JOSEPH KOZAK (A MINOR) V. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
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RENDERED : NOVEMBER 26, 2008
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2007-SC-000569-MR
JOSEPH KOZAK (A MINOR)
V.
APPELLANT
ON APPEAL FROM GRAVES CIRCUIT COURT
HONORABLE TIMOTHY C . STARK, JUDGE
NO . 05-CR-00233
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
APPELLEE
OPINION OF THE COURT BY CHIEF JUSTICE MINTON
VACATING AND REMANDING
This case requires us to determine whether a juvenile may waive
the right to a more lenient sentencing disposition under the juvenile code
by entering into a plea agreement with the Commonwealth, even if the
juvenile is not directly and explicitly informed of the juvenile code rights
being waived . Because a proper waiver must be predicated upon the
knowing relinquishment of a known right,' we hold that a juvenile
cannot, under these circumstances, be found to have impliedly waived a
right to which .the juvenile was not explicitly made aware .
See, e.g., Johnson v. Zerbs , 304 ITS. 458, 464 (1938) ("A waiver is
ordinarily an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right
or privilege . The determination of whether there has been an intelligent
waiver of right to counsel must depend, in each case, upon the particular
facts and circumstances surrounding that case, including the background,
experience, and conduct of the accused .") .
The relevant facts of this case are simple and uncontested . In
August 2005, then-fifteen-year-old Joseph Kozak2 was indicted in the
Graves Circuit Court on six counts of sexual abuse in the first degree (a
Class D felony) involving two victims and two counts of rape in the first
degree (a Class A felony), both of which involved one of the same victims
named in the sexual abuse charges. In March 2007, a then-seventeenyear-old Kozak filed a motion to enter a guilty plea based upon an offer
by the Commonwealth, which would have amended the rape charges to
sexual abuse with the Commonwealth recommending a total sentence of
twenty years' imprisonment . In July 2007, Kozak was sentenced in
accordance with the terms of the plea agreement and the
Commonwealth's recommendation as to sentencing. At that time, the
trial court denied Kozak's motion to be sentenced under the more lenient
provisions set forth for juveniles in Kentucky Revised Statutes
(KRS) 635 .060. The trial court did order, however, that Kozak be
committed to the Department of Juvenile Justice until his eighteenth
birthday, at which time he was to be returned to the Graves Circuit
Court for sentencing . Arguing that the trial court erred by not applying
KRS 635 .060, Kozak filed this appeal as a matter of right .3
The record reflects that Kozak was born in December 1989. Although it
does not shape the ultimate outcome of this case, the trial court's final
judgment is erroneous when it provides that Kozak was sixteen years old in
January 2005 (when he allegedly committed the offenses in question).
Ky . Const. § 110(2)(b) .
Generally, minors in the Commonwealth of Kentucky are permitted
to disavow a contract entered into before the minor reaches the age of
majority . 4 But the Commonwealth argues here that Kozak, himself a
minor, is strictly bound by the terms of his plea bargain, even though
Kozak unquestionably was not made aware of all the pertinent terms and
ramifications of that bargain by the trial court. Kozak, in turn, contends
that the trial court was obligated to sentence him under the more lenient
provisions of KRS 640.040(4) and, in turn, KRS 635.060. We hold that
Kozak's sentence must be vacated because we conclude that implied
waiver is improper in cases involving juvenile-status criminal defendants,
Obviously, the Unified Juvenile Code provides greater protections,
procedural and otherwise, than does the adult criminal justice system.
Among those protections are KRS 640.040 and KRS 635.060.
KRS 640 .040(4) provides that "[a]ny youthful offender convicted of a
misdemeanor or any felony offense which would exempt him from
KRS 635.020(2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), or (8) shall be disposed of by the
Circuit Court in accordance with the provisions of KRS 635.060 ." Since
Kozak had been found to be a youthful offender, the question becomes
whether his convictions (which, under the terms of the plea agreement
4
See, e.g., Mitchell by and through Fee v. Mitchell, 963 S.W.2d 222, 223
(Ky-App . 1998) .
were eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree, a Class D felony),
exempted him from the provisions of KRS 635.020(2) .5
KRS 635 .020(2) provides as follows:
If a child charged with a capital offense, Class A felony, or
Class B felony, had attained age fourteen (14) at the time of
the alleged commission of the offense, the court shall, upon
motion of the county attorney made prior to adjudication,
and after the county attorney has consulted with the
Commonwealth's attorney, that the child be proceeded
against as a youthful offender, proceed in accordance with
the provisions of KRS 640.010.
Although Kozak was originally charged with two Class A felony counts,
his plea agreement with the Commonwealth resulted in his only being
convicted of eight Class D felonies. So under our clear precedent, Kozak
did not fall within the purview of KRS 635 .020(2) .6 Indeed, we have
expressly held that a minor who was charged with a capital offense but
only convicted at trial of a Class C felony does not fall under the
provisions of KRS 635 .020(2) . 7 Although the defendant in Canter was
The Commonwealth relied solely upon KRS 635.020(2) and has not disputed
Kozak's argument that none of the other subsections of KRS 635 .020 are
applicable . Thus, we will focus solely upon whether Kozak falls within the
ambit of KRS 635.020(2) .
Canter v. Commonwealth, 843 S.W.2d 330 (Ky. 1992) .
Id. at 332 ("The Commonwealth contends that Canter is not exempt from
KRS 635 .020(2), because that statute was satisfied when Canter was
`charged with a capital offense.' We find the Commonwealth's position
utterly untenable. First, KRS 640 .040 is clearly and entirely intended to
prohibit certain sentencing alternatives otherwise available under
KRS 640.030. The Commonwealth's interpretation would render
KRS 640.040(4) a nullity. Secondly, and more fundamentally, we cannot
accept the proposition that the final disposition of any offender is dependent
upon the original charge rather than the ultimate conviction. We will not
presume guilt, and particularly not after acquittal.") .
convicted of a Class C offense after going to trial and Kozak was
convicted of eight counts of a Class D offense by entering into a plea
bargain agreement, we find that to be a difference without a true
distinction. Indeed, a contrary conclusion would have the illogical result
of having disparate sentencing schemes for juveniles who go to trial and
those who enter into a plea agreement. In fact, allowing potentially more
lenient sentencing for juveniles who go to trial versus those who enter
into a plea agreement would serve as a potential disincentive for any
juvenile to enter into a plea agreement. Thus, we hold that Kozak did not
fall within the terms of KRS 635 .020(2) .
But before we hold that Kozak was entitled to be sentenced under
KRS 635 .060, we must address the Commonwealth's contention that
Kozak waived any right to be sentenced under that statute's more lenient
provisions .$
s
KRS 635.060 provides as follows:
If in its decree the juvenile court finds that the child comes within the
purview of this chapter, the court, at the dispositional hearing, may:
Order the child or his parents, guardian, or person exercising custodial
control to make restitution or reparation to any injured person to the
extent, in the sum and upon the conditions as the court determines .
However, no parent, guardian, or person exercising custodial control
shall be ordered to make restitution or reparation unless the court has
provided notice of the hearing, provided opportunity to be heard, and
made a finding that the person's failure to exercise reasonable control
or supervision was a substantial factor in the child's delinquency ; or
Place the child under parental supervision in the child's own home or
in a suitable home or boarding home, upon the conditions that the
court shall determine, or place the child on probation under conditions
that the court shall determine . At the time the child is placed on
probation, the court shall explain to the child the sanctions which may
be imposed if the court's conditions are violated, and shall include
(4)
notice of those sanctions as part of its written order of probation . A
child placed on probation shall be subject to the visitation and
supervision of a probation officer or an employee of the Department of
Juvenile Justice . Except as provided in KRS 635.083, a child placed on
probation or parental supervision shall remain subject to the
jurisdiction of the court until the child becomes eighteen (18) years of
age, unless the child is discharged prior thereto by the court, except
that if a person is placed on probation after the person reaches the age
of seventeen (17) years and six (6) months, the probation shall be for a
period not to exceed one (1) year; or
Commit or recommit the child to the custody of the Department of
Juvenile Justice, or grant guardianship to a child-caring facility, a
child-placing agency authorized to care for the child, or place the child
under the custody and supervision of a suitable person . If the child is
detained in an approved secure juvenile detention facility or juvenile
holding facility in accordance with KRS 15A.200 to 15A .240 at the time
the child is committed or recommitted to the custody of the Department
of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Juvenile Justice shall accept
physical custody of the child, remove the child from the approved
secure juvenile detention facility or juvenile holding facility, and secure
appropriate placement as soon as possible but not to exceed thirty-five
(35) days of the time of commitment or recommitment . The
Department of Juvenile Justice shall pay for the cost of detention from
the date of commitment or recommitment, on the current charge, until
the child is removed from the detention facility and placed. All orders
of commitment may include advisory recommendations the court may
deem proper in the best interests of the child and of the public . The
commitment or placement shall be until the age of eighteen (18),
subject to KRS 635 .070 and to the power of the court to terminate the
order and discharge the child prior thereto, except that if the
commitment or placement is after a person has reached the age of
seventeen (17) years and six (6) months, the commitment or placement
shall be for an indeterminate period not to exceed one (1) year. The
court, in its discretion, upon motion by the child and with the
concurrence of the Department of Juvenile Justice, may authorize an
extension of commitment up to age twenty-one (21) to permit the
Department of Juvenile Justice to assist the child in establishing
independent living arrangements; or
If the child is fourteen (14) years of age but less than sixteen (16) years
of age, order that the child be confined in an approved secure juvenile
detention facility, juvenile holding facility, or approved detention
program as authorized by the Department of Juvenile Justice in
accordance with KRS Chapter 15A for a period of time not to exceed
forty-five (45) days; or
If the child is sixteen (16) years of age or older, order that the child be
confined in an approved secure juvenile detention facility, juvenile
holding facility, or approved detention program as authorized by the
It is clear that the General Assembly has shown its intention to
permit a minor to "waive any of the rights set out in the Kentucky Unified
Juvenile Code, unless otherwise provided ."9 So as a general proposition,
a juvenile may, by the express terms of a plea agreement, validly waive
his rights under the juvenile code, including the right to be sentenced
under KRS 640.040(4) . After all, the Juvenile Code was surely enacted
as a shield for juveniles, not as a sword to be used to disavow knowing
and voluntary plea agreements . But we disagree with the
Commonwealth's contention that Kozak properly waived the statutory
protections to which he was otherwise due.
When our late colleague Justice McAnulty was a judge on the
Kentucky Court of Appeals, he wrote the majority opinion in a case in
which a juvenile was alleged to have waived his right to a preliminary
hearing. 10 Then-Judge McAnulty noted that a waiver was "the voluntary
relinquishment of a known right."" Because "children require special
Department of Juvenile Justice in accordance with KRS Chapter 15A
for a period of time not to exceed ninety (90) days; or
(6) Any combination of the dispositions listed above except that, if a court
probates or suspends a commitment in conjunction with any other
dispositional alternative, that fact shall be explained to the juvenile and
contained in a written order.
The Department of Juvenile Justice shall pay for the confinement of children
confined pursuant to subsection (4) or (5) of this section in accordance with
the statewide detention plan and administrative regulations implementing
the plan.
Humphrey v. Commonwealth , 153 S.W.3d 854, 857 (Ky.App . 2004) .
Id.
Id. at 858.
considerations due to their intelligence and experience," then-Judge
McAnulty concluded that there was a valid issue as to whether the
juvenile had waived his right to a preliminary hearing, even though the
juvenile had executed a waiver of rights form, because among other
things, the trial court did not validly inform the juvenile of the
consequences of waiving that important hearing. 12 Likewise, we hold
that Kozak should not be found to have validly waived his statutory right
to be sentenced under KRS 640 .040(4) because he was not informed of
the possible consequences of that waiver. Or, in other words, a juvenile
should not be permitted unknowingly (or impliedly) to waive the
important protections of the juvenile code .
We recognize that we have recently approved the doctrine of
implied waiver in a case involving whether a defendant may be found
guilty of an otherwise time-barred misdemeanor as a lesser-included
offense of a Class D felony. 13 But that case did not involve juveniles,
which we believe clearly distinguishes it from the case at hand. And we
12
13
Id. at 858-59 .
Commonwealth v. Oliver, 253 S.W.3d 520, 525 (Ky. 2008) ("The next issue is
how the waiver may be effected . Some courts have held that a defendant's
request for an instruction on an expired lesser-included offense, without
more, constitutes an implied waiver of the limitations defense. Other courts
have held, however, that waiver of the statute of limitations requires
determination on the record that waiver is knowing, intelligent, and
voluntary, and does not otherwise contravene public policy. Although
certainly the trial court does not err by including on the record the
defendant's express choice between his limitations right and a lesserincluded instruction, we agree with those courts that have found the request
for an instruction generally sufficient to establish waiver, absent other
evidence of record that a waiver was not intended.") (citations and quotation
marks omitted) .
find that cases such as Johnson v. Commonwealth, 14 in which we held
that a defendant's plea agreement validly waived that defendant's
statutory right to a certain maximum sentence, 15 are not controlling on
the case at hand because those cases did not involve a juvenile
defendant. Indeed, the justification for the existence of the juvenile code
is to highlight and codify the General Assembly's obvious belief that
juveniles should be afforded different, often less punitive, treatment than
adults . In short, since juveniles lack the emotional and intellectual
sophistication to waive impliedly the rights that the General Assembly
has carefully provided them in the juvenile code, we cannot accept the
Commonwealth's contention that Kozak has impliedly waived the juvenile
code rights of which he was not made aware .
In sum, we now hold that a juvenile must be fully informed of his
rights under the juvenile code by the trial court before the trial court may
accept a juvenile's guilty plea. This safeguard should ensure that any
juvenile's plea satisfies the requirement that the plea be knowingly and
voluntarily made. 16 So in addition to informing the juvenile of the basic
rights that any criminal defendant waives by pleading guilty, 17 the trial
14
15
16
17
90 S.W.3d 39 (Ky. 2002) .
Id. at 44 .
See, e.g., Bronk v. Commonwealth, 58 S.W.3d 482, 486 (Ky. 2001) ("A guilty
plea is valid only when it is entered intelligently and voluntarily.").
As aptly expressed by Professor Abramson, "[a] guilty plea constitutes a
waiver of numerous constitutional rights, including the privilege against
self-incrimination, a right to a trial by jury, and the right to confront one's
courts of this Commonwealth must also explain on the record the rights
that the juvenile would waive (such as those set forth at KRS 635.060) by
persisting in a plea of guilty. In other words, it is the trial court's
obligation to make the juvenile fully cognizant of the procedural and
substantive differences between being sentenced as an adult and being
sentenced as a juvenile (such as the more lenient dispositional
alternatives set forth at KRS 635.060) before accepting a plea agreement
between the Commonwealth and a juvenile defendant. Although we do
not believe it necessary to set forth a verbatim script that trial judges
must follow in accepting a juvenile's guilty plea, we hold that the
colloquy should follow the same general contours as that engaged in
between trial courts and adults who wish to plead guilty, with the
additional requirement that the trial court must inform the juvenile that
a plea of guilty would waive his rights under the juvenile code (i.e., the
right in appropriate cases, such as this one, to be sentenced under the
terms of KRS 635 .060).
Our holding should not be misconstrued : we are not holding that
a juvenile may not enter into a plea agreement with the Commonwealth .
To the contrary, we express our agreement with the United States
Supreme Court's observation that guilty pleas and plea agreements are
accusers."
8 LESLIE W. ABRAMSON, KENTUCKY PRACTICE, CRIMINAL PRACTICE
PROCEDURE § 22:14 (4th ed. 2003) .
10
8s
"important components of this country's criminal justice system ." 18
Rather, we simply hold that a trial court must inform the juvenile of the
rights the juvenile would waive under the juvenile code before the trial
court may accept a plea agreement involving a juvenile defendant in
order for the juvenile's proposed guilty plea truly to be intelligently made.
If that thorough colloquy between the trial court and a juvenile
defendant occurs and the defendant persists in the desire to plead guilty,
then that minor's plea should be valid and binding upon the trial court's
acceptance of the plea agreement . But because there was no such
colloquy in this case, Kozak's sentence must be vacated; and this matter
must be remanded for a hearing, at which the trial court must inform
Kozak of the protections afforded him under the juvenile code (including
those found at KRS 635.060), and must further inform Kozak that the
plea agreement will constitute a waiver of those juvenile code rights. A
juvenile's plea agreement is truly voluntary and knowing only after that
juvenile has been fully informed of the juvenile's rights . So, on remand,
after informing Kozak of his pertinent rights, the trial court should then
inquire as to whether Kozak desires to persist in his plea of guilty. If
Kozak desires to withdraw his plea of guilty, he should be granted
permission to do so, with the understanding that a withdrawal of his
18
Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 71 (1977) . Although Blackledge did not
appear to involve a juvenile defendant, the Court's sentiment regarding the
importance of plea bargaining is universal.
guilty plea leaves Kozak subject to the charges contained in the
indictment . 19
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Graves Circuit
Court is vacated; and this matter is remanded for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
All sitting. Abramson, J., concurs. Scott, J ., concurs by separate
opinion in which Cunningham, J ., joins. Noble, J., concurs in result
only by separate opinion in which Schroder and Venters, JJ., join .
19
We recognize that Kozak has now reached the age of majority, but believe he
should still be afforded the protections of the juvenile code upon remand
because a failure to do so would have the effect of punishing Kozak for
exercising his right to file an appeal. Additionally, KRS 635.060(3) permits a
juvenile to be committed to the Department of Juvenile Justice until the
juvenile turns twenty-one, provided the juvenile and Department of Juvenile
Justice have agreed. At the original sentencing, Kozak expressed his
agreement to being committed to the Department of Juvenile Justice until
he reaches the age of twenty-one . Of course, if Kozak either validly pleads
guilty or is otherwise convicted, we express no opinion as to what sentence
the trial court should impose.
12
COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT:
Mary Gail Robinson
Department of Public Advocacy
100 Fair Oaks, Suite 302
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE:
Jack Conway
Attorney General of Kentuc
Todd Dryden Ferguson
Assistant Attorney General
Office of Attorney General
Criminal Appellate Division
1024 Capital Center Drive
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601-8204
RENDERED : NOVEMBER 26, 2008
TO BE PUBLISHED
Z
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2007-SC-000569-MR
rnfurhv
JOSEPH KOZAK (A MINOR)
V.
APPELLANT
ON APPEAL FROM GRAVES CIRCUIT COURT
HONORABLE TIMOTHY C . STARK, JUDGE
NO . 05-CR-000233
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
APPELLEE
CONCURRING OPINION BY JUSTICE SCOTT
Although I concur with the majority, I believe Johnson v.
Commonwealth , 90 S .W.3d 39, 44 (Ky. 2002) and Townsend v.
Commonwealth , 87 S.W.3d 12 (Ky. 2002) support the proposition that a
juvenile may impliedly waive provisions of the juvenile code under
Kentucky law. I likewise believe it cannot be credibly argued, here, that
Appellant's plea agreement was not entered into voluntarily and with
knowledge . Indeed, Appellant made a sensible and strategic decision in
accepting the plea. However, I concur with the majority for reasons that
our holding establishes a prospective bright line rule that duly informed
youthful offenders who enter into a plea agreement with the
Commonwealth thereby waive their right to be sentenced under the
juvenile code - irrespective of the Class of felonies agreed upon in the
plea.
"'A youthful offender, if he is convicted of, or pleads guilty to , a
felony offense in Circuit Court, shall be subject to the same type of
sentencing procedures and duration of sentence, including probation and
conditional discharge, as an adult convicted of a felony offense.' Gourley
v . Commonwealth , 37 S .W.3d 792, 794 (Ky. App . 2001) (quotin KRS
640. 030) (emphasis in original in part and added in part) . The plain
language of KRS 640.030 indicates that when a juvenile is in circuit
court and pleads guilty to any felony, he will be sentenced under the
adult provisions .
If Appellant was in all respects treated as an adult under the law,
then I fail to see why he should be treated otherwise only when it relates
to his plea agreement. Cognizant of the very likely potential of
substantial imprisonment, Appellant knowingly and intelligently entered
into a plea agreement, with the advice of counsel and the agreement of
the trial judge, to avoid this risk. Appellant agreed to a twenty year
sentence . Therefore, implicit in this agreement is the knowledge that he
will be held to this plea .
Thus, although I believe that Appellant did receive the same
protections that a similarly situated adult would have been afforded
when waiving his or her rights by plea agreement, which is all that is
required under KRS 640.030, I join the majority on the basis of its
holding, namely that a juvenile may plea bargain with the
Commonwealth and waive alternative sentencing dispositions . To hold
otherwise would remove the incentive for prosecutors to engage in plea
2
negotiations with minors and thus lead to disproportionately severe
sentences, which is a result I simply cannot endorse . KRS 640 .030
mandates that a youthful offender who pleads guilty to any felony shall
be sentenced under the adult provisions . This conclusion is inescapable.
Accordingly, I concur with the majority.
Cunningham, J., joins this opinion .
RENDERED : NOVEMBER 26, 2008
TO BE PUBLISHED
,vuyrrmt (~Vurf
of
2007-SC-000569-MR
rufurhv
JOSEPH KOZAK (A MINOR)
V.
APPELLANT
ON APPEAL FROM GRAVES CIRCUIT COURT
HONORABLE TIMOTHY C. STARK, JUDGE
NO . 05-CR-000233
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
APPELLEE
OPINION BY JUSTICE NOBLE
CONCURRING IN RESULT ONLY
I believe that the Appellant has correctly interpreted the effect of KRS
635 .020(2) and KRS 640 .040(4) that a youthful offender who is convicted only
of Class D felonies must be sentenced as a public offender under KRS 635 .060 .
Because Appellant was charged with two Class A felonies, Rape in the First
Degree, he was transferred to Circuit Court as a youthful offender . There, he
entered into a plea agreement with the Commonwealth that amended the two
Class A felonies to Class D felonies . He pleaded guilty to, and was convicted of,
eight counts of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree . Under the plain language of
KRS 640.040(4), he thus became a juvenile "convicted of . . . any felony offense
which would exempt him from KRS 635 .020 . . . ." The statute then further
states that the juvenile "shall be disposed of by the Circuit Court in accordance
with the provisions of KRS 635.060."
I also believe that by accepting amendment of the Class A felonies to
Class D felonies, which is an imminently reasonable act and to which the
Commonwealth said it would recommend a total of twenty years, the Appellant
did not waive his right to be sentenced under the applicable law.
First, the recommendation of the Commonwealth is not binding upon the
court, which may choose to run the several counts consecutively, concurrently,
or some mixture of both . Thus the twenty-year recommendation is not even a
certain term of the plea agreement, but in fact is only what the Commonwealth
will ask the court to consider. If we are to say the Appellant contracted away
his rights under the law, then the least requirement must be that the terms are
certain, which they are not here . To premise waiver of significant statutory
rights upon an essentially unknown term that is at best only a
recommendation is simply not the proper application of the law of waiver and is
insupportable .
The Commonwealth relies on Johnson v . Commonwealth, 90 S .W .3d 39
(Ky. 2002), which does not address this reasoning in regard to what the
elements of a plea agreement actually are . Without analyzing what the
defendant had actually agreed to, the Court merely stated that he agreed to the
sentence . This is clearly an incorrect statement, made because no argument
was put forth about the content of the agreement. Instead, the Johnson Court
was focused on whether the trial court was required to make a finding about
the validity of the defendant's ability to make a waiver. Assuming complete
agreement with the recommended sentence and failing to consider that such
an agreement cannot bind the trial court, the Court found that the trial court
2
had no duty to determine the validity of a waiver because the rights at issue
were statutory rather than constitutional . However, the Court made a
fundamentally unsound holding based on the misconception that waiver had
actually occurred due to the defendant agreeing to a specific sentence when all
he actually agreed to was the Commonwealth's right to make a
recommendation to the court. Neither the defendant nor the Commonwealth
can limit the court's discretion in sentencing . See Misher v. Commonwealth,
576 S .W.2d 238, 241 (Ky . App. 1978) ("The sentencing function of our courts
on pleas of guilty is carried out by the judge . While the prosecutor and defense
counsel, along with the defendant, may discuss and negotiate, they cannot
impose sentence by agreement.") . To the extent that Johnson holds otherwise,
it should be overruled.
Second, there is clear legislative intent behind the Juvenile Code .
Recognizing that in only certain extreme cases should children be treated like
adults in the criminal justice system, the legislature designed approaches to
children who commit crimes that are more rehabilitative than punitive .
Recognizing that the youth of these offenders presages a long life of crime if
there is not an intervention, and the lack of criminal culpability ascribed to
children, the legislature made some of the juvenile dispositions mandatory.
Such is the case with KRS 640 .040(4), which requires the Circuit Court to
make disposition of a youthful offender who no longer qualifies as such under
the public offender provisions . The trial court must apply this statute when
applicable, as it is here.
At common law, through the present day, our courts have recognized
that children should not be held to the same standard as an adult in criminal
matters. This is premised on the belief that children cannot form an adult
mens rea in committing criminal acts. This historical belief led to codification
of how juveniles should be treated in the criminal justice system, which has at
its core rehabilitation through education, treatment and supervision . Juveniles
were thus carved out of the Penal Code, and addressed in the Juvenile Code, in
recognition of their significant differences from the adult penal population .
Thus two significant Codes dealing with criminal matters of two distinct
populations were legislated: juveniles and adults .
However, modern society has seen a rise in more heinous crimes being
committed by children, which led to concerns about punishment and example .
At least in part to address these concerns, the legislature enacted an exception
to the Juvenile Code by creating a class of offenders known as youthful
offenders, wherein the minor is prosecuted as an adult. Remaining mindful of
the strong societal and precedental prohibitions against treating children as
adult criminals, the legislature set a high bar for a child to be treated as a
youthful offender . There are two steps in this process . First, the child must
qualify to be tried as a youthful offender by falling under the requirements of
KRS 635.020 ; then a child may, on conviction, be sentenced as an adult if he is
not excluded under KRS 640.040(4) . In order to apply case law relating to
adults, the child must be qualified as a youthful offender both for purposes of
prosecution and sentencing. This exception, with its stringent requirements, is
meant to be narrow out of deference for longstanding views about the lesser
4
culpability of juveniles . Thus, when the Appellant was convicted of offenses
that disqualified him from being sentenced as an adult, a different view of the
applicability of waiver as described in Johnson was mandated. Because
juveniles are treated differently under the law from youthful offenders and
adults, there is a greater duty to examine any alleged waiver for its content and
applicability .
Third, even if waiver could be made to apply under this scenario, it
certainly must be knowing and voluntary. The right the defendant was inferred
to have waived in Johnson dealt with calculating a maximum aggregate
sentence; here, the Appellant's very status is at issue, which involves a great
deal more than the maximum length of the sentence to be imposed. The
Commonwealth did not express in the plea agreement that Appellant was
waiving his rights under KRS 640 .040(4) . Even if it had, the trial court should
still be required to conduct a colloquy with the Appellant to make a record that
the waiver of such substantial rights was voluntary, which was not done here .
It matters not that no one appeared to think of the application of KRS
640.040(4) when plea negotiations were being conducted. The law is the law,
and the Commonwealth in particular is held to have knowledge of it.
Fourth, holding otherwise would result in disparate sentencing for
juveniles who enter into a plea agreement and those who choose to go to trial.
Under the facts of this case, a youthful offender with the same charges could
go to trial, obtain the same convictions, and would be entitled to be sentenced
as a public offender, where here, the Commonwealth argues Appellant, with
the same convictions, should be sentenced to twenty years in prison . Clearly,
5
this takes away most of the incentive to enter into a plea agreement which
saves the Commonwealth, the Court and the Appellant significant time and
resources . The type of punishment imposed on a juvenile should relate to the
conviction that juvenile has, not the plea agreement .
Schroder and Venters, JJ ., join.
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