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The Utah Supreme Court has ruled a state law mandating that 16- and 17-year-olds charged with murder be automatically tried as adults is constitutional.
The court's decision, released Friday, is a blow to defense attorneys representing teenage murder defendants, who have recently argued to have their clients' cases remanded back to juvenile court based on the notion that the state's direct-file statute is unconstitutional.
Most notably, defense attorneys for Kearns teenager Ricky Angilau — who was 16 when he allegedly shot and killed a classmate near Kearns High School in 2009 — asked the Utah Supreme Court to review the law after arguing that the direct-file statute eliminates due-process rights for children.
In its Friday decision, the Supreme Court upheld lower courts' decisions to keep Angilau in the adult system, in accordance with current statute.
"Mr. Angilau has not met the burden of demonstrating that the automatic waiver statute is unconstitutional," Chief Justice Christine Durham wrote in an opinion, with Associate Chief Justice Matthew Durrant, Justice Jill Parrish, Justice Ronald Nehring, and Judge Scott Hadley concurring. There were no dissents.
"Neither has he demonstrated an inherent right to juvenile treatment for all juveniles in the Utah or federal constitutions."
The decision means Angilau's murder case — put on hold until the Supreme Court made a decision on whether his charges were constitutional — will now move forward in 3rd District Court.
Angilau's defense attorney, Elizabeth Hunt, and co-counsel Ron Yengich, last year argued the law as written does not mandate he be held in an adult facility. Hunt said that in the Salt Lake County Jail, their client was once forced to endure a 23-hour lockdown for violating jail rules.
They also have argued it is more appropriate for their client to be in juvenile court. In cases where those younger than 16 are charged with murder, children are subject to a certification process in which a juvenile court judge determines if the child should be tried as an adult.
In Angilau's case, he was charged in 3rd District Court because of his age and the nature of the crime.
Hunt has claimed one reason prosecutors charged Angilau under the direct-file law was because they wrongly believe he is a gang member. She said defense attorneys have requested documentation of Angilau's gang membership from the Metro Gang unit, but no evidence supports Angilau's purported gang ties.
Hunt called her client a good student, Eagle Scout and football player who has been misidentified as a gang member and therefore subjected to harsher treatment in the adult system.
Assistant Attorney General Kris Leonard last year told the justices Angilau was charged under the direct-file law because of legislative intent. He said lawmakers amended the law to allow automatic transfers to the adult system in 1995 after the Asi Mohi case, in which Yengich challenged a decision to try the then-17-year-old Mohi as an adult.
Mohi shot and killed 17-year-old Aaron Chapman on Sept. 1, 1993, after a concert at the Triad Amphitheater in Salt Lake City. The Utah Supreme Court rejected Yengich's arguments that Mohi should have been tried as a juvenile. Mohi was sentenced to up to 15 years in adult court and was recently released from prison.
Leonard said prosecutors don't have discretion on where to try cases because of the way the Legislature designed the law. She also said it would be "absurd" to try Angilau in juvenile court for the murder charge. Prosecutors also say because Angilau was charged in adult court, he should be housed in an adult jail under the law.
The Supreme Court's opinion validated Leonard's argument, saying that older children who commit violent crimes such as murder need to be treated as a public safety threat and therefore need to be in the adult system in certain cases.
"Protection of society from dangerous individuals is unquestionably a legitimate government purpose, and potentially longer incarceration is rationally related to that purpose. The qualifications regarding age and severity of crime are not arbitrary, because they reasonably relate to the degree of threat to society that an individual might pose," the opinion states.
"Older children, for example, are generally bigger, stronger, and harder to restrain than younger children. And children who have allegedly committed murder would generally be considered more dangerous to society than those who allegedly committed less violent acts. Nor are those qualifications discriminatory in ways objectionable under the Utah or federal constitutions."
The case so far against Ricky Angilau
Ricky Angilau is charged with first-degree felony murder in the Jan. 21, 2009, shooting death of 16-year-old Esteban Saidi near Kearns High School. He is also charged with obstructing justice, unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon and carrying a gun in a school.
The shooting occurred after Angilau and another teen agreed to fight off campus, according to charging documents. But when Angilau started to tire, he pulled a gun from his waistband and fired into the air, the documents say. He allegedly fired a second shot into a group of bystanders, striking Saidi in the lower abdomen. Saidi died at a hospital.
Police say the fight was part of an ongoing dispute between two gangs, but Angilau's parents insist he was never in a gang and the rivalry was an ethnic dispute between Polynesians and Latinos. His mother, Teresa Angilau, has said her son claims he was outnumbered and "scared" and used the gun to frighten the others away.
A new court date for Angilau will likely be set in coming weeks, now that the Supreme Court has ruled it is constitutional for Angilau to be tried in adult court for the crime.