejudice caused by a trial court error became engrafted
into the appellate process of English courts.
23 Although it continues to be the subject of debate among legal scholars, the rule was
ostensibly so named because it was announced by the English Court of the Exchequer
in the case of Crease v. Barrett, 149 Eng. Rep. 1353 (Ex. 1835). See generally Gessner
Harley Harrison, State v. Harrison, the Harmless Error Doctrine, and Criminal Sentencing
in Arizona: Is the Holstun Rule Constitutional?, 31 Ariz. St. L.J. 1395, 1442 n.44 (1999).
[J-83-2022] - 26
Here in America, however, courts which still adhered closely to English common
law in the 1800s, and had begun following the Exchequer Rule at approximately the same
time as the English courts, did not abandon the rule even after it had been abrogated in
England; to the contrary, they expanded it to a wider range of trial errors, particularly in
criminal proceedings. Id.Thus, reversals of criminal convictions for minor technical defects in some aspects of the trial process, which were not in the nature of constitutional violations, became commonplace. See, e.g., State v. Sheppard,39 S.E. 676
(W.V. 1901) (murder trial in which the brief absence of the defendant in the courtroom while a witness was asked to state her name, and that of her husband for the record, even though the same questions were asked of the witness when the defendant was present, necessitated a new trial); People v. St. Clair,56 Cal. 406, 407
(Cal. 1880) (reversing felony criminal
conviction because the charge of “larceny” was spelled “Larcey” in the charging
indictment).
Gradually, the number of retrials due to these types of errors increased, and,
correspondingly, so did criticism of American appellate courts by legal commentators and
the public as a whole. LaFave, § 27.6(a); see also Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S.
750, 759(1946) (noting that courts of appeal had become viewed as towering “above the trials of criminal cases as impregnable citadels of technicality,” and, as a result, “in many jurisdictions . . . criminal trial became a game for sowing reversible error in the record, only to have repeated the same matching of wits when a new trial had been thus obtained”). In response, noted legal figures such as William Howard Taft, Roscoe Pound, and John Wigmore led a crusade to reform these practices. Kotteakos,328 U.S. at 759
.
Their efforts, which garnered broad public support, were successful, and by the mid-
1920s, 18 states and the United States Congress (with respect to federal courts of
appeals and the United States Supreme Court) by statute restricted appellate reversals
[J-83-2022] - 27
for harmless errors, i.e., technical errors which did not prejudice a litigant’s substantial
rights. Id. Another 10 states imposed such restrictions through judicial action. LaFave,
§ 27.6(a). 24 This trend ultimately became a universal tenet of appellate review for non-
constitutional errors in state trials, such that, by the mid-1960s, all states had either
harmless error statutes or similar court rules.
It was against this historical backdrop that, in 1967, the United States Supreme
Court in Chapman, supra, addressed the question of whether a violation of the United
States Constitution in a criminal trial could be considered a harmless error, and, if so,
under what circumstances such an error could be designated as such. Prior to this time,
the high Court had, upon the finding of a constitutional error in a defendant’s criminal trial,
always reversed the defendant’s conviction and remanded the case for a new trial.
However, Chapman marked a watershed break from that prior practice.
Therein, the high Court explained that questions of whether violations of state law
or state procedure constituted harmless error were purely questions of state law, whereas
violations of federal constitutional guarantees required the Court to fashion an appropriate
rule to protect all individuals from state infractions of federal constitutional provisions that
violated their fundamental federal constitutional rights. Chapman, 386 U.S. at 21. The Court then proceeded to articulate what it considered to be the appropriate rule to 24 By this time, our Court was also categorizing certain types of non-constitutional errors which occurred in criminal and civil trials as harmless, i.e., non-prejudicial. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Lyons,129 A. 86, 87
(Pa. 1925) (district attorney’s improper question to defendant regarding his arrest for assaulting his wife “did the defendant no possible harm,” because defendant’s counsel had informed the jury of the arrest in his opening statement); Hoff v. Kauffman,128 A. 120, 122
(Pa. 1925) (acknowledging that pleadings
in the case were “unnecessarily verbose,” and thus lacked the conciseness required by
statute then governing civil claims in Pennsylvania courts, but refusing to reverse a
judgment entered after a jury verdict on this basis, because “[t]he error . . . was not a
harmful one, and hence there is no reason for a reversal”).
[J-83-2022] - 28
determine whether federal constitutional violations in state criminal proceedings
constituted harmless error.
The appellant in Chapman argued for adoption of a per se rule — that federal
constitutional violations in criminal proceedings should always be considered harmful.
The Court, however, rejected that argument. The Court took judicial notice of the fact
that all 50 states, as well as Congress, had adopted harmless error statutes by that time.
The Court noted the purpose of these rules was, as discussed above, to “block setting
aside convictions for small errors or defects that have little, if any, likelihood of having
changed the result of the trial.” Id. at 22. The Court concluded “that there may be some
constitutional errors which in the setting of a particular case are so unimportant and
insignificant that they may, consistent with the Federal Constitution, be deemed harmless,
not requiring the automatic reversal of a conviction.” Id. (emphasis added).
The high Court acknowledged, however, that there were significant adverse
consequences which could arise from an overly broad harmless error rule, given that such
a rule could “work very unfair and mischievous results when . . . highly important and
persuasive evidence, or argument, though legally forbidden, finds its way into a trial in
which the question of guilt or innocence is a close one.” Id. Notably, the Court further
recognized that there are “some constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their
infraction can never be treated as harmless error.” Id. at 23 (citing as examples Payne,
supra(use of a coerced confession at trial);Gideon, supra
(the denial of the right to counsel), andTumey, supra
(judge who was not impartial presiding over a trial)).
However, for federal constitutional violations which were not of this nature, the Court
required that the burden of proof be placed on the party claiming the violation was
harmless to convince an appellate court that the error “was harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt.” Id. at 24.
[J-83-2022] - 29
With its Chapman decision, the high Court thus established that “some” violations
of federal constitutional rights would be subject to appellate review under this harmless
error standard, except those violations which are “basic to a fair trial.” Id. at 23. The latter
category of violations would, as consistent with its prior jurisprudence, automatically result
in the grant of a new trial, given that their effect was to wholly deprive a defendant of his
or her right to a fair trial.
In the aftermath of Chapman, the high Court further differentiated between these
two categories of errors. In Fulminante, supra,the Court addressed the question of whether the admission of an involuntary confession could be subjected to a harmless error analysis, despite its prior suggestion to the contrary in Chapman. The Court, in a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, differentiated between a “trial error” – i.e., an “error which occurred during the presentation of the case to the jury,”499 U.S. at 307
– and structural errors – i.e., errors which are “structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism,”id. at 309
. The Court found that the former type of error was subject to a harmless error analysis because it “may . . . be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented in order to determine whether its admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,”id. at 307-08
, whereas structural errors, by contrast, defy such analysis given that they affect the entire conduct of the trial from beginning to end, and they deny to the defendant basic constitutional protections which ensure that a criminal trial reliably determines guilt or innocence, and, also, fail to ensure that any punishment imposed as a result of the trial is “fundamentally fair,”id. at 309-10
. 25
More recently, the high Court clarified that “the term ‘structural error’ carries with it
no talismanic significance as a doctrinal matter. It means only that the government is not
25 Ultimately, however, a majority of the Court joined Justice Byron White’s separate
opinion which found that admission of the coerced confession at issue in the case was
not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
[J-83-2022] - 30
entitled to deprive the defendant of a new trial by showing that the error was ‘harmless
beyond a reasonable doubt.’” Weaver v. Massachusetts, 137 S.Ct. 1899, 1910(2017) (quoting Chapman,386 U.S. at 24
). Thus, “in the case of a structural error where there is an objection at trial and the issue is raised on direct appeal, the defendant generally is entitled to ‘automatic reversal’ regardless of the error’s actual ‘effect on the outcome.’”Id.
Importantly, the Court, consistent with Chapman, emphasized that the core purpose
of classifying a constitutional violation as structural in nature and excluding it from
harmless error review was to “ensure insistence on certain basic, constitutional
guarantees that should define the framework of any criminal trial.” Id. at 1907.
In accordance with these principles, the Court outlined three categories of
constitutional violations which it considered to be structural errors. The first was a
violation of a constitutional right that is “not designed to protect the defendant from
erroneous conviction but instead protects some other interest,” such as, for example, the
right of an individual to conduct his or her own defense, inasmuch as impairment of that
right contravenes the legal principle undergirding the constitutional guarantee – namely,
that a defendant has the fundamental right to make choices regarding the protection of
his or her own liberty. Weaver, 137 S.Ct. at 1908; accord McCoy,138 S.Ct. at 1511
.
The second category concerned those situations where “the effects of the error
are simply too hard to measure,” for instance, where a defendant is denied the right to
proceed with counsel of his or her choosing. Weaver, 137 S.Ct. at 1908. The Court reasoned that, in such situations, “the precise effect of the violation cannot be ascertained,” and “[b]ecause the government will, as a result, find it almost impossible to show that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, the efficiency costs of letting the government try to make the showing are unjustified.”Id.
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted); accord McCoy,138 S.Ct. at 1511
.
[J-83-2022] - 31
Finally, the Court specified that an error would be “deemed structural if the error
always results in fundamental unfairness. For example, if an indigent defendant is denied
an attorney or if the judge fails to give a reasonable-doubt instruction, the resulting trial is
always a fundamentally unfair one. It therefore would be futile for the government to try
to show harmlessness.” Weaver 137 S. Ct. at 1908(citations omitted). Notably, the Court further underscored that “[t]hese categories are not rigid. In a particular case, more than one of these rationales may be part of the explanation for why an error is deemed to be structural.”Id.
Our Court has recognized that the Chapman standard represents the irreducible
minimum standard state courts must use to determine whether a federal constitutional
violation in a criminal trial constitutes harmless error; however, states remain free, as a
matter of their own law, to afford greater protections to their citizens than required by
Chapman and classify fewer such violations as harmless. Commonwealth v. Story, 383
A.2d 155, 162(Pa. 1978) (“Where a trial error violates the federal constitution, this Court, at a minimum, must employ the federal harmless error rule.” (emphasis added)); cf. Connecticut v. Johnson,460 U.S. 73
, 81 n.9 (1983) (plurality) (“This Court held in Chapman that whether a federal constitutional error can be harmless is a federal question . . . . State courts, of course, are free to interpret their own constitutions and laws to permit fewer applications of the harmless error rule than does the Federal Constitution.” (citation omitted));id. at 88
(Stevens, J. concurring) (“[F]ederal law does not require a
state appellate court to make a harmless error determination; it merely permits the state
court to do so in appropriate cases. This is all the Court held in Chapman.” (footnote
omitted) (emphasis original)). Consequently, in accordance with these principles of
federalism, we regard the tenets of Chapman and its progeny – Fulminante, Weaver, and
[J-83-2022] - 32
McCoy –as the minimum standards by which we are required to assess if a particular
federal constitutional violation in a criminal trial is subject to a harmless error analysis.
Nevertheless, certification hearings such as the one in this case, which are
conducted by a juvenile court under Section 6355 (a)(2) of the Juvenile Act, are not
criminal trials. Evidence which is admitted at such hearings is not used to determine the
juvenile’s guilt of the offenses alleged in a delinquency petition. Rather, the sole purpose
of a certification hearing, as established by the Juvenile Act, is to determine “if there is a
prima facie case that the child committed the delinquent act alleged, the delinquent act
would be considered a felony if committed by an adult, and if there are reasonable
grounds to believe that the public interest would be served by the transfer of the case for
criminal prosecution.” Commonwealth v. In re E.F., 995 A.2d 326, 329 (Pa. 2010). Thus,
Chapman and its progeny, which were all cases involving the impact of a federal
constitutional violation occurring during an adult criminal trial, do not explicitly govern the
question of whether a federal constitutional violation which occurs in a certification
hearing to criminal court should be subjected to harmless error analysis.
Since its Chapman decision, the high Court has not directly addressed the issue
of whether violations of juveniles’ rights under the United States Constitution that occur
during proceedings conducted under a state’s statutory framework for the handling of
criminal offenses involving juveniles are subject to a harmless error analysis. However,
the high Court has made it quite clear that, “[t]he possibility of transfer from juvenile court
to a court of general criminal jurisdiction is a matter of great significance to the juvenile,”
and, thus, transfer proceedings must afford the juvenile fundamental constitutional
protections. Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519, 535(1975). Further, we deem it significant that, one year prior to Chapman, the high Court inKent, supra,
suggested that a juvenile
[J-83-2022] - 33
court’s failure to follow statutory requirements for transfer of cases to adult criminal court
could not be considered a harmless error.
In that case, petitioner Morris Kent, then a juvenile, was arrested in the District of
Columbia for breaking into a house, robbery, and rape. Because the applicable statute
allowed waiver of such charges to the criminal district court, Kent’s attorney filed a motion
to retain the case in the juvenile court, to have access to the juvenile’s social service
treatment records, as well as reports of his probation officer, and to have a hearing.
However, without granting the requested access or conducting a hearing, the juvenile
court entered an order waiving the matter to the district court for trial. The juvenile
subsequently appealed the waiver order, but the appeal was denied. After a jury trial in
the district court, the juvenile was convicted and sentenced to 30 to 90 years
imprisonment on those charges.
The high Court reversed, citing the juvenile court’s failure to follow the established
statutory procedures for waiver of a juvenile’s case to adult criminal court, which failure
the Court noted detrimentally impacted the juvenile’s rights under the United States
Constitution:
It is clear beyond dispute that the waiver of jurisdiction is a
‘critically important’ action determining vitally important
statutory rights of the juvenile . . . . The statutory scheme
makes this plain. The Juvenile Court is vested with ‘original
and exclusive jurisdiction’ of the child. This jurisdiction confers
special rights and immunities. He is, as specified by the
statute, shielded from publicity. He may be confined, but with
rare exceptions he may not be jailed along with adults. He
may be detained, but only until he is 21 years of age. The
court is admonished by the statute to give preference to
retaining the child in the custody of his parents ‘unless his
welfare and the safety and protection of the public can not be
adequately safeguarded without . . . removal.’ The child is
protected against consequences of adult conviction such as
the loss of civil rights, the use of adjudication against him in
[J-83-2022] - 34
subsequent proceedings, and disqualification for public
employment.
The net, therefore, is that petitioner—then a boy of 16—was
by statute entitled to certain procedures and benefits as a
consequence of his statutory right to the ‘exclusive’
jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court. In these circumstances,
considering particularly that decision as to waiver of
jurisdiction and transfer of the matter to the District Court was
potentially as important to petitioner as the difference between
five years’ confinement and a death sentence, we conclude
that, as a condition to a valid waiver order, petitioner as (sic)
entitled to a hearing, including access by his counsel to the
social records and probation or similar reports which
presumably are considered by the court, and to a statement
of reasons for the Juvenile Court’s decision. We believe that
this result is required by the statute read in the context of
constitutional principles relating to due process and the
assistance of counsel.
Kent, 383 U.S. at 556-57 (emphasis added and citations omitted).
The high Court further rejected a claim by the government that any harm to the
juvenile was subsequently cured by the proceedings in the district court – which had
addressed the issue of the propriety of the waiver by the juvenile court – and that the error
of the juvenile court was rendered harmless as a result:
[T]he waiver question was primarily and initially one for the
Juvenile Court to decide and its failure to do so in a valid
manner cannot be said to be harmless error. It is the Juvenile
Court, not the District Court, which has the facilities, personnel
and expertise for a proper determination of the waiver issue.
Id. at 564 (emphasis added) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
In our view, the Kent decision supports the general proposition that, where a
juvenile court commits a federal constitutional violation in following the statutory
procedures for determining whether the juvenile should be transferred to adult criminal
court, the violation cannot categorically be treated as harmless. Moreover, as a general
matter, our Court has previously applied the analytical framework of Chapman and its
progeny in determining whether a violation of rights conferred by a Pennsylvania statute
[J-83-2022] - 35
was subject to harmless error review on appeal. See In the Interest of J.M.G., supra
(applying Chapman to determine if violation of the psychotherapist-patient privilege in
juvenile civil commitment hearings was subject to a harmless error analysis); In re
Adoption of L.B.M., 161 A.3d 172 (Pa. 2017) (holding that trial court’s error in failing to
appoint counsel for the children in an involuntary termination of parental rights case was
a structural error as defined in Fulminante). Consequently, for all of these reasons, we
will apply the analysis set forth by the high Court in Weaver to determine whether the
violation of Taylor’s Fifth Amendment right by the juvenile court in conducting proceedings
under our Juvenile Act is a structural error, or conversely, whether it is subject to harmless
error review.
To reiterate, under Weaver, there are three categories of violations of a
constitutional right in an adjudicative proceeding which will constitute a structural error:
(1) when the constitutional right is one which does not protect against erroneous
conviction, but instead protects some other interest; (2) when the effects of the violation
are too hard to measure; or (3) when the violation will always result in fundamental
unfairness. Weaver, 137 S.Ct. at 1908.
With respect to the first Weaver category of structural errors, we deem the nature
of the right violated by the juvenile court — the Fifth Amendment right to be free from
compulsory self-incrimination — to be one which is not only designed to protect a criminal
defendant from erroneous conviction, but one which protects another vital interest —
namely, the right of an individual to be shielded from coercion by those cloaked with
official authority into providing facts or information which can then be used as evidence
for his later prosecution and imprisonment.
As Justice Wecht recounted in his scholarly and comprehensive discussion of the
Fifth Amendment in our Court’s opinion in Taylor II, the Fifth Amendment was the
[J-83-2022] - 36
culmination of “painful opposition to a course of ecclesiastical inquisitions and Star
Chamber proceedings” in England. 26 Taylor II, 230 A.3d at 1063 (quoting Michigan v.
Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 440 (1974)). As further detailed by Professor Wayne LaFave,
these entities often employed forcible and otherwise odious practices to extract
involuntary factual admissions from those who were the targets of their inquiries:
Both of those prerogative tribunals were active in the
persecution of religious and political dissidents, and both used
an oath procedure to engage in roving inquiries. A person
could be brought before the tribunal without any private
accusation or charges file[d] against him, and there required
to take an oath—the oath ex officio—to answer truthfully all
questions that might be put to him. Refusal to take the oath
could result in serious consequences, typically imprisonment
for contempt or a fine, but in the case of the Star Chamber,
corporal punishment (though not torture) was used on
occasion.
LaFave, § 2.10(c) (footnotes omitted).
Revulsion at these practices was significant, including by the framers of the Bill of
Rights, who sought to ensure that Americans would be protected against such evils by
foreclosing the government’s right to compel an accused’s testimony within the Fifth
Amendment. Taylor II, 230 A.3d at 1063 (citing Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591 (1896)).
As aptly described by Justice Musmanno:
The framers of our Bill of Rights were too aware of the
excesses possible in all governments, even a representative
government, to permit the possibility that any person under
the protection of the United States flag could be forced to
admit to having committed a crime. In order to make the
protection hazard-proof, the framers went beyond coercion of
confessions. They used the all-embracive language that no
one could be compelled ‘to be a witness against himself’.
Commonwealth v. Dravecz, 227 A.2d 904, 907(Pa. 1967). 26 The Star Chamber was an English court of law that existed from the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Commonwealth v. Molina,104 A.3d 430
, 445 n.14 (Pa. 2014)
(plurality).
[J-83-2022] - 37
Today, the universal protections afforded by the Fifth Amendment have become
an indispensable bulwark against the wrongful governmental deprivation of individual
rights, and all courts have a solemn responsibility to enforce those protections. As our
Court detailed in Taylor II:
The Fifth Amendment stands between the citizen and his
government.” Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 454,76 S.Ct. 497
,100 L.Ed. 511
(1956) (Douglas, J., dissenting); see
id. at 445,76 S.Ct. 497
(“The guarantee against self-
incrimination ... is not only a protection against conviction and
prosecution but a safeguard of conscience and human dignity
and freedom of expression as well.”); cf. Griswold v.
Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 484,85 S.Ct. 1678
,14 L.Ed.2d 510
(1965) (noting that the “Self-Incrimination Clause enables
the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may
not force him to surrender to his detriment”). When
scrupulously observed, the privilege ensures that a “court
ought never to compel a witness to give an answer which
discloses a fact that would form a necessary and essential
part of a crime which is punishable by the laws.” Burr, 25
F.Cas. at 40; see Galbreath’s Lessee v. Eichelbergher, 3
Yeates 515, 516 (Pa. 1803). Because “it is the duty of courts
to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and
against any stealthy encroachments thereon,” Boyd v. United
States, 116 U.S. 616, 635,6 S.Ct. 524
,29 L.Ed. 746
(1886),
the Fifth Amendment is to be “broad[ly] constru[ed] in favor of
the right which it was intended to secure.” Counselman v.
Hitchcock, 142 U.S. 547, 562,12 S.Ct. 195
,35 L.Ed. 1110
(1892); see Boyd, 116 U.S. at 635,6 S.Ct. 524
(“constitutional
provisions for the security of person and property should be
liberally construed”); Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155,
162,75 S.Ct. 668
,99 L.Ed. 964
(1955) (same).
Taylor II, 230 A.3d at 1063–64.
Forcing a juvenile to admit to having committed criminal offenses in certification
proceedings in order to avail himself of the procedures and remedial measures otherwise
available to him under the Juvenile Act disregards these principles. As cogently noted by
the Superior Court below, such a compulsory requirement presents the juvenile with “a
Hobson’s choice: remain silent in the face of the certification judge’s holding his silence
[J-83-2022] - 38
against him, or admit guilt at the certification hearing and have the Commonwealth almost
certainly use his admission against him at trial.” Taylor III, slip op. at 18. This untenable
dilemma is undeniably coercive for the juvenile, and it has the effect of transforming the
careful and orderly certification process contemplated by the Juvenile Act into a de facto
criminal proceeding.
Pertinent to the second category of structural errors recognized in Weaver –
whether the effects of the error are too hard to measure – as the Superior Court below
recognized, a juvenile court’s reliance on a juvenile’s failure to admit guilt as a basis for
its certification decision becomes “intertwined with the decision to certify the case.” Id. at
19. 27 It is this entanglement which renders it impossible for an appellate court, on the
basis of a cold record, to meaningfully assess its effect on the certifying judge’s evaluation
and weighing of the other evidence, due to the fact that the constitutional violation infected
the juvenile court’s entire decision-making process. As the high Court has made
abundantly plain, in these types of circumstances when the effects of an error are too
hard to measure, courts are not required to allow the state to attempt to demonstrate,
through the use of other evidence, that the error was harmless, given that “the efficiency
costs of letting the government try to make the showing are unjustified.” Weaver, 137
S.Ct. at 1908.
Finally, regarding the third Weaver category of structural errors – where the
violation will always result in fundamental unfairness – as discussed above, in certification
hearings such as the one held by the juvenile court in this matter, a juvenile has the
burden of proof under Section 6355(g) of the Juvenile Act to show by a preponderance
of the evidence that the juvenile court’s retention of his case “serves the public interest
27 The Superior Court’s general observation was amply supported by the juvenile court’s
indication on the record that this factor was paramount in its certification decision. See
supra pages 4-5.
[J-83-2022] - 39
and that [he] is amenable to treatment, supervision or rehabilitation as a juvenile.” 42
Pa.C.S. § 6355(g). A juvenile court, as the ultimate finder of fact on the question of
whether a juvenile is “amenable to treatment, supervision or rehabilitation,” is obligated
to give a fair and reasoned consideration to all of the competent evidence adduced at the
certification hearing, and otherwise in its possession, involving the statutory factors
enumerated in Section 6355(a)(4)(iii)(G) of the Juvenile Act. 28 Its ultimate conclusion
regarding amenability must therefore rest on a dispassionate evaluation of the relative
merits of the evidence properly before it pertaining to those factors.
However, whenever a juvenile court violates a juvenile’s Fifth Amendment right by,
in effect, conditioning its ultimate finding of the juvenile’s amenability to treatment,
supervision, and rehabilitation upon a requirement that the juvenile admit guilt for the
offenses he is alleged to have committed, we conclude this results in a “fundamental
unfairness” in the certification process. Weaver, 137 S.Ct. at 1903. By imposing such a
manifestly improper requirement, a juvenile court has, in effect, created an irrebuttable
presumption that, if the juvenile refuses to incriminate himself, he is not amenable to
treatment, supervision, and rehabilitation, no matter what the other competent evidence
of record demonstrates. At the very least, the juvenile’s failure to admit guilt will invariably
weigh heavily and negatively on the juvenile court’s evaluation of the other evidence on
this question. Indeed, its pernicious impact is amplified in proceedings such as this one,
given that a juvenile in Taylor’s situation had the burden of proof under the Juvenile Act
to demonstrate his amenability to treatment, supervision, and rehabilitation;
consequently, a juvenile court’s emphasis on the child’s failure to admit guilt in these
situations imposes a nearly insurmountable obstacle to his ability to carry that burden.
This type of constitutional violation therefore inevitably disrupts the framework of the
28 See supra note 18.
[J-83-2022] - 40
certification process because of its distortive effect on the entirety of the juvenile court’s
decision-making process. Cf. Fulminante; Greer, 141 S. Ct. at 2100 (structural errors
affect the entire conduct of a trial from beginning to end).
For all of these reasons, we conclude that the constitutional violation committed by
the juvenile court in this matter constituted a structural error in accordance with the
principles articulated in the high Court’s decisions in Chapman and its progeny.
Our conclusion is also supported by this Court’s precedent finding a particular
practice or conduct occurring in our Commonwealth’s courts that significantly and
deleteriously impacts the exercise of fundamental rights constitutes structural, or what we
have sometimes alternatively termed “per se,” error. 29 See, e.g., Kelly, supra(holding that the trial court’s use of a jury instruction that created a mandatory presumption which permitted the finder of fact to conclude a material element of a criminal offense was established, without requiring the Commonwealth to prove that element beyond a reasonable doubt, was a violation of the defendant’s due process rights under the United States Constitution to have a jury determine his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and further determining that the violation would not be subject to a harmless error analysis, even though the United States Supreme Court had not definitively ruled on that question); In the Interest of J.M.G., 229 A.3d at 583 (application of a harmless error analysis to violation of the psychotherapist-patient privilege in juvenile civil commitment hearings was inappropriate given that “we deem scrupulous adherence to the . . . privilege to be basic to fair Act 21 proceedings”) (citing Chapman,386 U.S. at 23
)); In re Adoption of L.B.M.,161 A.3d at 183
(holding that trial court’s error in failing to appoint counsel for children in
involuntary termination of parental rights case constituted a structural error in accordance
29 As both designations describe the same type of error, for purposes of clarity, we will
hereinafter refer to these errors as structural.
[J-83-2022] - 41
with Fulminante’s definition of the term because it “compromises the framework of the
proceedings” established statutorily by the General Assembly).
Of particular relevance to the harmless error question presented by the case sub
judice, our Court has opined, as a matter of Pennsylvania law, that whenever a trial court
penalizes an individual for exercising his or her constitutional rights, and then relies on
that penalization as part of its decision-making process, the error is not de minimis and
cannot be cured by permitting appellate courts to find other evidence of record to support
the trial court’s decision. In Bethea, supra,the trial court sentenced a defendant for criminal offenses based, in part, on the defendant’s refusal to plead guilty to the offenses, and, instead, to proceed to a jury trial, as was his right under the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions. In fashioning its sentence, the trial court suggested that, had the defendant pled guilty, this plea would have resulted in the judge imposing a more favorable sentence, as it would signify his acceptance of responsibility for his actions. See379 A.2d at 106
(“[I]t might have shown me the right side of your attitude about this,
but you pled not guilty, fought it all the way, and the jury found you guilty.”). The trial court
also stated in its sentencing opinion that it had relied on other factors such as the nature
of the crimes and the defendant’s lack of remorse.
Our Court reversed the judgment of sentence and found the mere existence of
other evidentiary factors of record to support the sentence to be insufficient to overcome
the trial court’s penalization of the defendant for the exercise of his constitutional rights.
Although our Court did not formally label the trial court’s error as “structural” in our
decision, we nevertheless treated it as such, given that we deemed the error to be
sufficient, in and of itself, to invalidate the defendant’s sentence and require remand for
a resentencing hearing, irrespective of the other evidence of record:
[A]ny increase in sentence which results from a defendant’s
decision to put the state to its proof puts a price upon the
[J-83-2022] - 42
exercise of a fundamental constitutional right, and hence is
unjustified. Thus, a sentence based in part on an
impermissible consideration is not made proper simply
because the sentencing judge considers other permissible
factors as well. In deciding whether a trial judge considered
only permissible factors in sentencing a defendant, an
appellate court must, of necessity, review all of the judge’s
comments. Moreover, in making this determination it is not
necessary that an appellate court be convinced that the trial
judge in fact relied upon an erroneous consideration; it is
sufficient to render a sentence invalid if it reasonably appears
from the record that the trial court relied in whole or in part
upon such a factor.
Id. at 106-07.
Furthermore, consistent with our Court’s constitutionally based supervisory
responsibility for the Pennsylvania judicial system, 30 we have categorically exempted
certain trial court errors which impact a defendant’s Fifth Amendment right from appellate
review for harmless error in order to ensure the timely administration of justice. In
Commonwealth v. Edwards, 637 A.2d 259, 260(Pa. 1993), our Court considered the question of whether the trial court’s issuing a “no adverse inference” instruction to the jury regarding a defendant’s failure to testify, over his objection, was error, and, if so, could it be considered harmless. In addressing this question, we noted that the United States Supreme Court held in Lakeside v. Oregon,435 U.S. 333
(1978), that the giving of such
an instruction against a defendant’s wishes did not violate his Fifth Amendment protection
against self-incrimination; however, the high Court stated that state courts were free to
forbid trial judges from engaging in this practice.
30 See Pa. Const. art. V, § 10(a) (“The Supreme Court shall exercise general supervisory
and administrative authority over all the courts.”).
[J-83-2022] - 43
Our Court noted that a number of other states had already adopted such a rule,
and, because we deemed it to be a necessary protection for the defendant’s fundamental
right to choose how to proceed with his defense, we adopted it. Notably, for present
purposes, our Court also chose to make a trial judge’s violation of this new rule “per se
reversible error.” Edwards, 637 A.2d at 261. We explained, “[a] per se rule will avoid time consuming appeals arguing about harmless error and will clearly instruct trial judges as to how to proceed on this question.”Id.
We find this rationale to be even more compelling in regard to the type of Fifth
Amendment violation at issue in this case. Juvenile proceedings are, by their very nature,
time sensitive, given that the Juvenile Act no longer applies to individuals when they reach
the age of 21. 42 Pa.C.S. § 6302(2). Thus, there is a unique risk that appeals in this
context, if they include the time-consuming question of whether a particular error is
harmless, will deprive juveniles and society of the protections afforded by the Juvenile
Act, because they may not be adjudicated before the juvenile ages out of the juvenile
system.
Accordingly, our own precedent supports the conclusion that a juvenile court’s
penalization of a juvenile for exercising his Fifth Amendment right to be free from
compulsory self-incrimination in juvenile certification proceedings is of such gravity that it
constitutes a structural error which cannot be cured by appellate evaluation of other
evidence of record regarding the juvenile’s amenability to treatment, supervision, and
rehabilitation. Therefore, we conclude that the juvenile court’s violation of Taylor’s Fifth
Amendment right constituted structural error.
III. Remedy for the constitutional violation committed by the juvenile court
[J-83-2022] - 44
Having found the juvenile court’s violation of Taylor’s Fifth Amendment right to be
free from compulsory self-incrimination constituted an automatically reversible structural
error, we must now consider the appropriate remedy.
A. Argument
The Commonwealth proposes that we remand this matter to the Montgomery
County Court of Common Pleas to “render an assessment” of the original certification
without the improper consideration the juvenile court relied on. Commonwealth Brief at
37. Specifically, the Commonwealth suggests that:
[a] judge of the court of common pleas should review the
certification hearing records without considering [Taylor’s]
denial, and render a new decision on whether [he] satisfied
his burden of proving it was appropriate to retain his case in
the juvenile division. If not, then the conviction stands, and if
so, then [Taylor] is discharged.
Id. at 41-42. 31
The Commonwealth argues that both the Pennsylvania Constitution and relevant
statutes enacted thereunder provide the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas
with unlimited original jurisdiction to reconsider the question of whether Taylor was
properly certified to be tried as an adult, based on the existing evidentiary record of the
certification hearing, but without consideration of Taylor’s failure to admit guilt of the
offenses charged.
The Commonwealth contends that its position is supported by the historical
evolution of the governing Pennsylvania constitutional and statutory provisions, noting
that, prior to 1972, the 1933 Juvenile Court Law, 11 P.S. § 244 (repealed), 32 gave juvenile
31 However, the Commonwealth has, alternatively, indicated that it “sees no issue with
[the] criminal division holding a certification hearing nunc pro tunc to determine whether
a prior certification order was appropriate under the provisions of the Juvenile Act . . . .”
Commonwealth Reply Brief at 11.
32 See June 2, 1933 P.L. 1433, No. 311 § 2, repealed 1972, Dec. 6, P.L. 1464, No. 333,
§ 40.
[J-83-2022] - 45
courts “full and exclusive jurisdiction in all proceedings affecting delinquent . . . children.”
It observes that this exclusive grant of jurisdiction was altered after the voters adopted
Article V, Section 5 of the Pennsylvania Constitution in 1968, which gave courts of
common pleas in each judicial district “unlimited original jurisdiction in all cases except as
may otherwise be provided by law.” Commonwealth Brief at 26 (quoting Pa. Const. art.
V, § 5(b)). The Commonwealth recounts that, on July 9,1976, the legislature passed the
Juvenile Act, “in view of the recent consolidation of original jurisdiction solely in the several
courts of common pleas by Section 5 of Article V of the Pennsylvania Constitution, as
amended [in] 1968.” Id. at 27 (quoting 42 Pa.C.S. § 6301, Joint State Government
Committee Comment) (emphasis added by the Commonwealth). The Commonwealth
highlights that, on the same date, the legislature passed 42 Pa.C.S. § 952 which provides,
in relevant part, that “[i]n a court of common pleas having two or more divisions each
division of the court is vested with the full jurisdiction of the whole court.” Commonwealth
Brief at 27 (quoting 42 Pa.C.S. § 952). Later, in 1980, 42 Pa.C.S. § 931 was enacted,
which provides that, unless jurisdiction is “vested in another court of this Commonwealth,
the courts of common pleas shall have unlimited original jurisdiction of all actions and
proceedings.” Commonwealth Brief at 28 (quoting 42 Pa.C.S. § 931).
In the Commonwealth’s view, the collective import of Sections 931 and 952 is to
provide the court of common pleas in a particular judicial district with unlimited jurisdiction
over all actions and proceedings, unless original jurisdiction over the action or proceeding
lies in another court. The Commonwealth interprets our Court’s statement in Johnson,
supra, that the juvenile division of the court of common pleas is vested with “exclusive
jurisdiction” ̶ which was relied on by the Superior Court in this matter ̶ as not supported
by these statutory provisions, as nowhere in those enactments is the phrase “exclusive
jurisdiction” used, as it was in the now repealed Juvenile Court Law. Id. at 29.
[J-83-2022] - 46
From the Commonwealth’s perspective, the correct understanding of these
statutes, when read in conjunction with the Juvenile Act, is as our Court held in
Commonwealth v. Greiner, 388 A.2d 698(Pa. 1978): that “whenever possible” the provisions of the Juvenile Act “should control in resolving matters pertaining to juveniles.”Id. at 701
. However, in situations where it is not possible to apply the provisions of the
Juvenile Act, such as in the present case, then the Commonwealth argues that Section
931 functions as a “catch-all for original jurisdiction” which makes jurisdiction proper in
the court of common pleas, and Section 952 permits a criminal court, as a division of that
court, to exercise its full jurisdiction. Commonwealth Brief at 30. Accordingly, the
Commonwealth posits that the Superior Court erred in finding that no court has jurisdiction
to conduct certification proceedings on remand, and it contends that there is no need to
resort to the “drastic relief” of discharging Taylor. Id. at 35. 33
33 The Attorney General’s amicus brief supports the Commonwealth’s position that the
court of common pleas has jurisdiction to conduct further proceedings. The Attorney
General maintains that, though the General Assembly was empowered by Article V,
Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution to “establish additional courts or divisions of
existing courts, as needed,” Attorney General Brief at 16 (quoting Pa. Const. art .V, § 8),
the General Assembly never utilized that power to create a separate juvenile court and
vest it with exclusive jurisdiction. To the contrary, the Attorney General, like the
Commonwealth, highlights that 42 Pa.C.S. § 6301, which sets forth the purposes of the
Juvenile Act, specified, as noted in the Joint State Government Committee comment to
42 Pa.C.S.§ 6301, that it was enacted in accordance with Article V’s “consolidation of
original jurisdiction solely in the several courts of common pleas.” Id. (quoting 42 Pa.C.S.
§ 6301, comment). Thus, in the Attorney General’s view, this is indicative of the
legislature’s intent to consolidate jurisdiction over all matters, including juvenile actions,
in the courts of common pleas.
The Attorney General argues that this intent is buttressed by the Juvenile Act’s
definition of court as “[t]he court of common pleas,” 42 Pa.C.S. § 6302, and the fact that
sections 6322 and 6355 of the Juvenile Act refer, respectively, to transfers to and from
“criminal proceedings,” not a specific court. Id. at 17 (quoting 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 6322 and
6355). The Attorney General further asserts that, when a matter is certified for criminal
proceedings under Section 6355(b), it terminates the applicability of that chapter of the
Juvenile Act, and the “offense” is transferred to “the division or a judge of the court . . .
assigned to conduct criminal proceedings,” id. (quoting 42 Pa.C.S. § 6355(a)), but it does
(continued…)
[J-83-2022] - 47
Taylor responds by acknowledging that both the Pennsylvania Constitution and
relevant statutes enacted thereunder give the court of common pleas jurisdiction over this
matter, and that the court of common pleas, as a general rule, has unlimited original
jurisdiction. However, Taylor disagrees with what he characterizes as the
Commonwealth’s assertion that the adult criminal division and the juvenile divisions of the
courts of common pleas are entirely separate courts, rather than parts of the Unified
Judicial System of the Commonwealth. While Taylor agrees that there is no separate
juvenile court in Pennsylvania, he suggests that the Commonwealth is improperly
attempting to keep this case within the jurisdiction of the adult criminal court, which he
not terminate jurisdiction, given that the court, i.e., the court of common pleas, continues
to retain jurisdiction as it did from the outset.
The Attorney General contends that, similarly, when a matter is transferred from
criminal proceedings under Section 6322, it is not transferred to a different court but,
rather, “to the division or a judge of the court . . . assigned to conduct juvenile hearings.”
Id. (quoting 42 Pa.C.S. § 6322). Conversely, when a matter is transferred to criminal
court, Section 6355(b) “terminates the applicability of [the Juvenile Act] over the child with
respect to the delinquent acts alleged in the petition;” nevertheless, the court of common
pleas still has jurisdiction as the matter is transferred “to the division or a judge of the
court . . . assigned to conduct criminal proceedings,” which is the court of common pleas.
Id. (quoting 42 Pa.C.S. § 6355(a),(b)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, from the
Attorney General’s perspective, this demonstrates that the Juvenile Act does not create
separate common pleas and juvenile courts, but rather they are one in the same — the
court of common pleas.
The Attorney General posits that our Court’s comments in Johnson about juvenile
courts, or divisions of the courts of common pleas, having exclusive jurisdiction over
juvenile matters were merely dicta. In any event, the Attorney General agrees that the
Juvenile Act ceases to apply to individuals like Taylor who are over the age of 21;
however, it is not a statute of limitations entitling Taylor to dismissal of the case against
him. The Attorney General suggests that, if we find the Fifth Amendment violation
prejudicial, the appropriate remedy would be to remand and grant Taylor a “retrospective
certification hearing,” or a new trial. Id. at 7.
The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association in its amicus brief largely mirrors
the arguments of the Commonwealth and the Attorney General: because the common
pleas court has jurisdiction over Taylor, the matter could be remanded to the court of
common pleas so that it can conduct a new hearing to determine if the original certification
was proper.
[J-83-2022] - 48
contends never acquired jurisdiction in the first place because his case was improperly
certified to it.
Taylor asserts that the Superior Court below properly followed our Court’s
pronouncement in Johnson that matters involving transfer between the criminal and
juvenile divisions are jurisdictional in nature, such that, if the transferring court’s order
was improper, the receiving court never acquired jurisdiction. He maintains that the
Superior Court properly recognized that, because the juvenile court’s order in the instant
matter certifying the case was improper, the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas
never had jurisdiction to try him and, hence, the verdict rendered in the criminal trial was
invalid.
He reasons that the only way the court of common pleas could acquire jurisdiction
would be if the juvenile court issued a valid certification order. However, Taylor argues
the juvenile court no longer has jurisdiction to issue such an order because of his age,
and the adult criminal court has no jurisdiction over certification decisions. Hence, he
insists he is entitled to discharge.
Taylor acknowledges that, generally, after a juvenile is tried and convicted in adult
criminal court because of an improper certification order, vacating the judgment of
sentence and remanding to the juvenile court is the appropriate procedure, citing Greiner,
supra; however, Taylor points out that remand was possible in Greiner only because the
juvenile had not yet turned 21 and, unlike Taylor, had not “aged out of the system.” Taylor
Brief at 46.
Taylor also proposes that the remedy provided by the United States Supreme
Court in Kent ̶ remanding to the district court for a new hearing on the question of whether
the juvenile court’s original waiver of the case to the district court was appropriate ̶ is not
[J-83-2022] - 49
possible in his case because, unlike the district court in that case, the criminal division of
the court of common pleas has jurisdiction only over adults. 34
34 Amicus Defender Association of Philadelphia recounts that, historically, in
Pennsylvania and other jurisdictions, there has always been a separation between adult
criminal proceedings and those involving juveniles, due to the recognition that, as a
general matter, children should be shielded from adult prosecutions due to their unique
developmental status and special needs. The Defender Association argues that, while
the present version of the Juvenile Act no longer specifically establishes juvenile courts,
consistent with the legislature’s intent, there nevertheless remains a jurisdictional divide
between the criminal division of the courts of common pleas, and the juvenile division.
Amicus asserts that allowing the criminal division of the Montgomery County Court
of Common Pleas to hold a certification hearing under 42 Pa.C.S. § 6355 would
contravene that separation of responsibility, and is prohibited by the Juvenile Act itself.
The Defender Association argues that Section 6303(a) of the Juvenile Act provides that
it “shall apply exclusively to . . . [p]roceedings in which a child is alleged to be delinquent.”
Defender Association Brief at 25 (quoting 42 Pa.C.S. § 6303(a)). Thus, the Defender
Association reasons that the plain import of this language is to bar the Juvenile Act from
applying to individuals who are not children, and, therefore, no certification hearing can
ever be held for an adult under Section 6355.
The Defender Association posits that a contrary conclusion would subvert the
entire statutory certification process, given that, from its perspective, all cases in which a
certification hearing was not held would simply be immediately transferred to criminal
court. Moreover, the Defender Association contends that the interpretation offered by the
Commonwealth and the Attorney General would encourage “gamesmanship” in the
appellate process. Id. at 27. The Defender Association contends that the practical effect
would be to encourage many more interlocutory appeals by the Commonwealth of orders
denying certification, and, correspondingly, more cases in which appeals would not be
decided before the juvenile attains the age of 21, which would inure to the
Commonwealth’s benefit, as the juvenile would then be subjected to criminal court
proceedings.
The Defender Association suggests that the better remedy for situations such as
this one is for the General Assembly to adopt a legislative solution, as states including
California, Vermont, and Maryland have done.
In its amicus brief, the Juvenile Law Center argues that release is the most
appropriate remedy for a juvenile such as Taylor who has suffered a deprivation of his
Fifth Amendment right. In its view, release would be consistent with the recognition that,
as juveniles mature, they are far more capable of becoming “productive and law-abiding
citizens,” which has been borne out by social science research. Juvenile Law Center
Brief at 21 (citing Miller, supra).
Moreover, amicus proffers that release is the only remedy that can protect children
from future violations of this nature. It avers that, in the modern criminal justice system,
most cases, including those of juveniles, are resolved by plea deals. That fact, coupled
(continued…)
[J-83-2022] - 50
B. Discussion
Guided by these thoughtful arguments, we now address the question of the
appropriate remedy for the juvenile court’s violation of Taylor’s Fifth Amendment right to
be free from compulsory self-incrimination, which, as we have determined, was a
structural error in the certification proceedings. We first consider what effect this error
had on the original certification order. As we have discussed, a constitutional violation
which occurs in the course of a criminal trial that constitutes a structural error necessitates
the reversal of a criminal conviction and remand for a new trial. See McCoy, supra.Likewise, a structural error which occurs during a judicial proceeding such as a sentencing hearing necessitates reversal of the judgment entered in that proceeding and remand for a new hearing. Bethea,379 A.2d at 107
. Here, the constitutional violation
which constituted the structural error occurred during Taylor’s certification hearing, and,
thus, that structural error rendered the juvenile court’s certification order, which was the
product of that hearing, void.
Furthermore, Taylor’s criminal conviction was the direct result of the criminal trial
in the court of common pleas that followed this improper certification; and, because the
certification order was void, that court acted without authority to try Taylor as an adult.
Therefore, Taylor’s judgment of sentence entered as the result of his conviction must be
vacated. See Greiner, 388 A.2d at 698.
In situations where juveniles successfully challenge the certification order of the
juvenile court on appeal after their trial and conviction in adult criminal court, and are still
with the lengthy nature of the appellate and collateral review process for criminal
convictions, means that constitutional violations of this nature are not likely to be
meaningfully addressed, and, if they are addressed on appeal or collateral review, there
is a significant chance the juvenile will, as in the instant matter, have aged out of the
juvenile system and forever lost the benefits of its rehabilitative aspects. Further, the
juvenile will have been exposed needlessly to the harsh and damaging effects of the adult
penal system.
[J-83-2022] - 51
under the age of 21, it is well-established that the proper course of action is to remand
the case to the juvenile court for a new certification hearing, as our Court did in Greiner.
See also Commonwealth v. Lux, 445 A.2d 185(Pa. Super. 1982) (when record did not indicate that juvenile division judge properly considered child’s amenability to treatment, supervision, or rehabilitation when certifying his case for trial in adult criminal court, case was remanded for a new certification hearing, and judgment of sentence entered after trial was vacated, pending the outcome of the new certification hearing); Commonwealth v. Stokes,421 A.2d 240
(Pa. Super. 1980) (same). However, again, Taylor is no longer
a juvenile; consequently, we must ascertain whether the Juvenile Division of the Court of
Common Pleas of Montgomery County has jurisdiction to conduct a new certification
hearing, or, if it does not, whether the Criminal Division of that court may do so as the
Commonwealth has argued.
Resolution of these questions is governed by the Juvenile Act, as well as those
provisions of the Judicial Code which generally establish the jurisdiction of the courts of
our Commonwealth. In such matters of statutory interpretation,
[W]e are guided by the polestar principle that we must
ascertain and effectuate the intent of the General Assembly in
enacting the statute[s]. See 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1921(a). In so
doing, we must give effect to all of the provisions. Id. Further,
“[w]hen the words of a statute are clear and free from all
ambiguity, the letter of it is not to be disregarded under the
pretext of pursuing its spirit.” Id. § 1921(b). Generally, the best
indication of the General Assembly’s intent in enacting a
statute may be found in its plain language.
Commonwealth v. M.W., 39 A.3d 958, 963-64 (Pa. 2012).
Our Commonwealth’s Constitution provides that the courts of common pleas have
“unlimited original jurisdiction in all cases except as may otherwise be provided by law.”
Pa. Const. art. V, § 5. Pursuant to this provision, the General Assembly has delineated
[J-83-2022] - 52
the jurisdiction of our trial courts in Section 931(a) of the Judicial Code, which provides
that:
Except where exclusive original jurisdiction of an action or
proceeding is by statute or by general rule adopted pursuant
to section 503 (relating to reassignment of matters) vested in
another court of this Commonwealth, the courts of common
pleas shall have unlimited original jurisdiction of all actions and
proceedings, including all actions and proceedings heretofore
cognizable by law or usage in the courts of common pleas.
42 Pa.C.S. § 931(a).
Consequently, “the courts of common pleas have unlimited original jurisdiction of
all actions, except where otherwise provided by law.” Domus, Inc. v. Signature Building
Systems of Pennsylvania., LLC, 252 A.3d 628, 636 (Pa. 2021); see also In re Admin. Ord. No. 1-MD-2003,936 A.2d 1, 6
(Pa. 2007) (“[T]he courts of common pleas are granted
‘unlimited original jurisdiction’ in ‘all actions and proceedings’ not exclusively vested
elsewhere.” (emphasis original)).
Pertinently, Section 6303(a) of the Juvenile Act delineates that the provisions
thereof apply “exclusively” in “[p]roceedings in which a child is alleged to be delinquent or
dependent.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 6303(a)(1). Further, as discussed previously, Section 6302 of
the Juvenile Act expressly defines a “child” as an individual who:
(1) is under the age of 18 years;
(2) is under the age of 21 years who committed an act of
delinquency before reaching the age of 18 years; or
(3) is under the age of 21 years and was adjudicated
dependent before reaching the age of 18 years, who has
requested the court to retain jurisdiction and who remains
under the jurisdiction of the court as a dependent child.
Id. § 6302. An act of delinquency is defined, in relevant part, as an “act designated a
crime under the law of this Commonwealth.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 6302.
[J-83-2022] - 53
Manifestly, then, the Juvenile Act applies exclusively to all proceedings in which a
“child”, as defined, is alleged to be delinquent or dependent. Such individuals are entitled
to the protections afforded by the Act.
As noted, in delinquency cases involving individuals who meet the definition of a
“child” under the Juvenile Act, Section 6355 establishes the exclusive procedures by
which the juvenile court decides if the individual’s delinquency case may be transferred
to adult criminal court, i.e., certified for “criminal proceedings,” 42 Pa.C.S. § 6355, rather
than proceed as a delinquency hearing before the juvenile court. 35 When the plain
language of this provision is considered in conjunction with the above-discussed
provisions of the Juvenile Act specifying its jurisdictional scope, we conclude it was the
intent of the General Assembly that the procedure set forth in Section 6355 is applicable
only when the subject of the certification hearing is a child. Here, Taylor is no longer a
35 With respect to the term “court” as used in this section, we agree with the
Commonwealth that the adoption of the Juvenile Act by the General Assembly, pursuant
to its authority under Article V, Section 5 to establish, by law, the jurisdiction of the courts
of common pleas, eliminated separate juvenile courts, as had been formerly created in
1933 by the Juvenile Court Law. The Juvenile Act now specifies that the courts of
common pleas are the courts which are to address criminal matters involving juveniles.
See 42 Pa.C.S. § 6302 (defining court as “[t]he court of common pleas”); see also
Commonwealth v. Wadzinski, 401 A.2d 1129, 1132 (Pa. 1978) (observing that, after the
voters adopted Article V which reconstituted the court of common pleas, it “possesses the
jurisdictions of the former . . . juvenile courts”).
Hence, the term “juvenile court” is properly understood to be a reference,
generally, to the juvenile division of the courts of common pleas, as that is the prevalent
court structure in more populous counties in our Commonwealth. See generally Johnson,
supra (explaining Juvenile Act’s provisions governing transfer of murder case between
criminal and juvenile divisions of the courts of common pleas). In counties of smaller
population, with a correspondingly smaller complement of common pleas judges, a
common pleas court judge will also handle juvenile matters, often on separately
scheduled “juvenile days.” Zanan, Pennsylvania Juvenile Delinquency Law, 6 (2014 ed.).
By custom, however, “whenever a Court of Common Pleas is hearing a juvenile matter,
it is referred to as a ‘juvenile court’.” Id.
[J-83-2022] - 54
child; thus, Section 6355 provides no authority for the juvenile court to conduct a new
certification hearing for him. See Commonwealth v. Armolt, 294 A.3d 364, 372-73 (Pa.
2023) (reaffirming that Juvenile Act’s grant of jurisdiction to juvenile court over offenders
extends only to those persons who are prosecuted for offenses they are alleged to have
committed while under the age of 18, and for which they are prosecuted before the age
of 21, but the juvenile court loses jurisdiction over such individuals after they turn 21).
While the Commonwealth recognizes the existence and effect of these statutory
provisions in barring the juvenile court from conducting a new certification hearing in this
matter, it seeks to avoid their application, contending that the criminal division of the court
of common pleas is empowered to conduct such a hearing. We are constrained to reject
that assertion, as it lacks statutory foundation.
As our Court explicitly held in Johnson, supra, other divisions of the court of
common pleas do not have jurisdiction over matters arising under the Juvenile Act which
our legislature has exclusively committed to the juvenile division of the court of common
pleas. See Johnson, 669 A.2d at 320 (“[T]he Juvenile Act is the type of legislation which
exemplifies the legislature's desire to vest limited and exclusive jurisdiction in one division
of the court of common pleas in order to meet the special needs of our youth.”).
Consequently, as Section 6355 of the Juvenile Act grants only the juvenile court the power
to conduct certification hearings, another division of the court of common pleas, such as
the criminal division, has no statutory authority to do so. 36
36 We must also reject the Commonwealth’s alternative suggestion that the criminal
division of the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County could, on remand, review
whether Taylor’s initial certification was proper under the criteria enumerated in Section
6355(a)(4)(iii)(G) of the Juvenile Act, by considering only the transcript of the original
(continued…)
[J-83-2022] - 55
The high Court’s decision in Kent, supra, does not offer an alternative. In that
matter, the criminal court in D.C. was empowered by statute to conduct certification
hearings in situations where, as here, an individual’s case began in the juvenile court
system, but the individual “aged out” of the juvenile system while his or her ultimately
successful challenge to the certification of their case to adult criminal court was pending
on appeal, necessitating a new certification hearing. Likewise, we acknowledge that
some of our sister states, such as California, impose no age cap on the jurisdiction of
their juvenile courts over individuals who are alleged to have committed criminal offenses
as a child, see Cal. Wel. & Inst. §§ 602, 604, 606, 707, while other states like Maryland
explicitly permit their juvenile courts to consider certification questions even after the
alleged juvenile offender has turned 21, see Md. Cts. & Jud. Pro. § 3-8A-07.
We cannot, however, judicially rewrite the comprehensive statutory framework of
the Juvenile Act to provide similar solutions in the instant matter. See Sivick v. State
Ethics Commission, 238 A.3d 1250, 1264 (Pa. 2020) (“It is axiomatic that we may not add
statutory language where we find the extant language somehow lacking.”). Rather, it is
solely within the purview of the General Assembly, as the architect of the Juvenile Act, to
proceedings and other competent evidence adduced during the original certification
hearing, but without consideration of Taylor’s refusal to waive his Fifth Amendment right.
The Commonwealth cites no statutory authority, nor do we independently discern any,
enabling the court of common pleas to conduct what is essentially de facto appellate
review as a substitute for a de novo certification hearing, the latter of which is what the
Juvenile Act expressly guaranteed Taylor as a child, but which he was wrongly denied.
Moreover, as we have discussed above, because the constitutional violation
committed by the juvenile court was a structural error so entwined with its ultimate
determination regarding whether Taylor was amenable to treatment, supervision, and
rehabilitation, as we have explained above, judicial parsing of a cold record to find other
evidence in support of the juvenile court’s decision is not a suitable means of correcting
an error of this nature. See Weaver, supra;Bethea, supra.
[J-83-2022] - 56
furnish such remedies, if it so chooses. Given that, under the Juvenile Act as presently
framed, there is no court empowered to conduct a new certification hearing as Taylor is
no longer a juvenile, we must follow the law as currently written, and, thus, we agree with
the Superior Court that dismissal of this case is the only remedy under these
circumstances. Accordingly, we affirm the order of the Superior Court, and discharge
Taylor.
Order affirmed. Appellant is discharged.
Justices Donohue, Dougherty and Wecht join the opinion.
Justice Mundy files a dissenting opinion.
Justice Brobson files a dissenting opinion.
[J-83-2022] - 57
Reference
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